The Role of “Informational Significance” in Shaping Louisiana Elementary Teachers’ Use of High-Stakes Teacher Evaluation Data for Instructional Decision-Making

Abstract

Precipitated by Race to the Top (RttT), efforts to redesign outdated teacher evaluation systems represented an opportunity to address limitations of past systems. One understudied aspect of new-generation educator evaluation systems concerns the use of these new sources of data in instructional decision-making. Utilizing longitudinal data on the effects of Compass, Louisiana’s high-stakes teacher evaluation (HSTE) system, this chapter tracks the experiences of a group of Louisiana elementary-level teachers and leaders in their understanding and use of Compass-generated performance data for instructional decision-making. Findings suggest that educators’ responses to HSTE data were shaped by various beliefs about their informational significance for practice—that is, the perceived utility of the data as actionable knowledge for decision-making. These perceptions resulted in one uniform response: educators virtually ignored Compass-generated data and used data of their own—even in the case of a high-performing, high data-driven decision-making elementary school. Findings suggest that districts can attenuate perceptions of informational significance by withholding autonomy over key aspects of the HSTE process from practitioners.