Like high-stakes student assessment, high-stakes teacher evaluation threatens to be an occasional event that is disconnected from day-to-day teaching and learning, producing results that do not help teachers improve their performance and placing teachers in a passive role as recipients of external judgment. For several years, the authors have…

This case study will investigate teachers' and administrators' perceptions of the relationship between mini observations and teacher performance to understand what effect, if any, a system of mini observations has on teacher performance, and if mini observations influences a teacher's pedagogical practice differently than a…

The Department of Education is moving to change accountability for teacher preparation institutions to include surveys of the graduates and their supervising principal following paid employment. This study describes one of a number of quantitative studies that examine the validity and usefulness of such follow-up surveys. Using multiple years of…

Classroom observation is a crucial aspect of any system of teacher evaluation. No matter how skilled a teacher is in other aspects of teaching--such as careful planning, working well with colleagues, and communicating with parents--if classroom practice is deficient, that individual cannot be considered a good teacher. Classroom observations can…

As many states and districts rethink teacher supervision and evaluation, the team at the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has analyzed thousands of lesson videotapes and studied the shortcomings of current practices. The tentative conclusion: Teachers should be evaluated on three…

The intent of this study was to assess the perceptions and actions of Wyoming principals concerning their role in supervising and evaluating teachers. A survey was sent to all 286 principals in the state of Wyoming, of which, 143 returned surveys, a response rate of 50%. Findings suggested that principals utilized supervisory behaviors more often…

This paper presents the results of a study of interviews (N = 17) conducted with members of a community of practice (CP) comprised of school principals, vice principals, and department heads responsible for teacher supervision in their respective schools. This CP met once a month over the course of 2 years to work on adapting the New Brunswick…

Across the country, districts are committing to observing, assessing, and giving feedback to teachers multiple times a year. Currently, school systems are dedicating an enormous amount of effort to accumulating data on teachers, but the field still has a lot to learn about how best to use data to support the improvement of teaching. This brief,…

The most successful principals recognize the importance of improving instruction and the value of working with all teachers--the most skilled and those in need--to think about, analyze, and reflect on their practice. In this article, the authors discuss a three-step supervisory model (pre-observation conference; observation; post-observation…

Even the most effective teachers have room to grow, but it's not always easy for principals to give adequate guidance through short observations. High school principal Jenne Colasacco decided to bring more depth to her observations by observing each of her teachers during one class for an entire week. The new observation structure, which included…

Traditional systems of teacher evaluation are often ineffective because they rely on outmoded evaluative criteria, usually in the form of checklists; simplistic assessments, such as "needs improvement"; procedures that fail to differentiate between new and veteran teachers' experience and expertise; lack of consistency among evaluators;…

Many principals use harassing supervision to encourage low-performing teachers to leave. Principals are driven to this tactic because teacher evaluation systems don't systematically identify low-performing teachers, principals don't understand the teacher removal process, principal training programs don't build principal expertise in hiring and…

This article reports on three stories of what the author calls "eco-narrative" constructions from the data. These stories are rendered in detail to underscore the obstacles student teachers face regularly in becoming multicultural educators, as well as the various and subtle ways supervisors can help them advance their skills by giving…

This study explored Wyoming school leaders' perceptions about the traits of incompetent teachers, strategies used to work with incompetent teachers, and the barriers to their dismissal. Most importantly, this study differentiated how principals and superintendents viewed incompetency issues. Some major findings include school leaders' beliefs that…

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to discover how teachers view the teacher supervision practices that are in place in two selected charter schools in Southeast urban Pennsylvania by developing an in-depth perspective and understanding of teachers' perceptions of the efficacy and impact on the current system. Data will be gathered on…