U.S. Principals' Interpretation and Implementation of Teacher Evaluation Policies

Most researchers and policymakers agree one step towards overall school improvement and the long-term success of students is access to quality teaching (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2014; Darling-Hammond, 2000). Despite the consensus on the importance of teacher quality, current teacher evaluation systems in the U.S. have fallen short in identifying high-quality teachers. For example, in 2014, 97 percent of teachers in the U.S. state of Michigan were rated as effective or highly effective, which is concerning given Michigan's overall low student achievement on state assessments (Chetty et al., 2014; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Michigan Department of Education, 2015). Many other U.S. states face similar problems, with overwhelming majorities of teachers receiving effective or highly effective ratings, making it difficult to identify which teachers are truly high-quality (Weisberg, Sexton, Mulhern, & Keeling, 2009). In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into the law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), designed to support many U.S sectors, including education (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). Embedded within ARRA was the Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative, a competitive grant encouraging U.S. states to focus on reforming aspects of their education systems, including adopting more rigorous academic standards, using student data to inform and improve instruction, hiring and retaining highly-qualified teachers, and reducing achievement gaps within schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). RTTT also encouraged these states to change the process of evaluating teachers, with a focus on evaluations that can better distinguish teacher performance as well as provide better information on what makes a high-quality teacher (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). As a result, since 2009 more than two-thirds of U.S. states have made significant changes to how teachers are evaluated (The Center for Public Education, 2013). This nationwide reform effort has resulted in new, multi-tiered, and complex teacher evaluation policies.Past research shows principals play a crucial role in how policies, including teacher evaluation policies, are implemented (Halverson, Kelley, & Kimball, 2004; Rigby, 2015; Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). How principals interpret, communicate, and enact new teacher evaluation policies has great implications for how these policies play out in practice. Because principals play such an influential role in the implementation of teacher evaluation policies, it is important to understand what impacts their sensemaking of these policies. While principals have always held some responsibility for evaluating their staff, the process is now higher-stakes because in most cases a teacher's evaluation score is tied to career defining decisions, such as hiring, firing, and tenure decisions (Harris, Ingle, & Rutledge, 2014).In this paper I ask a) what factors influence principals' sensemaking of changing teacher evaluation policies and b) how these factors influence both decision-making by principals, as well as the ways the policies are implemented. To help answer these questions, I draw on data from interviews from six public school principals in the U.S. state of Michigan. Additionally, at the time these data were collected teacher evaluations were legislated at the local or school district level. The U.S., nor the state of Michigan, regulates exactly how teachers' are evaluated, only that teachers must be evaluated. The specifics of this evaluation process is determined at a local level. To help better understand these local level evaluation systems I collected school district teacher evaluation documents, including specific district teacher evaluation policies, teacher evaluation rubrics, and final teacher evaluation ratings.. Based on an analysis of the findings, I argue the high-stakes nature of teacher evaluations shaped principals' sensemaking and implementation of these policies. …