The Bold and Unfulfilled Promises of Teacher Evaluation as Policy

This chapter reviews the evolution, design, implementation, and consequences of U.S. teacher evaluation policies that arose from ongoing pressures for educational accountability, dissatisfaction with existing evaluation practices, and research identifying teachers as the primary school-based factor in students’ educational performance. Teacher evaluation became the dominant policy focus with the launching of the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) program in 2009. The authors of this chapter argue that these policies have not produced the promised outcomes, for multiple reasons including underdeveloped theories of action resulting from a lack of attention to foundational research and critical stakeholders, the employment of measures insufficient to support causal attribution, a lack of attention to implementation and organizational issues, and the failure to adequately consider how teacher evaluation systems would impact students, teachers, and schools in marginalized communities.

Keywords: teacher evaluation policy; Race to the Top; teacher quality