Measures Of Teacher Performance Research Articles

Utilization of Weekly Lesson Plan Monitoring Tool for Enhancing Competencies of Science Teachers in Instructional Planning

The Diploma Education (DepEd) teacher performance measures must meet specific critical objectives. DepEd Order 42 (2017), requires seven domains and thirty-seven strands for teachers’ development. The criteria helps teachers learn. A teacher career’s advancement depends on performance. The Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) aims to deliver quality basic education. Teachers planning domain-performance indicators teaching abilities include structuring progressive learning to meet course goals. Some teachers avoid the professional way of developing lesson ideas. This causes a “bandwagon effect” of teachers ignoring lesson planning and assigning repetitive tasks. The study worked on an indicator-based lesson plan evaluation method for science teachers. A weekly lesson plan (LP) monitoring tool was scheduled (WLPMT). The WLPMT evaluated the learning plans. The study applied quantitative research techniques. Excel’s statistical analysis tool analyzed the data. The researchers employed a contextualized developmental monitoring and assessment instrument for lesson plans, which included teacher lesson plan rate indicators. The goal of this study is to enhance science teachers instructional planning. The evaluated null hypothesis was not substantially different, the two-tailed t-test t value (0.67) was lower than the critical value (2.26) in the 1st (78.1, 9.30) and 2nd (81, 20.41) quarters. Their SD was higher than the 1st quarter, despite their higher mean score differential for the 2nd quarter. However, the results showed that the teacher’s instructional planning skills were still improving. The computed t-test for the 1st (78.1, 9.30) and 3rd (89.5, 9.10) quarters show a significant mean difference because the t value (4.45) exceeds the critical value (2.26). In the third quarter, teachers utilized lesson planning indicators to improve instructional planning. In the fourth quarter (86.4, 12.22), mean scores exceeded baseline. The 4th quarter has a bigger standard deviation than the 1st quarter, yet the t test statistics exceeds the critical point, indicating a large mean score difference. The study concluded that teachers who produce quality instructional plans may benefit from lesson plan scores.

Transformational leadership effect on teacher performance in Asia: A meta-analysis

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes commitment values, patterns, and performance to achieve organizational goals needed in the 21st century. This leadership style is widely applied in developing countries and has the best educational status in the world, such as in Finland and the United States. Researchers have recommended that transformational leadership is an important aspect of teacher performance; however, whether the effect varies across related studies and the robustness of the overall effect size remains unclear. A meta-analysis technique was used to synthesize the results from 65 independent studies and investigate the overall relationship between transformational school leadership and the three measures of teacher performance. This study found that, in terms of the average influence measure, transformational school leadership positively influenced teacher job satisfaction, commitment, and self-efficacy
 
 Keywords: Transformational leadership, teacher performance, meta-analysis

Issue of Fairness in Benchmarking Teacher Quality in Malaysia Teaching Standard: Lessons for Other Countries

The issue of fairness in the use of student achievement in benchmarking teacher standard and hence, as a measure of teacher quality in Malaysian Teaching Standards (MTS) is highlighted. Through an examination of the idea of teacher standards in MTS and consideration of the issue of what should be an adequate measure of teacher performance, two observations are made. First, the use of student achievement to measure teacher standard and, hence their quality as teachers, raises an issue of fairness in the assessment of teacher performance. Second, setting a standard of producing an ideal person in MTS renders the standards questionable as a fair measure of teacher performance, considering the complexity of teaching and, learner diversity. Together the findings reveal two issue. First, what should be used to gauge teacher quality? Second, how should teacher quality be understood? Several possible implications for improving teacher quality within policy and teacher education programs are noted. Standards should be couched in reality of teachers and teaching to avoid unfair treatment of teachers. The paper offers policy makers, practitioners and teacher educators in other countries a brief overview of some challenges of ensuring policy or programs on teacher standards are socially just.

An experimental evaluation of three teacher quality measures: Value-added, classroom observations, and student surveys

Nearly every state evaluates teacher performance using multiple measures, but evidence has largely shown that only one such measure—teachers’ effects on student achievement (i.e., value-added)—captures teachers’ causal effects. We conducted a random assignment experiment in 66 fourth- and fifth-grade mathematics classrooms to evaluate the predictive validity of three measures of teacher performance: value-added, classroom observations, and student surveys. Combining our results with those from two previous random assignment experiments, we provide additional experimental evidence that value-added measures are unbiased predictors of teacher performance. Though results for the other two measures are less precise, we find that classroom observation scores are predictive of teachers’ performance after random assignment while student surveys are not. These results thus lend support to teacher evaluation systems that use value-added and classroom observations, but suggest practitioners should proceed with caution when considering student survey measures for teacher evaluation.

“It didn’t make me a better teacher”: inservice teacher constructions of dilemmas in high-stakes teacher evaluation

ABSTRACTThis article explores how inservice teachers articulate and challenge notions of effective teaching as part of an environment of high-stakes teacher evaluation (HSTE) in Tennessee. Drawing on data from public forum speeches at school board meetings, policy documents, and interviews, we used thematic discourse analysis to investigate how teacher effectiveness is discursively constructed by teachers. Findings demonstrate how participants drew upon competing definitions of effective teaching to build a discursive case for potential areas for improvement regarding the observation of teaching as part of HSTE policies. Because measures of teacher performance are an issue of much debate in the United States, teachers’ descriptions of the relationships between teaching evaluations, observations, professional development, and student learning are critical to understanding how to develop effective procedures for observation and evaluation. Implications for developing evaluation informed by teachers’ experiences are discussed.

An optimization-based DSS for student-to-teacher assignment: Classroom heterogeneity and teacher performance measures

A significant amount of administrator's summer planning is spent attempting to assign hundreds of students to teachers. These assignments must satisfy federal guidelines, parent preferences, and principal preferences while pursuing classroom parity and equity in regards to academic performance, behavioral support, and demographics. In addition, teachers are often the most invested in these decisions given the impact on their day-to-day life and their future performance evaluations. This problem is a variant of a standard problem in operations research; however, administrators often lack the technical expertise or budgets to build and/or implement such models. We present an open-source spreadsheet model-based DSS to this purpose. We formulate the problem as a mixed integer program, present the implemented spreadsheet model interface, and illustrate on a set of student data. This DSS was implemented in the fall of 2018 for the assignment of close to 600 students to 24 classrooms saving dozens of staff and administration hours.With minor adaptions and/or redefinitions, the DSS would provide similar value to many of the roughly 64,000 public primary and middle school principals across the country. Even more generally, the model as presented is a framework for developing and implementing an optimization-based DSS for assistance in creating project teams under a variety of potential preferences and constraints on team composition.

The common core conundrum: To what extent should we worry that changes to assessments will affect test-based measures of teacher performance?

Policies that require the use of information about student achievement to evaluate teacher performance are becoming increasingly common across the United States, but there is some question as to how or whether to use student test-based teacher evaluations when student assessments change. We bring empirical evidence to bear on this issue. Specifically, we examine how estimates of teacher value-added are influenced by assessment changes across 12 test transitions in two subjects and five states. In all of the math transitions we study, value-added measures from test change years and stable regime years are broadly similar in terms of their statistical properties and informational content. This is also true for some of the reading transitions; we do find, however, some cases in which an assessment change in reading meaningfully alters value-added measures. Our study directly informs contemporary policy debates about how to evaluate teachers when new assessments are introduced and provides a general analytic framework for examining employee evaluation policies in the face of changing evaluation metrics.

Problems in Student Teaching

Currently, education schools across the nation are reforming teacher education programs in light of the newly developed common core standards, shifting accreditation principles, new measures of teacher performance, and the pressing concern that in-service teachers are woefully under-prepared for the realities of classrooms. During this time of wide spread programmatic reform, we present a list of considerations that are particularly germane to the clinical preparation of student teachers. Our list includes common practices that limit learning opportunities for student teachers and detract from the meaningfulness of assessing student teachers. We posit three approaches for education schools to consider as they engage in program revisions.

Approaches for Combining Multiple Measures of Teacher Performance

A key question facing teacher evaluation systems is how to combine multiple measures of complex constructs into composite indicators of performance. We use data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study to investigate the measurement properties of composite indicators obtained under various conjunctive, disjunctive (or complementary), and weighted (or compensatory) models. We find that accuracy varies across models and cut-scores and that models with similar accuracy may yield different teacher classifications. Accuracy and consistency are greatest if composites are constructed to maximize reliability and lowest if they seek to optimally predict student test scores. We discuss the implications of the results for the validity of inferences about the performance of individual teachers, and more generally for the design of teacher evaluation systems.

Professional Networks and Street-Level Performance

Given the complexity of their work, street-level bureaucrats rely on their professional networks to access implementation resources and information. Despite the acknowledged importance of these networks, little research exists on how network structure and composition influence frontline performance. This study analyzes a unique data set that includes the professional networks of more than 420 teachers in 21 public schools along with 3 years of administrative data on student test scores and student demographics. Using value-added models derived from the student test data, objective measures of teacher performance were calculated. The results suggest that street-level performance is influenced by both network structure and composition. Thus, the actions of street-level workers are not independent responses to individual dilemmas, but rather are developed and shaped by specific features of the social structure in which the individual bureaucrat is embedded.

Classroom Composition and Measured Teacher Performance

As states and districts implement more rigorous teacher evaluation systems, measures of teacher performance are increasingly being used to support instruction and inform retention decisions. Classroom observations take a central role in these systems, accounting for the majority of teacher ratings upon which accountability decisions are based. Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching study, we explore the extent to which classroom composition influences measured teacher performance based on classroom observation scores. The context in which teachers work—most notably, the incoming academic performance of their students—plays a critical role in determining teachers’ measured performance. Furthermore, the intentional sorting of teachers to students has a significant influence on measured performance. Implications for high-stakes teacher accountability policies are discussed.

Chinese middle school teachers’ preferences regarding performance evaluation measures

Teacher performance evaluation currently is receiving unprecedented attention from policy makers, scholars, and practitioners worldwide. This study is one of the few studies of teacher perceptions regarding teacher performance measures that focus on China. We employed a quantitative dominant mixed research design to investigate Chinese teachers’ preferences for teacher performance measures and the possible reasons for their preferences. Considering the quantitative results, the surveyed Chinese teachers identified fulfillment of additional roles, collaboration with faculty and staff, and students’ test scores as the most important measures for performance evaluation. Qualitatively, the most important measures that the surveyed teachers reported were the teacher’s morality, workload, and students’ test scores.

THE EFFICIENCY IMPLICATIONS OF USING PROPORTIONAL EVALUATIONS TO SHAPE THE TEACHING WORKFORCE

I. INTRODUCTION State and local education agencies across the United States are working to improve teacher quality through the adoption of rigorous teacher evaluation systems. (1) The teacher-performance signals that come out of these systems can be acted on in a number of ways to improve outcomes for students in K-12 schools. However, despite the rapid growth in the development of evaluation systems nationwide, there is still much controversy surrounding the specifics of how to measure teacher performance. The lack of consensus in this area is reflected in the variety of different approaches that state and local education agencies use to evaluate teachers. This article contributes to the literature by examining the efficiency effects of using different evaluation metrics to rank-order teachers with the objective of using the rankings to help shape the teaching workforce. We define efficiency in terms of student achievement--the most efficient policy is the one that results in the highest achievement in total. We compare evaluation systems that rank-order teachers based on (1) proportional estimates of teacher quality, which force comparisons to be between equally circumstanced teachers and (2) global estimates of quality that compare teachers to each other regardless of teaching circumstance. (2) The context for the comparison is a removal policy targeted at the bottom 10% of teachers. Our analysis is performed using simulated data, which we construct following the literature on test-based of teacher performance because the properties of test-based are well understood, at least relative to available alternatives (e.g., classroom observations, student evaluations). (3) However, the substance of our findings will apply to any measure of teacher performance, including those commonly used in the combined measures that are being developed by a number of state and local education agencies (Mihaly et al. 2013). To illustrate how proportional and global teacher rankings can differ consider the following example: suppose that there are two types of schools, type-A and type-B, and that teacher quality is higher in type-A schools. (4) A quality-based removal policy that depends on global rankings will identify more teachers from type-B schools to be removed. In contrast, an analogous policy based on proportional rankings, which force equally circumstanced comparisons, will ensure that an equal number of teachers from type-A and type-B schools are removed. It is straightforward to show that the proportional policy is more efficient when there is a gap in average quality between teachers who teach in different schooling contexts, which recent research suggests is likely (e.g., see Arcaira et al. 2013; Goldhaber, Walch, and Gabele 2013; Isenberget al. 2013; Sass et al. 2012). The key insight underlying the efficiency gain is that the effect of a targeted removal policy depends not only on the quality of the teachers being removed, but also on the quality of replacements. Continuing with the example from above, note that under plausible conditions the gap in quality between teachers in type-A and type-B schools will persist for replacement teachers at these schools as well. After taking direct account of the link between observed teacher quality and replacement-teacher quality for schools in different contexts, we show that the proportional policy is the most efficient in terms of raising total student achievement. Although there is a strong efficiency rationale for proportionality, we find that in real-world applications the efficiency gain from imposing proportionality will be small. One reason is that teachers are evaluated in practice using imprecise measures, which attenuates the efficiency gain. Another reason is that the efficiency gain can be offset by gaps in the variance of teacher quality across different types of schools. However, it is important to recognize that as long as the proportional policy does not meaningfully underperform the global policy in our study, it may be preferable for several reasons. …

Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT

Teachers in the United States are compensated largely on the basis of fixed schedules that reward experience and credentials. However, there is a growing interest in whether performance-based incentives based on rigorous teacher evaluations can improve teacher retention and performance. The evidence available to date has been mixed at best. This study presents novel evidence on this topic based on IMPACT, the controversial teacher-evaluation system introduced in the District of Columbia Public Schools by then-Chancellor Michelle Rhee. IMPACT implemented uniquely high-powered incentives linked to multiple measures of teacher performance (i.e., several structured observational measures as well as test performance). We present regression-discontinuity (RD) estimates that compare the retention and performance outcomes among low-performing teachers whose ratings placed them near the threshold that implied a strong dismissal threat. We also compare outcomes among high-performing teachers whose rating placed them near a threshold that implied an unusually large financial incentive. Our RD results indicate that dismissal threats increased the voluntary attrition of low-performing teachers by 11 percentage points (i.e., more than 50 percent) and improved the performance of teachers who remained by 0.27 of a teacher-level standard deviation. We also find evidence that financial incentives further improved the performance of high-performing teachers (effect size = 0.24).

Staffing for Success

Teacher evaluation is at the center of current education policy reform. Most evaluation systems rely at least in part on principals’ assessments of teachers, and their discretionary judgments carry substantial weight. However, we know relatively little about what they value when determining evaluations and high stakes personnel decisions. Using unique data from an independently managed public charter school district, I explore the extent to which autonomous school administrators’ formative evaluations of teachers predict a variety of future personnel decisions. I also assess the extent to which their evaluations predict alternative measures of teacher performance, including student and parent evaluations of individual teachers in the same and future school years. I find that formative midyear ratings—shared by administrators with teachers—clearly differentiate between teachers and are strongly associated with end-of-year dismissal and promotion decisions. I use an exploratory factor analysis to identify four distinct components of administrators’ feedback to teachers and show that different components predict different types of personnel decisions in schools. In addition, different components predict different teacher performance measures. The results suggest the importance of accounting for multiple aspects of teachers’ work in evaluation systems that are meant to inform multiple types of personnel decisions.

Does the Model Matter? Exploring the Relationship Between Different Student Achievement-Based Teacher Assessments

Policymakers have demonstrated an interest in using measures of student achievement to inform high-stakes teacher personnel decisions, but the idea of using student outcomes as a teacher performance measure is complex to implement for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the fact that there is no universally agreed upon statistical methodology for translating student achievement into a measure of teacher performance. In this article, we use statewide data from North Carolina to evaluate different methodologies for translating student test achievement into measures of teacher performance at the elementary level. In particular, we focus on the extent to which there are differences in teacher effect estimates generated from different modeling approaches, and to what extent classroom level characteristics predict these differences. We find models that only include lagged achievement scores and student background characteristics are highly correlated with specifications that also include classroom characteristics, while value-added models (VAMs) estimated with school fixed effects have a lower correlation. Teacher effectiveness estimates based on median student growth percentiles are highly correlated with estimates from VAMs that include student background characteristics, despite the fact that the two methods for estimating teacher effectiveness are, at least conceptually, quite different. But even when the correlations between performance estimates generated by different models are quite high for the workforce as a whole, there are still sizable differences in teacher rankings generated by different models that are associated with the composition of students in a teacher's classroom.

Can Value-Added Measures of Teacher Performance Be Trusted?

We investigate whether commonly used value-added estimation strategies produce accurate estimates of teacher effects under a variety of scenarios. We estimate teacher effects in simulated student achievement data sets that mimic plausible types of student grouping and teacher assignment scenarios. We find that no one method accurately captures true teacher effects in all scenarios, and the potential for misclassifying teachers as high- or low-performing can be substantial. A dynamic ordinary least squares estimator is more robust across scenarios than other estimators. Misspecifying dynamic relationships can exacerbate estimation problems.

Can Value-Added Measures of Teacher Performance Be Trusted?

Can Value-Added Measures of Teacher Performance Be Trusted?

Strategic Measures of Teacher Performance

Moving from our current haphazard system of teacher evaluation to a more systematic approach to evaluation is a cohesive strategy for improving the performance of our schools.

A Different Look at Accountability: The Edvisions Approach

EdVisions Cooperative, a venture started by eight charter schools in Minnesota, redefines accountability for schools, teachers, and students. According to Mr. Newell, EdVisions' system of project-based learning for students and peer evaluation for teachers ensures high levels of student achievement. THE ROUTINE use of norm-referenced achievement tests has been growing as the demands for accountability on the part of schools have grown. But there are dangers in using such norm-referenced, content-based tests. For students, the tests usually measure only a limited part of a subject area, do not cover a broad range of abilities, rely too heavily on memorized facts and procedures, and fail to emphasize thinking and the application of knowledge. For teachers, too many uncontrollable variables exist for the norm-referenced tests to be sound measures of teacher performance. Teachers have different students, with different backgrounds, every year. To assume a teacher has done an excellent job in one year -- when students score high -- and done a terrible job the next year -- when students do not do well -- is an absurdity. As for the practice of using norm-referenced tests to evaluate schools, the absurdity continues. Score increases may or may not reflect what the school is actually doing. When teachers and schools teach to the test, scores can go up. But in the process, schools often leave behind the enriched curriculum and student activities that foster student growth in ways other than the acquisition of declarative knowledge. Moreover, psychometricians agree that single test scores should not be used to make major educational decisions about students. Indeed, it is best to look at standardized test scores as being one among many tools for school accountability. Other methods of assessment, such as surveys of student and parent satisfaction, must also play a role. Portfolios of student (and teacher) work can be very useful. Being able to actually see what students can do with their knowledge is more important than knowing what their percentile score is. At schools associated with EdVisions Cooperative -- a teacher-owned cooperative operating in Minnesota -- accountability for schools, teachers, and students is viewed differently. EdVisions Cooperative is made up of eight small charter schools that are student centered and teacher run. EdVisions is a professional practice organization that allows teachers to take control of and responsibility for their own work. The cooperative has developed practices and processes that allow teachers to create learning programs, to develop compensation/program tradeoffs, and to deal with teacher quality and its effect on student accountability. EdVisions Cooperative is the recipient of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that calls for the creation of 15 small, focused, project-based high schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin over the next five years. To date, nine schools have been created using the New Country School model. The Gates-EdVisions Project has developed guidelines for starting charter schools that use a system of teacher- driven professional accountability. The EdVisions accountability system is based on the premise that students can reach clearly defined, integrated standards by using a project-based system; that they can complete a personalized learning plan designed by themselves, their parents, and their teachers; and that they can achieve at the highest level possible. But students in the cooperative do not necessarily improve their achievement by spending a great many hours shackled to a desk or studying a particular textbook. In fact, there are no formal courses, and textbooks are just one of many resources for personalized learning. The member high schools emphasize project-based learning, in which standards are embedded in an integrated curriculum. …