This report offers state leaders key areas for action to continue progress in implementing evaluation systems, even as federal policies on teacher evaluation relax state requirements. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) offers its current best thinking for how state agencies can make the smartest use of funds, time and partners to refine…

In this article, I trace how my teaching has changed as I have become increasingly involved in educational development. I divide my career into three phases (pre-educational development, part-time educational development, and full-time educational development) and analyze qualitative and quantitative data from multiple sources of evidence in each…

Currently, a significant number of states are in the process of implementing a high-stakes teacher evaluation (HSTE) system. In many ways, Louisiana's teacher evaluation system, "Compass," is typical of the models that many states have adopted. This article reports the experiences of 37 elementary teachers from five districts across…

Observation systems can provide teachers with information about how to improve their instructional practice and can lead to improved student outcomes. However, most observation systems have not been designed to address issues specific to special education. An effective special education teacher evaluation system must measure and provide targeted,…

Many of the leading private sector organizations have for years embraced a survey approach to improving products, services, and internal policies and processes. Like these successful private sector businesses, school systems can utilize a similar survey-based approach to improving teacher evaluation. Here, the authors provide and outline some…

The Chinese province of Shanghai has gained international recognition as a high performing education system with strong teaching and learning outcomes. One accountability mechanism in Shanghai's education reform strategy is statewide performance-based compensation (PBC), also known as performance- or merit pay. Providing a first time account of…

An ePortfolio Assessment Institute (AI) structured as a faculty development opportunity was undertaken to increase faculty confidence in teaching and assessing ePortfolios and to collect reliable data about student performance on four learning outcomes associated with an institutionwide ePortfolio initiative. Faculty raters participated in the…

In the state of New Jersey and nationally, teacher evaluation is a current focus of education reform efforts (Hallinger et al., 2014; Schulman, 2014). A well-executed teacher evaluation system produces data regarding educator effectiveness. It is the intention of the 2012 AchieveNJ teacher evaluation reform law that teacher evaluation data be used…

This special issue is a timely initiative in developing more knowledge and deeper understanding of assessment of, as, and for teaching. The alert reader might have noticed that the title of this author's contribution is not "Formative Assessment of Teachers", but "Formative Assessment of Teacher Learning". In her opinion…

Like any profession or talent, mastering teaching takes thousands of hours of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007). Here, "deliberate" means having a coach or mentor to provide feedback on key skills and strategies for practicing to develop them. If this is true--that mastering the practices of great teaching…

To date, most of the public narrative and pushback on new teacher evaluation systems has centered around their use for high-stakes personnel decisions such as pay, promotion, and dismissal, but these systems were always intended to promote and support improvements for all teachers--not just the superstars or laggards. Why is teacher development…

This paper presents a quasi-experimental evaluation of a required, teaching-focused, new faculty program at a large research university. The study makes use of institutional data, including student evaluations of teaching and faculty participation in educational development activities, which are available on many campuses yet rarely used in…

The impact of teacher observations in alignment with professional development (PD) on teacher efficacy was quantified for 292 schools in 110 districts within 27 U.S. States. Teacher observations conducted by school leaders or designated internal coaches were coordinated with PD offerings aligned with intended teacher improvements. The PD involved…

What is--or should be--the purpose of a teacher evaluation system? To compare teachers? To inform the public? To help teachers improve? Legislators might say that a teacher evaluation system's purpose is to remove bad teachers. Administrators might say that it is to assist them in matching teacher skills to specific groups of students. Parents…

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…