As a result of federal and state laws, it is necessary to identify an accurate predictor of student achievement before administering the state-mandated test. School districts are increasingly administering "benchmark assessments" throughout the year to measure students' progress and provide teachers with data about adjusting instruction.…

Despite the perspectives of music educators in classroom evaluation processes, the perspectives of Texas administrators using the newest teacher evaluation process, the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS), have yet to be examined. The administrators' perspectives matter because the complexity of the T-TESS process coupled with the…

Currently, the perceived use of critical theoretical frameworks to shape instruction in public K-12 education is undergoing intense scrutiny in popular and political debate. Chief among such frameworks has been Critical Race Theory (CRT), which, at the time of this writing, has been legally banned or restricted in eighteen states -- with similar…

This study examined the alignment of the UMT Educational Leadership Program with the Tennessee Administrator Evaluation Rubric, the extent in which its graduates felt prepared to meet each standard of the Tennessee Administrator Evaluation Rubric, and its impact on graduates' preparedness for leadership. Using a mixed-methods design, the…

Working as a teacher educator today means working under an ever-present regulatory gaze. Accountability mechanisms, including state program approval processes, have been layered resulting in complexity. External assessments have failed to provide the data needed to support continuous improvement. There have been calls for combining external and…

The turn toward public accountability for educator preparation programs (EPPs) has been met with both optimism that public scrutiny will improve the quality of teacher education and concern over a perceived disconnect between public accountability tools and effective teacher preparation. This study examines the impact of the accountability metrics…

The turn toward public accountability for educator preparation programs (EPPs) has been met with both optimism that public scrutiny will improve the quality of teacher education and concern over a perceived disconnect between public accountability tools and effective teacher preparation. This study examines the impact of the accountability metrics…

The turn toward public accountability for educator preparation programs (EPPs) has been met with both optimism that public scrutiny will improve the quality of teacher education and concern over a perceived disconnect between public accountability tools and effective teacher preparation. This study examines the impact of the accountability metrics…

Response time is an important research topic in the field of psychometrics. This dissertation tries to explore some response time properties across several item characteristics and examinee characteristics, as well as the interactions between response time and response outcomes, using data from a statewide mathematics assessment in two grades.…

The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study is to investigate the themes and potential gaps in quality assurance rubrics and scorecards used to evaluate online courses in higher education. For the utility of this study, the themes and potential gaps in quality assurance rubrics and scorecards is generally defined as the recurring…

Despite being faced with major barriers to overcome, local school districts and teachers must work to align their instructional practices in science and their assessment practices to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Science (NJSLS-Science). As described in the literature, a…

Although researchers have studied the impact of teacher evaluation laws on teachers and administrators, we know very little about how administrators, who assume most of the responsibility for implementing the state-mandated teacher evaluation system, proceed in making use of the evaluation tool their district uses for its performance evaluation…

With the changes in the Tennessee standards, the testing format has become more rigorous. Teachers who usually made high achievement scores in math, now struggle to adapt to teaching the new TNReady standards and prepare for the TNReady assessment (high stakes assessment). The school selected for this study was a Level 1 (on a 1-5 scale, 1 being…

Fewer than half of students demonstrated proficiency on Michigan state-administered summative assessments at the end of third grade at a rural, Title I school in Michigan. The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare reading fluency gains between grade levels (i.e., kindergarten, first, and second grades) in an effort to better understand…

My research investigated how assistant principals in the suburbs of Chicago perceive the Illinois teacher evaluation model. Specifically, my study explored the amount of time assistant principals spend on an individual teacher's evaluation cycle, how they were trained to evaluate, their perception of the ratings used, and their perception of the…