Pamela D. Tucker

The Efficacy of Portfolios for Teacher Evaluation and Professional Development: Do They Make a Difference?.

A multiyear study of a small school district introducing the use of portfolios as part of a new evaluation system was conducted to determine the efficacy of portfolios in the evaluation of teacher performance both for accountability and professional development purposes. The portfolio system was found to be particularly useful in documenting teacher performance in the areas of assessment and professionalism—ones not readily observable during classroom visits by administrators. Based on summative evaluation results, the introduction of portfolios assisted administrators in making finer distinctions about the quality of teacher performance. Survey and focus group data indicated that teachers and administrators viewed portfolios as fair and accurate measures of performance but had concerns about their feasibility given the time demands of development. Portfolios were found to clearly support the accountability purposes of teacher evaluation, but further research is needed to delineate the conditions under which portfolios can be used to foster professional development.

The Politics of Teacher Evaluation: A Case Study of New System Design and Implementation

The purpose of this article is to describe the political aspects of the implementation of a new teacher evaluation system through the means of an observational case study. Designing and implementing a systemwide reform such as that involved in a new teacher evaluation system often is emotionally laden and politically challenging. Technical expertise is required in defining what constitutes good teaching and selecting appropriate methods for collecting accurate data. Equally important, however, is a sophisticated political understanding of how to structure the development and implementation processes to optimize the support of various stakeholders for the new evaluation system. In addition to describing the phenomenon, policy and practice recommendations will be offered to facilitate the negotiation of such a change.

Systematic Review of Key Leader Practices Found to Influence Student Achievement A Unified Framework

The field of educational leadership has accrued a body of research that explains how leaders influence student achievement through the enactment of various practices. Yet, differences exist in the substance of the frameworks that assert the areas to which leaders should attend. The specific purposes of this article are to identify and synthesize the empirical research on how leadership influences student achievement and to provide evidence on how school leaders should direct their efforts. During the literature review, we consulted experts for recommendations and searched peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2014. The literature review yielded 56 empirical research studies of relevance to the topic and 3 frameworks consisting of clustered practices. We then grouped the 28 practices according to systematic criteria and found 5 overarching domains. In doing so, this study unifies existing frameworks through developing a cohesive set of practices to inform the work of researchers and practitioners.

Analysis of Evidence Supporting the Educational Leadership Constituent Council 2011 Educational Leadership Program Standards.

This document analysis provides a summary of the research from high-impact journals published between 2008 and 2013 with the explicit purpose of determining the extent to which the current empirical evidence supports the individual 2011 Educational Leadership Constituent Council Program Standards and their elements. We found that the standards are unevenly represented and supported in the research. In general, the research was stronger for Standards 2 and 3 and building-level leadership standards. Without a more substantial research foundation for leadership preparation, program faculty are limited in their ability to design evidence-supported learning content and experiences for the next generation of educational leaders.

Supervision and Personnel Administration

Supervision and personnel administration serve fundamental purposes in the educational experience of 1.5 billion children worldwide: recruitment, selection, induction, development, supervision, evaluation, and compensation of the most competent individuals to create effective learning environments for students. Personnel administration is deeply rooted in a bureaucratic orientation to school organization and functioning. More recently, the concept of learning organizations in the business world has laid the groundwork for professional learning communities within schools. From this perspective, people are viewed as integral to shaping the cultural fabric and contributing to the professional capacity of a school and school system.