A Study on Trend in Case Laws on Teacher Evaluation System in the United States : In focusing on the case laws after 1970's

The purpose of this paper is to review court cases and literature concerning teacher evaluation in order to identify common issues, trends, and guidelines. Most administrators are required to evaluate teachers on a regular basis by board policy, state law, or state regulation. But they also should follow certain decisions made on court cases concerning teacher evaluation. In such cases, the main issues are the validity of the evaluation results and the guarantee of teacher rights; therefore, the evaluator is required to evaluate the teacher based on sufficient evidence and for specific purpose (or reason). The court requires the evaluator and the evaluatee to complete the due process. Legislatively, the evaluator is required to evaluate the teacher on the objective evidence. On the other hand, the courts have affirmed the evaluation results on the subjective evidence when warranted. Although most of evaluation systems are designed to allow evaluatee involvement, evaluatees may participate in the evaluation process but not influence the important parts of evaluation, such as standards or criteria. As seen above, administrators acting as evaluators have more authority to evaluate teachers