Using five AERA presidential addresses over the past half century as landmarks, this essay traces the evolution of research on teaching and teacher education as well as some critical impacts the research has had on policy and practice related to teacher education and teacher evaluation in the United States. The discussion shows how these addresses…

In educational development, accountability is paramount, in particular for activities that take educational developers away from their institutional boundaries to local, national, and international venues. Educational developers must demonstrate the benefits of such work to the home institution and its constituents. We asked educational developers…

This qualitative study examined the perspectives of principals related to professional development for teachers on formal plans of remediation for underperformance in the classroom. The principles associated with job-embedded professional development as well as cognitive dissonance provided a basis for analyzing data collected throughout the…

The purpose of this article is to ethnographically document the market-based ideological assumptions of Rio de Janeiro's educational policymakers, and the ways in which those assumptions have informed these policymakers' decision to implement value-added modeling-based teacher evaluation policies. Drawing on the anthropological literature on…

Purpose: Brokering and buffering represent two ways in which principals may respond to hyperrational elements of policy demands in the current era of accountability. The purpose of this paper is to examine how some principals broker more efficient, measurable, and predictable evaluation practices for teachers and others buffer their teachers from…

This article draws from Stephen Ball's work on markets, managerialism, and performativity to frame a comparative study that examines the reconstitution of the teacher-subject across a pivotal decade in which neoliberal standards and accountability reforms effected significant changes in US education. It juxtaposes two qualitative studies conducted…

Management by Objective through Open Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) was introduced in Tanzania for evaluation of public servants work performance in 2004. The aim of this study was to investigate how teachers perceive the implementation of OPRAS as a mechanism of assessing their work performance and making them accountable for…

The research explores the views of teachers about how their teaching is evaluated by others. The tensions between evaluations motivated by the drive to improve practice (school self-evaluation) and evaluation related to external accountability (external evaluation-inspection) are considered, linked to findings and ideas reported in the literature.…

Stewart Thorson, principal of New Century Technology High School in Huntsville, Alabama, develops plans for his school's professional learning in an environment restricted by state regulations. In Alabama's Title I and low socioeconomic status schools and through initiatives such as Blue Ribbon Schools and the State Department of Education's Plan…

Neoliberal policies in teacher education marginalise faculty voice, narrow conceptions of teaching and learning and redefine how we know ourselves, our students and our work. Pressured within audit culture and the constant surveillance of accountability regimes to participate in practices that dehumanise, silence and de-form education, teacher…

Many teachers view "teacher evaluation" or "teacher appraisal" as a means of effecting bureaucratic organisational change in schools. In essence, this change is attributed to "political reconstruction" and the "disciplining" of teachers. As a result, some common phrases associated with this ideological…

Independent school students are the most teachable in America: they are typically bright, motivated, and well behaved, and they typically come from supportive, upper-middle-class families. Plus, they are generally placed in small classes and their teachers generally have small pupil loads. Given all this, the essential question is not whether the…

In his focus article "How Is Testing Supposed to Improve Schooling?" Ed Haertel distinguishes between seven uses of educational tests as a function of the intended action and what or who will be influenced by the intended action. He then applies Mike Kane's interpretive argument approach (Kane, 2006) as a basis for speculating about the validity…

Background/Context: The evolution of validity understandings from mid-century to now has emphasized that test validity depends on test purpose--adding consequence considerations to issues of interpretation and evidentiary warrants. Purpose: To consider the tensions created by multiple purposes for assessment and sketch briefly how we got to where…

This case study examines how an experienced teacher's practice and pedagogy differs across two high-accountability urban charter schools in the United States of America (USA). Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observations, the findings describe variances in Rebecca's planning, use of classroom time, and curriculum flexibility,…