Designing Transparent Teacher Evaluation: The Role of Oversight Panels for Professional Accountability

Abstract

Background/Context

Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), or peer review as it has historically been called, has existed in a handful of school districts since the early 1980s. In 1999, California became the first state to pass PAR legislation; at that time, a major district had not implemented the policy in over a decade.

Setting

This is an in-depth study of one urban district in California, given the pseudonym Rosemont, as it implemented PAR following California's legislation.

Program

With PAR, designated “PAR coaches”—teachers identified for excellence and released from teaching duties full-time for 2–3 years—provide mentoring to teachers new to the district or the profession, intervention for identified veteran teachers experiencing difficulty, and the formal personnel evaluations of both groups. These PAR coaches are not school based but rather report to an oversight panel composed of teachers and administrators from across the district.

Research Questions

A companion study previously found that the rate of dismissals increased dramatically after the implementation of PAR in Rosemont. This study examines one aspect of Rosemont's PAR program, its oversight panel. The study examines three questions that in turn address the design, process, and outcomes of PAR and the PAR panel in Rosemont: (1) How did the PAR panel work? (2) How, if at all, did the presence of an oversight panel affect the teacher evaluation process? (3) How, if at all, did the presence of an oversight panel affect personnel outcomes?

Participants

The study involved all PAR coaches (10) and all members of the PAR panel (9) for the first year of program implementation.

Research Design

The study employed an embedded single-case design in Rosemont over 1 1/2 years.

Data Collection and Analysis

The study relied on observations (311 hours of meetings) and semistructured interviews (39). I used QSR NVivo data management. I coded observation scripts and interview transcripts were coded to a schema developed from the progressive coding patterns that I observed, and analyzed them in response to the research questions.

Findings

The Rosemont data demonstrate that the PAR panel both supported the coaches to do their jobs and held them accountable. The community of educators created by PAR and the PAR panel appears to have proved a more rigorous, evidence-based check on classroom teaching performance. I also present data demonstrating the shortcomings of the PAR panel structure in the face of enduring norms against accountability in education.

Conclusions

Significant shifts in organizational structure occurred to support the PAR coaches in their role as evaluators. Making the typically solitary practice of teacher evaluation transparent to colleagues fundamentally altered the nature of educational accountability.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbott

(1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Baier

V. E.

March

J. G.

, & Saetren

(1988). Implementation and ambiguity. In March

J. G.

(Ed.), Decisions and organizations (pp. 150—164). New York: Basil Blackwell.

Benveniste

(1987). Professionalizing the organization: Reducing bureaucracy to enhance effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bridges

E. M.

(1986). The incompetent teacher: The challenge and the response. Philadelphia: Falmer Press.

Bridges

E. M.

(1992). The incompetent teacher: Managerial responses. Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, State Superintendent of Instruction, and State Board of Education. (1997). California standards for the teaching profession: A description of professional practice for California teachers. Sacramento, CA: Author.

Callahan

R. E.

(1962). Education and the cult of efficiency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Danielson

, & McGreal

T. L.

(2000). Teacher evaluation to enhance professional practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Darling-Hammond

(1984). The Toledo (Ohio) public school intern and intervention programs. In Wise

A. E.

Darling-Hammond

McLaughlin

M. W.

, & Bernstein

H. T.

(Eds.), Case studies for teacher evaluation: A study of effective practices (pp. 119—166). Santa Monica: RAND.

10.

Darling-Hammond

(1990). Teacher professionalism: Why and how? In Lieberman

(Ed.), Schools as collaborative cultures: Creating the future now (pp. 25—50). Bristol, PA: Falmer Press.

11.

Darling-Hammond

, & Sykes

(Eds.). (1999). Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

12.

Elmore

(2003). Doing the right thing, knowing the right thing to do: The problem of failing schools and performance-based accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education and Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

13.

Elmore

(2006, November). Education leadership as the practice of improvement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the University Council for Educational Administration, San Antonio, TX.

14.

Englund

(1996). Are professional teachers a good thing? In Goodson

I. F.

, & Hargreaves

(Eds.), Teachers’ professional lives (pp. 75—87). Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

15.

Etzioni

(1969). The semi-professions and their organization: Teachers, nurses, social workers. New York: Free Press.

16.

Feiman-Nemser

(2001, April). Embracing contraries: Assistance and assessment in beginning teacher induction. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA.

17.

Feiman-Nemser

, & Floden

R. E.

(1986). The cultures of teaching. In Wittrock

M. C.

(Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 505—526). New York: Macmillan.

18.

Fideler

E. F.

, & Haselkorn

(1999). Learning the ropes: Urban teacher induction programs and practices in the United States. Belmont, MA: Recruiting New Teachers.

19.

Freidson

(1994). Professionalism reborn: Theory, prophecy and policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

20.

Gallagher

J. J.

Lanier

, & Kerchner

C. T.

(1993). Toledo and Poway: Practicing peer review. In Kerchner

C. T.

, & Koppich

J. E.

(Eds.), A union of professionals: Labor relations and educational reform (pp. 158—176). New York: Teachers College Press.

21.

Goldstein

(2003). Teachers at the professional threshold: Distributing leadership responsibility for teacher evaluation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

22.

Goldstein

(2004). Making sense of distributed leadership: The case of peer assistance and review. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(2), 173—197. (Reprinted with apology; originally published 25(4), 397–421)

23.

Goldstein

(2007a). Debunking the fear of peer review: Combining supervision and evaluation and living to tell about it. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 18, 235—252.

24.

Goldstein

(2007b). Easy to dance to: Solving the problems of teacher evaluation with peer assistance and review. American Journal of Education, 113, 479—508.

25.

Goldstein

(2007c). Distributed accountability: Creating district systems to ensure teaching quality. Journal of School Leadership, 17(4). [Special issue].

26.

Goldstein

(forthcoming). Complexity and courage in teacher leadership: Creating professional accountability with peer assistance and review. New York: Teachers College Press.

27.

Halverson

R. R.

(2003). Systems of practice: How leaders use artifacts to create professional community in schools. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11 37. Retrieved March 13, 2006, from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n37/

28.

Halverson

R. R.

, & Zoltners

(2001, April). Distribution across artifacts: How designed artifacts illustrate school leadership practice. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA.

29.

Hewitt

(2000). The Cincinnati plan. In Bloom

, & Goldstein

(Eds.), The peer assistance and review reader (pp. 115—121). Santa Cruz: New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

30.

Hunter

(1988). Effecting a reconciliation between supervision and evaluation: A reply to Popham. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 1, 275—279.

31.

Kelly

P. P.

(1998). Teacher unionism and professionalism: An institutional analysis of peer review programs and the competing criteria for legitimacy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University, East Lansing.

32.

Kerchner

C. T.

, & Caufman

K. D.

(1995). Lurching toward professionalism: The saga of teacher unionism. The Elementary School Journal, 96, 107—122.

33.

Kerchner

C. T.

Koppich

J. E.

, & Weeres

J. G.

(1997). United mind workers: Unions and teaching in the knowledge society. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

34.

Kerchner

C. T.

, & Mitchell

D. E.

(1988). The changing idea of a teachers’ union. New York: Falmer Press.

35.

Koppich

J. E.

(1998). Spotlighting teacher quality: A review of teacher evaluation. Paper prepared for the American Federation of Teachers, Washington, DC.

36.

Little

J. W.

(1982). Norms of collegiality and experimentation: Workplace conditions of school success. American Educational Research Journal, 19, 325—340.

37.

Little

J. W.

(1988). Assessing the prospects for teacher leadership. In Lieberman

(Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 78—106). New York: Teachers College Press.

38.

Little

J. W.

(2003). Inside teacher community: Representations of classroom practice. Teachers College Record, 105, 913—945.

39.

Lortie

(1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

40.

Loup

K. S.

Garland

J. S.

Ellett

C. D.

, & Rugutt

J. K.

(1996). Ten years later: Findings from a replication of a study of teacher evaluation practices in our 100 largest districts. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 10, 203—226.

41.

March

J. G.

(1994). A primer on decision making: How decisions happen. New York: Free Press.

42.

Miles

K. H.

, & Darling-Hammond

(1998). Rethinking the allocation of teaching resources: Some lessons from high-performing schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 20 1, 9—29.

43.

Miles

M. B.

, & Huberman

A. M.

(1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

44.

Murphy

, & Seashore Louis

(1999). Handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

45.

Murray

C. E.

(1999). Rochester teachers struggle to take charge of their practice. In Peterson

, & Charney

(Eds.), Transforming teacher unions (pp. 46—49). Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.

46.

Painter

S. R.

(2000). Principals’ perceptions of barriers to teacher dismissal. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 14, 253—264.

47.

Rosenholtz

S. J.

(1989). Teachers’ workplace. New York: Longman.

48.

Scott

W. R.

(1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

49.

Seashore Louis

(2006). Changing the culture of schools: Professional community, organizational learning and trust. Journal of School Leadership, 16, 477—489.

50.

Spillane

J. P.

(2006). Distributed leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

51.

Spillane

J. P.

Halverson

, & Diamond

J. B.

(2001). Investigating school leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Educational Researcher, 30 3, 23—28.

52.

Spillane

J. P.

Reisen

, & Reimer

(2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72, 387—431.

53.

Tucker

P. D.

(1997). Lake Wobegon: Where all teachers are competent (Or, have we come to terms with the problem of incompetent teachers?). Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 11, 103—126.

54.

Van Maanen

, & Barley

S. R.

(1984). Occupational communities: Culture and control in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 6, 287—365.

55.

Villaraigosa

Strom-Martin

, & Alquist

E. K.

(1999). California Assembly Bill 1X. Introduced January 19. Amended in assembly February 12 and 18.

56.

Webster (1983). Webster's new universal unabridged dictionary. New York: Simon and Schuster.

57.

Weick

K. E.

(1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

58.

Wise

A. E.

Darling-Hammond

McLaughlin

M. W.

, & Bernstein

H. T.

(1984). Teacher evaluation: A study of effective practices. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

59.

Yin

R. K.

(2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.