Teacher evaluations have always been a part of school leaders' jobs (Horng, Klasik, and Loeb, 2010). Teacher evaluation is used as a factor in determining whether or not a teacher receives a continuing contract in Virginia, and it has also been a part of the process in determining if a teacher is labeled as highly effective. In some school divisions, the rating a teacher receives may be tied to their merit-based compensation. In 2012, the Virginia Department of Education released the Guidelines for Uniform Performance Standards and Evaluation Criteria for Principals, which provides school divisions a structure for their teacher evaluation instrument (Virginia Department of Education [VDOE], 2012). This document requires that Virginia school divisions include a quantifiable measure of student performance as a component of their teacher evaluation instrument. When teachers transfer from one school to another within the same school division many aspects of their job change. For example, the school leader who performs the teacher's evaluation changes and the student population changes as well. The presence of these variables may have an effect on a teacher's evaluation, but they are not controlled by the teacher being evaluated. The purpose of this basic qualitative study is to determine teachers' attitudes toward teacher evaluation when the teacher has transferred schools within the same school division. Eight teachers were interviewed regarding their attitude toward teacher evaluation. The data indicate that the change in evaluator when a teacher transfers work sites has a stronger impact than any other variable in the transfer process. The data also indicate that a change in the context for the teacher being evaluated does not affect their attitude towards evaluation. / Ed. D.

Growth modeling in education has focused on student characteristics in multilevel growth accountability models and has rarely included financial variables. In this dissertation, relations of several demographic and financial characteristics of Oregon school districts to the reading and mathematics growth of students receiving special education services in Grades 3-8 were explored after accounting for student level demographic characteristics. Previous research indicated that three variables were potentially related to student growth: district level aggregated student demographics, district geography (e.g., location in a remote area), and district funding. Three sources of data were used to investigate these relationships: institutional data reported by the Oregon Department of Education, the Common Core of Data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics, and Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test data collected as part of the National Center on Assessment and Accountability in Special Education. Multi-level models of student growth across Grades 3-8 were constructed for reading and mathematics, with time (level-1) nested within students (level-2) and districts (level-3). Results demonstrated that although student-level demographic factors account for the majority of meaningful differences in student growth, both district demographic characteristics and financial investment in students were related to growth for students who received special education services.

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine whether there is a significant relationship between teacher perceptions of administrator leadership focus and student growth in reading and mathematics for elementary and middle schools in nine school systems located in northeast Tennessee during the 2012-2013 academic year. Specifically, this study was an analysis of the leadership focuses of trust and respect, collaboration, shared leadership, data use and analysis. All data were collected through public online databases. Teacher perceptions of administrator leadership focus were gathered from the Tennessee Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) Survey and data on student growth in reading and mathematics was collected from Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS). The analysis of data was constructed from 75 schools in nine school districts located in northeast Tennessee that educate students in any grade spans ranging from fourth to eighth grades. The research revealed that the relationship between teacher perception of administrator leadership focus in the areas of trust and respect, shared leadership, and data use and analysis and student growth in both reading and mathematics were not statically significant. Additionally, The results of the correlations for teacher perception of leadership providing opportunities for collaboration and student growth in reading and mathematics yielded different results. There was not a significant relationship between teacher perception of leadership providing opportunities for collaboration and student growth in reading. However, there was a significant relationship between teacher’s perception of leadership providing opportunities for collaboration and student growth in mathematics.

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Despite conditions that would work against a small rural school in an impoverish area of rural Kentucky, Fairway Elementary School has managed to excel in its accountability measures. This study used a mixed-methods approach with data collected through interviews and MAP student growth scores in reading and mathematics. Five themes emerged from the qualitative data regarding school success: (1) a well-organized intervention system, (2) a focus on and overall enjoyment of the discipline of mathematics, (3) involvement of parents in school functions, (4) transparency of needs and organization of resources, and (5) an overall school culture that is competitive, impactful, and student-centered. Quantitative data revealed large improvements in student growth in reading and mathematics after the adoption of standard-aligned curricular programs in both subjects. Fairway Elementary continues to succeed in their efforts to improve not only student achievement, but the culture of their school within an impoverished community.

The measurement of achievement growth raises many challenges, including how to define "growth" and select or develop a growth measure that captures that definition. Despite these complications, current federal educational policies focus on student growth measures for accountability purposes. Student growth percentiles (SGPs) are one metric developed under these policies. They use quantile regression to produce normative growth interpretations: They describe how much a student has grown relative to students with similar past test scores. SGPs are increasingly popular, but there are gaps in the literature concerning their performance for small sample sizes and the number of prior years of test scores included in the model, as well as their invariance to transformations of the test scale. This study proposes an ordinary least squares analog, the percentile rank of residuals (PRRs). PRRs are the percentile rank of the residuals found by regressing the current grade-level assessment score on past grade-level assessment scores. PRRs may be a more robust alternative to SGPs, especially for small samples. They also stem from a wide array of regression based metrics in education and only require estimation of one regression line, as opposed to the 100 regression lines estimated for SGPs. This dissertation first places the growth metrics of interest in a framework anchored by four key contrasts in growth interpretations: (1) absolute versus normative, (2) unconditional normative versus conditional normative, (3) student- versus group-level, and (4) aggregated individual growth versus growth of aggregated-individuals. SGPs and PRRs afford normative conditional growth interpretations. They are investigated at the student level using simulated multivariate normal data and two statewide empirical datasets. These student-level analyses assess the accuracy of SGPs and PRRs by their recovery of benchmark growth percentiles under multivariate normality, or normal conditional growth percentiles (NCGPs), their robustness to scale transformations, their comparability to each other under varying conditions, and their stability over different sample sizes and numbers of prior years included in the models. SGPs and PRRs are also investigated at the group level by aggregating them with the mean and median functions. The robustness of the aggregated growth percentiles to test scale transformations is also assessed. Finally, the aggregated growth percentiles are contrasted against group effects from a simple layered value-added model (VAM). The analyses found that PRRs better recover expected growth percentiles under multivariate normality and are more accurate and stable for small samples, whereas SGPs are substantially more robust to test scale transformations. However, estimation issues with the SGPs can cause students with extreme initial statuses to obtain substantially different SGPs under transformations of the data. At the aggregate level, there is little distinction in how robust SGPs and PRRs are to scale transformations of the test score data. The mean SGPs and mean PRRs are consistently more robust to scale transformations of the test score data then their median counterparts. They are also the most highly correlated and rank order the groups more similarly to the value-added school effects than the median SGPs and PRRs.

This dissertation explored the academic growth in mathematics of a longitudinal cohort of 21,567 Oregon students during middle school on a state accountability test. The student test scores were used to calculate estimates of school performance based on four different accountability models (percent proficient [PP], change in PP, multilevel growth, and growth mixture). On average, 72% of Oregon eighth graders were proficient in mathematics in 2012, 71% in the average school, and 6% more students in this cohort demonstrated mathematics proficiency compared to 2011. The two-level unconditional multilevel growth model estimated the average intercept (Grade 6) to be 228.4 (SE = 0.07) scale score points with an average middle school growth rate of 5.40 scale points per year (SE = 0.02) on the state mathematics test. Student demographic characteristics were a statistically significant improvement on the unconditional model. A major shortcoming of this research, however, was the inability to find successful model convergence for any three-level growth model or any growth mixture model. A latent class growth analysis was used to uncover groups of students who shared common growth trajectories. A five-latent class solution best represented the data with the lowest BIC and a significant LMR p. Two of the latent classes were students who had high achievement in Grade 6 and demonstrated high growth across middle school and a second group with low sixth grade achievement that had below average growth in middle school. Student-level demographic predictors had statistically significant relations with growth characteristics and latent class membership. In comparing school performance based on the four different models, it was found that, although statistically correlated, the models of school performance ranked schools differently. A school’s percentage of proficient students in Grade 8 correlated moderately (r = [.60, .70]) with growth over the middle school years as estimated by the growth and LCGA models. About 70% to 80% of schools ranked more than 10 percentiles differently for every pairwise comparison of models. These results, like previous research call into question whether currently used models of school performance produce consistent and valid descriptions of school performance using state test scores.

John Dewey is known as the father of American experiential education. His views on building understanding in children through experiences in a correlated curriculum continue to influence educational practice to this day. His writings and experiments with experiential education also influenced music and arts education, most recently through the formation and implementation of arts integration programs. Several well-known arts integration program leaders cite Dewey as a foundational figure in the existence of their initiatives. While influenced by Dewey, programs such as the Kennedy Center Changing Education Through the Arts (CETA) and the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE) also are directly connected to the modern testing movement, and often gauge program success through reporting on a comparative analysis of standardized test scores. Current teacher evaluation models also measure student growth, along with teacher effectiveness, through the use of student test scores. Several arts education figures make an argument against measuring success in the arts through the use of test scores, stating that the true impact of study in the arts cannot be measured in this way. This study piloted a model of measuring growth in arts integration classrooms through the use of the Tennessee Fine Arts Student Growth Measures (TFASGM) system, a portfolio-based teacher evaluation and student growth measurement model. Teachers worked in control and treatment groups to implement the TFASGM in general education classrooms. Along with using the model, a teacher treatment group received targeted arts integration training, and through the model’s results, the impact of the training through teacher effect scores was also measured. Results showed teachers receiving arts integration training produced more significant student growth, and had a greater effect on student performance. Higher levels of arts integration that are more closely aligned with Dewey’s experiential education philosophy, such as process-based learning and the exploration of concepts common to arts and non-arts subjects, were also observed. More study, including a wider-scale implementation of the TFASGM in arts integration classrooms, is needed to make more substantial conclusions. However, this study demonstrates the viability of a growth-based arts teacher evaluation model in arts integration classrooms, and a new way of reporting on the success of arts integration programs that is in line with Dewey’s experiential, growth-based philosophy.

This study focused on the relationship between student achievement and teacher evaluation during the first year of implementation of the Marzano Causal Teacher Evaluation model in a large suburban school district in Central Florida. The population included high school level teachers and students. Teacher evaluation and performance data were collected and analyzed for relationships using Spearman Rho and Chi-Square Analysis. Variables reviewed included: (a) Marzano‟s Causal Teacher Evaluation Model iObservation© protocol, (b) categorized teacher years of experience, (c) student growth scores based on a teacher‟s student success on statewide assessments as calculated using VAM or an administered pre- and posttest, (d) school reported teacher demographics on school improvement plans and (e) historical 9th - and 10th -grade student achievement data on FCAT 2.0 Reading and 9 th - grade student achievement data on the Algebra 1 End-ofCourse (EOC) Examinations.

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