On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay. These indicators involved group performance for teachers based on campus second grade comparative growth in mathematics and reading…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay, using value-added methodology. For 2015-2016, HISD did not renew its contract with SAS EVAAS®. The amended model replaced EVAAS® with…

Systematic studies on effectiveness of in-service teacher professional development (PD) are important for science education research and practice. Previous studies mostly focus on one certain aspect of the entire program, for example, effectiveness of PD on improvement of teachers' knowledge or students' learning outcomes. This study, however,…

The mythology surrounding the substitute teacher is not a pretty one: Paper airplanes, lost learning, bullying. But as schools collect more information about teacher absenteeism and its consequences, districts and schools are exploring ways to professionalize substitute teaching--or experiment with alternative ways of coping with teacher absences.…

This article is drawn from a longer study Lois Brown Easton conducted for Learning Forward as the organization seeks to understand and influence the global professional learning landscape. A look at the data shows that, despite everything known about the need for high-quality professional learning, a significant number of teachers around the world…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay. These indicators involved group performance for teachers based on campus second grade comparative growth in mathematics and reading…

HISD [Houston Independent School District] has had an award program including teachers since 2000-2001. Awards based on individual teacher performance were introduced in 2005-06, and the program evolved into Accelerating Student Progress: Increasing Results and Expectations (ASPIRE) in 2006-07 with the incorporation of value-added methodology.…

The large-scale expansion of primary schooling in developing countries has led to the increasing use of non-civil-service contract teachers who are hired locally by the school, are not professionally trained, have fixed-term renewable contracts, and are paid much lower salaries than regular civil-service teachers. This has been a controversial…

We examine the relationship between the formal ratings that principals give teachers and a variety of observable teacher characteristics, including proxies for productivity. Prior work has shown that principals can differentiate between more and less effective teachers, especially at the tails of the quality distribution, and that subjective…

In this paper, we use non-experimental data from government schools in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, two of the largest Indian states, to present average school outcomes by contract status of teachers. We find that contract teachers are associated with higher effort than civil service teachers with permanent tenures, before as well as after…

The purpose of this mixed methods research study was to explore teachers' perceptions of their professional behaviors when they worked in schools that awarded team performance pay. Teachers' archival responses from two questionnaires were analyzed using mixed methods data analysis techniques (Year 1, n = 368; Year 2, n = 649). Most teachers had…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay. These indicators involved group performance for teachers based on campus second grade comparative growth in mathematics and reading…

To address the pedagogical needs of African American learners, some educational researchers have rejected the seductive tendency to document damage, but rather intentionally showcase excellence in Black education. They have studied highly successful teachers of African American students, their teaching practices, beliefs, and self-efficacy. What…

Academics in an engineering school at an Australian university participated in peer observation of a teaching program using a partnership approach. The present case study explains and discusses program aims, design, process and outcomes. The success of the program was dependent on four critical elements: educational leadership; a staged,…

This paper takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers for any reason and without the…