Does Standards-Based Teacher Evaluation Improve Schools? An Investigation of Teacher Perceptions of Appraisal Systems

Three years after implementing a standards-based teacher evaluation system in a private K-12 school, research was conducted to determine what attitudes and perceptions teachers had on the effectiveness of the system. The survey includes questions about the teacher evaluation process and the goals of the test school in implementing the process. The goals for adopting the standards-based teacher evaluation system were (1) increased student learning, (2) improving instruction, (3) developing a mentoring program, (4) focusing professional development, and (5) facilitating collegiality. The sample for the survey included 87 teachers (group AB) from schools in the Southeast, of which 21 (group B) were from the test school. The other 66 teachers (group A) were used as a control group for comparative purposes. The research concluded that teachers in groups A and B largely agree that their teacher evaluation programs are effective and thorough and there were few statistically significant differences between group A and B with respect to perceptions of teacher evaluation processes. However, there were significant differences found between groups A and B with respect to mentoring programs and professional development programs. It was found that goals for developing mentoring programs and focusing professional development were not yet achieved in the test school