How the Misuse of Research Led to Teacher Evaluation Policies With Unintended Consequences

• In Event: Education in the 21st Century: Evaluation, Engagement, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper shows how the misuse of research led to the development of ineffective teacher evaluation policies. The particular focus is on Student Learning Objectives, the classroom-level measures of teacher effects on student learning required by 18 states. Using qualitative methods, document analysis, and the theory of ornamental research, the results reveal how a predetermined course of action followed by the production, misapplication, and omission of evidence led to the adoption of methods that were never proven to be objective and consistent means for retaining or firing teachers. The findings highlight how impacting policy and practice depends on researchers’ ability to compete for attention with the producers of user-friendly, but often misleading information.

Author

• Linda K. Mayger, The College of New Jersey