District stressors and teacher evaluation ratings
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-06-2017-0065 |
| Author | Sarah Winchell Lenhoff,Ben Pogodzinski,David Mayrowetz,Benjamin Michael Superfine,Regina R. Umpstead |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
District stressors and teacher
evaluation ratings
Sarah Winchell Lenhoff
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Ben Pogodzinski
College of Education, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA
David Mayrowetz
Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Benjamin Michael Superfine
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, and
Regina R. Umpstead
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, USA
Abstract
Purpose –Federal and state policymakers in the USA have sought to better differentiate the performance of
K-12 teachers by enacting more rigorous evaluation policies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate
whether these policies are working as intended and explore whether district stressors such as funding,
enrollment, and governance are associated with outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors examined teacher evaluation ratings from 687 districts in
Michigan to identify the relationship between district stressors and two outcomes of interest to policymakers:
frequency of high ratings and variation of ratings within districts. A qualitative index of variation was used
to measure variation of the categorical rating variable.
Findings –About 97 percent of teachers in Michigan are rated effective or highly effective, and variation
measures indicate overwhelming use of only two ratings. Charter school districts have fewer teachers rated
highly than traditional districts, and districts with higher fund balances have more teachers rated highly.
Districts with increasing fund balances have higher variation.
Practical implications –The findings suggest that district stressors presumably unrelated to teacher
performance may influence teacher evaluation ratings. State teacher evaluation reforms that give districts
considerable discretion in designing their teacher evaluation models may not be sufficient for differentiating
the performance of teachers.
Originality/value –This research is important as policymakers refine state systems of support for teacher
evaluation and provides new evidence that current enactment of teacher evaluation reform may be limiting
the value of evaluation ratings for use in personnel decisions.
Keywords Educational administration, Charter schools, Teacher evaluation, Educational finance
Paper type Research paper
Over the last decade, researchers and lawmakers alike have come to a consensus that
teacher effectiveness is one of the most important factors influencing students’learning
opportunities and performance (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Goe, 2007; McCaffrey et al., 2004;
McGuinn, 2010; US Department of Education, 2011). However, US teachers traditionally
have not received robust feedback for improv ement or exhortations to improve
(i.e. evaluations) on any consistent basis, and teacher evaluation systems have generally
failed at distinguishing between effective and ineffective teachers (Glazerman et al., 2010;
Weisberg et al., 2009). The landmark “Widget Effect”report from The New Teacher Project
demonstrated that teachers’evaluations were typically perfunctory, not based on
performance, and inadequate in determining differences between teachers. In fact, the
authors found that most evaluation systems only had two rating categories, such as
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 2, 2018
pp. 146-160
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-06-2017-0065
Received 9 June 2017
Revised 5 September 2017
Accepted 7 September 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
146
JEA
56,2
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