scholarly journals Who Should Get “Ineffective”? A Principal’s Ethical Dilemmas on Teacher Evaluation

2020 ◽  
pp. 155545892097671
Author(s):  
Taeyeon Kim ◽  
Charles Lowery
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Rural School ◽  
School Principal ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
School Practice ◽  
Evaluation Policies ◽  
To Receive

School principals play a critical role in evaluating teachers and providing feedback, but high-stakes evaluation policies at the local and state levels can create ethical dilemmas for principals. In this case, an underresourced rural school principal has to report a certain number of “ineffective” teachers to meet a requirement from the district teacher evaluation, even though the principal does not think any teacher in his school deserves to receive an “ineffective” rating. This study can be used to help students unpack issues of dilemmas coming from consequential accountability policies that overlook the relational ethos of educators and leaders in school practice.

scholarly journals U.S. Principals' Interpretation and Implementation of Teacher Evaluation Policies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Reid
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
School Principals ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teacher Evaluations ◽  
School Level ◽  
Quality Teachers ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Public School Principals ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Evaluation Policies

In the United States policymakers, states, and researchers are increasingly reliant on teacher evaluations as a means for identifying high-quality teachers. School principals are the primary school-based actors responsible for implementing teacher evaluation policies at the school level and must make sense of these policies at an ever-increasing pace. These sensemaking processes have great implications for how teacher evaluation policies play out in practice. In this paper I ask (a) what factors influence principals’ sensemaking of changing teacher evaluation policies and (b) how these factors influence both decision-making by principals, as well as the ways the policies are implemented. I use an exploratory case study approach, drawing on interviews and district specific documents from six public school principals in the U.S. state of Michigan. Findings suggest that, because teacher evaluation policies were tied to the employment of their teachers, principals made sense of and implemented these policies in very specific ways. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Principal Evaluation under Elementary and Secondary Every Student Succeeds Act: A Comprehensive Policy Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Morgaen Donaldson ◽  
Madeline Mavrogordato ◽  
Shaun Dougherty ◽  
Reem Al Ghanem ◽  
Peter Youngs
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Principal Evaluation ◽  
School Principal ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Federal Policies ◽  
Elementary And Secondary Education ◽  
Evaluation Policies ◽  
Education Act ◽  
Policy Lever ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals’ effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat. Federal policies such as Race to the Top (RTTT) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers emphasized principal quality and prompted many states to overhaul principal evaluation as a means to develop principals’ leadership practices and hold them accountable for the performance of their schools. The development and dissemination of principal evaluation policies has proceeded rapidly, however, it is unclear whether focusing on principal evaluation has targeted the most impactful policy lever. In this policy brief, we describe where policy makers have placed their bets in post-RTTT principal evaluation systems and comment on the wisdom of these wagers. We describe the degree to which principal evaluation components, processes, and consequences vary across the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and review evidence on which aspects of principal evaluation policies are most likely to improve principals’ practice and hold them accountable.

scholarly journals Leadership Challenges of the Rural School Principal

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Klocko ◽  
Riley J. Justis
Keyword(s):  
Perceived Stress ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Rural School ◽  
School Principal ◽  
External Influence ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Leadership Challenges ◽  
Series Design ◽  
As Stress ◽  
Limited Change

As stress impacts the organization and operations of a school, leader stressors may be determined by the setting, years of experience of the leader and the greater educational landscape in which the principal must lead. The researchers sought to differentiate between the perceived stress and joy of urban and rural school principals. Findings derived from this time series design inquiry suggest that despite external influence, there is limited change in reported stress of rural school principals. Though the leadership in any setting is complex and multi-faceted, the researchers identified and assessed contributing factors.

scholarly journals "It's Not a Gotcha": Interpreting Teacher Evaluation Policy in Rural School District

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane F. Gilles
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
School Districts ◽  
State Level ◽  
Rural School ◽  
Rural School Districts ◽  
Local Policy ◽  
Evaluation Policy ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
Teacher Evaluation Policy ◽  
Evaluation Policies

This multi-case study explored how local policy actors in rural school districts interpreted new teacher evaluation policies and how state-level policy actors influenced local policy responses. In the first phase of the study, teachers and administrators in four rural school districts in two U.S. states were interviewed about new state teacher evaluation policies and their own local efforts to meet policy demands, while the study’s second phase investigated the work of state-level policy actors. Shedding light on the realities of tackling reform mandates in rural schools, the study finds that teacher evaluation policy efforts are challenged by the tension between the formative and summative purposes of teacher evaluation, that teacher evaluation policies allowing local control in system design require a significant commitment at the local level, that local actors rely on and value the work of policy intermediaries, and that interpreting teacher evaluation policy and planning for implementation can be particularly challenging in small rural school districts.

scholarly journals The Lone Ranger in Rural Education: The Small Rural School Principal and Professional Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Stewart ◽  
Joseph Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Rural School ◽  
State Standards ◽  
School Principal ◽  
Small School ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Rural Districts ◽  
State Administrators ◽  
Rural Principals

A pressing need on principals and their demands for personal professional development is improving their performance based on evaluation policy standards. State policy standards dictate how principals evaluate teachers and how they are evaluated. Surveying rural principals we investigated the current understanding of state standards and needs for professional development. Rural districts in Utah are remote and isolated. This research highlighted that within Utah rural schools, small school principals have different needs and practices when compared to medium sized rural school principals. Small school principals reported having spent two hours less in collaborating with and mentoring their teachers than did medium school principals.  Small school principals also spent less time collaborating with other principals. Based on these results, we recommend that district and state administrators and policy makers target small school principals to provide the needed professional development to assist them in an already isolated and overloaded position.

scholarly journals Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Turnover in Equilibrium: Evidence From DC Public Schools

AERA Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 233285842093223
Author(s):  
Jessalynn James ◽  
James H. Wyckoff
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
Effective Teachers ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Teacher Turnover ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Evaluation Policies ◽  
Induced Changes

Teacher turnover is an enduring concern in education policy and can incur substantial costs to students. Policies often address turnover broadly, yet effects turn on net differences in the effectiveness of exiting and entering teachers, in addition to the disruption dealt to classrooms. Recent research has shown mixed effects of teacher evaluation policies, but even where evaluation-induced differential turnover initially benefited students, gains might disappear or reverse as the stock of less effective teachers exits and if more effective teachers view high-stakes evaluation as burdensome. We examine evaluation–induced changes to the composition of exiting and entering teachers in Washington, D.C., the net effect of turnover on student achievement, and the role that evaluation played in teacher turnover. We find that turnover continues to improve teaching skills and student achievement, although effects have diminished. We find little evidence that high-performing teachers’ exit is associated with the evaluation system.

Research on Starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto – Ethical Problems

2010 ◽  
pp. 439-450
Author(s):  
Marta Janczewska
Keyword(s):  
Research Team ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
To Receive

Research team of physicians and lab technicians under Izrael Milejkowski’s direction undertook the effort to carry out a series of clinical and biochemical experiments on patients dying of starvation in the Warsaw ghetto so as to receive the fullest possible picture of hunger disease. The research was carried out according to all the rigors of strict scientific discipline, and the authors during their work on academic articles, published it after the war entitled: „Starvation disease: hunger research carried out in the Warsaw ghetto in 1942,” according to their own words, they “supplemented the gap in accordance with the progress of knowledge.” The article is devoted to the reflections over ethical dilemmas of the research team, who were forced in their work to perform numerous medical treatments of experimental nature on extremely exhausted patients. The ill, according to Dr Fajgenblat’s words,“demonstrated negativism toward the research and treatment, which extremely hindered the work, and sometimes even frustrated it.” The article attempts to look at the monumental research work of the Warsaw ghetto doctors as a special kind of response of the medical profession to the feeling of helplessness to the dying patients. The article analyzes the situation of Warsaw ghetto doctors, who undertook the research without support of any outer authority, which could settle their possible ethical dilemmas (Polish deontological codes, European discussions on the conditions of the admissibility of medical research on patients, etc.).

Grading Teachers: Race and Gender Differences in Low Evaluation Ratings and Teacher Employment Outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 1800-1833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Drake ◽  
Amy Auletto ◽  
Joshua M. Cowen
Keyword(s):  
Charter Schools ◽  
Evaluation System ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Teachers Of Color ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Teacher Labor Market ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Relationship

In July 2011, the State of Michigan adopted a broad set of teacher labor market reforms, including a high-stakes evaluation system designed in part to remove low-performing teachers. We examine the characteristics of teachers rated as “minimally effective” and “ineffective,” as well as their schools, and the relationship between low effectiveness ratings and later employment outcomes. Results suggest teachers of color across traditional and charter schools are more likely to receive low effectiveness ratings than their within-school peers. These low rating risks are higher for teachers of color working in comparatively White-faculty contexts. Male and novice teachers are also rated low more frequently, and important differences appear to exist in the usage of low ratings by traditional public and charter schools.

Leaders’ Negotiation of Teacher Evaluation Policy in Immigrant-Serving Schools

2021 ◽  
pp. 089590482110156
Author(s):  
Reva Jaffe-Walter ◽  
Adriana Villavicencio
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Teacher Evaluation Policy ◽  
Evaluation Policies

This paper examines how school leaders working within schools serving immigrant English Learners negotiate teacher evaluation policies, including how they influence compliance with mandated policies, communicate those policies to teachers, and guide implementation within their professional communities. We explore how a leader in a school with positive outcomes negotiates external policies to support authentic professional growth and maximize learning opportunities for immigrant ELs. In addition, we draw on data from a comparison school that also serves a high proportion of ELs, but where policies have been enacted in ways that focus on compliance, increase anxiety, and add little value to EL students. In doing so, we show how leaders can mitigate the unintended consequences of mandated policies by addressing teachers’ uncertainty and anxieties, while reaffirming humanizing institutional practices that honor the local knowledge of teachers and deepen teachers’ collective responsibility for immigrant youth.

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