Teacher evaluation

Teacher quality assessment commonly includes reviews of qualifications, tests of teacher knowledge, observations of practice, and measurements of student learning gains. Assessments of teacher quality are currently used for policymaking, employment and tenure decisions, teacher evaluations, merit pay awards, and as data to inform the professional growth of teachers.

Teacher qualifications include a range of variables affecting teacher quality, including: type of teaching certification, undergraduate major or minor, undergraduate institution, advanced degree(s) or certifications (such as certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards AND Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA)), type of preparation program (traditional or alternate route), test scores (various subject matter, licensure, or verbal skills tests), and years of teaching experience. In many countries, teaching credentials represent the main measure of teacher quality. In the United States, one goal of the No Child Left Behind law is to ensure that all teachers meet state-defined standards of highly qualified teachers. Demographic characteristics such as a teacher's gender, race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background may also be characterized as elements of teacher quality as variables impacting student outcomes. These indicators of teacher quality are relatively straightforward to ascertain, as opposed to the student achievement and teacher observation measures described below.

Teacher quality with regard to student achievement—also known as "teacher effectiveness"—is measured in terms of student achievement gains. Most extant research on teacher quality pertains to observable attributes, preparation, and credentials (Goldhaber, 2002; McCaffrey et al.,2003; Neild and Ripple, 2008). Probably the most widely studied attributes are experience and education levels, in part because the data can be readily obtained because of their use in salary placement (Goldhaber, 2002). There is mixed evidence, however, that experience and education levels are associated with student learning (Goldhaber, 2002; Goldhaber and Brewer, 1997, 2000; Hanushek, 1997; Wenglinsky,2002). Student achievement is measured through the use of standardized tests to determine the academic growth of students over time. Recently, a type of analysis of this growth termed "value-added modeling," following the 1971 approach of Eric Hanushek,.has sought to isolate the fraction of student achievement gains attributable to individual teachers, or in some cases groups of teachers.

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