Title: Teacher Evaluation: An Issue Overview
Headings: Teacher Evaluation: An Issue Overview
Teacher Evaluation: An Issue Overview
Why has teacher-performance evaluation become such a central education issue?
How do the new teacher-evaluation systems work?
How have teachers’ unions responded to new evaluations?
Is there evidence that new teacher-evaluation strategies are working?
Terms to Know
Teacher-Evaluation Research and Resources
Stephen Sawchuk

Content: They also argue that it is unfair for teachers in nontested subjects to be judged by the scores of students they don’t even teach, as some states’ evaluation systems require. Concerns over the use of test scores in evaluations have fueled more than a dozen lawsuits targeting the new evaluation systems. The pressure to use students’ standardized-test scores has also contributed to a recent wave of anti-testing sentiment, including the “opt out” movement. And indeed, standardized testing appears to have become more frequent as a result of evaluation pressures. Because only about 15 percent to 30 percent of teachers instruct in grades and subjects in which standardized-test-score data are available , some states and districts have devised or added additional tests. The new evaluations were also rolled out alongside the Common Core State Standards and related exams, leaving teachers concerned about how the harder tests will affect their performance evaluations in the future. As a result of such concerns, some states, with federal approval, have pushed back the dates for attaching consequences to the reviews. Is there evidence that new teacher-evaluation strategies are working? The teachers’ unions also frequently view teacher evaluation as part of a concurrent trend of outright attacks on educators livelihood. Lawmakers, mainly Republicans, have made progr