Measuring Teachers' Effectiveness: A Report From Phase 3 of Pennsylvania's Pilot of the Framework for Teaching

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: The Many Faces of Accountability in Schools

Abstract

Pennsylvania bases annual teacher evaluations on several measures, including supervisor observations using the Framework for Teaching (FFT) and, for many teachers, their contributions to student achievement growth from a value-added model (VAM). In the past, there was concern that supervisor observations did not differentiate performance well or relate to true teacher performance. We investigate how well the current system addresses these issues using evaluation data covering 6,676 teachers from 269 districts. We find that, although FFT scores are overwhelmingly concentrated in the top few performance categories, the positive correlations with VAM suggest that the FFT provides some meaningful differentiation and captures aspects of teacher skills related to student achievement growth.

Authors

• Duncan D. Chaplin, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

• Steve Lipscomb, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc

• Jeffrey Terziev, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc