Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In recent discussions on how to improve performance evaluations for teachers and principals, one common concern is that existing ways of assessing performance do not sufficiently distinguish between lower- and higher-performing educators. Thus, existing performance information often fails to provide information to guide improvement efforts for educators as well as human resource decisions, such as decisions regarding promotion, tenure, and dismissal.

Building on recent experimental work involving educator evaluation systems, this study examines the effect of providing performance information to teachers and principals using systematic measures and feedback promoted by emerging research. As part of the study, eight districts were provided resources and support to implement the following three performance measures in a selected sample of schools, for two years:

• a measure of teacher classroom practice with subsequent feedback sessions conducted four times per year, based on a classroom observation rubric;

• a measure of teacher contributions to student achievement growth (i.e., value-added scores), provided to teachers and their principals once per year; and

• a measure of principal leadership with subsequent feedback sessions conducted twice per year, using a leadership survey administered to the principal, the principal’s supervisor, and the principal’s teachers.

The purpose of this study is to describe teachers’ and principals’ experiences with the study’s performance measures and feedback over two years, and to examine whether the information provided by the measures and feedback affected educator and student outcomes. The study used an experimental design conducted in eight purposefully selected districts that had current performance measures and feedback that were less systematic and intensive than that implemented as part of the study.

Each study district identified a set of regular elementary and middle schools that were willing to participate in the study. The schools were assigned by lottery to implement the three measures with feedback (the treatment group) or not (the control group). Both groups continued to implement their district’s existing performance evaluations and measures, and the treatment group additionally implemented the study’s performance measures with feedback. In total, 63 treatment schools and 64 control schools participated in the study.

The proposed presentation will focus on the first year of the study’s two-year implementation. In addition to reporting on impact on teachers’ and principals’ experiences with evaluation, it will describe the implementation of the three performance measures and the nature of information they provided.  To examine the implementation of the performance measures, we describe the extent to which study participants received the training on the measures, carried out the performance measurement activities, and received performance information and feedback as planned. We also examined the characteristics of the ratings teachers and principals received, including whether they distinguish between lower and higher performers. These analyses yielded the average rating scores, the percentage of ratings in each performance level, and the variation in the ratings across teachers and across principals.