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At the beginning of this week, in the esteemed, online, open-access, and peer-reviewed journal of which I am the Lead Editor — Education Policy Analysis Archives — a special issue on for which I also served as the Guest Editor was published. The special issue is about Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation and, more specifically, about how after the federal passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2016, state leaders have (or have not) changed their teacher evaluation systems, potentially for the better. Changing for the better is defined throughout this special issue as aligning with the theoretical and empirical research currently available in the literature base surrounding contemporary teacher evaluation systems, as well as the theoretical and empirical research that is presented in the ten pieces included in this special issue.

The pieces include: one introduction, a set of two peer-reviewed theoretical commentaries, and seven empirical articles, via which authors present or discuss teacher evaluation policies and practices that may help us move (hopefully, well) beyond high-stakes teacher evaluation systems, especially as solely or primarily based on teachers’ impacts on growing their students’ standardized test scores over time (e.g., via the use of SGMs or VAMs). Below are all of the articles included.

Happy Reading!

1. Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation: The Introduction to the Special Issue. Authored by Audrey-Amrein-Beardsley (Note: this piece was editorially-reviewed by journal leaders other than myself prior to publication).
2. Teacher Accountability, Datafication and Evaluation: A Case for Reimagining Schooling. A Commentary Authored by Jessica Holloway.
3. Excavating Theory in Teacher Evaluation: Implementing Evaluation Frameworks as Wengerian Boundary Objects. A Commentary Authored by Kelley M. King and Noelle A. Paufler.
4. Putting Teacher Evaluation Systems on the Map: An Overview of States’ Teacher Evaluation Systems Post–Every Student Succeeds Act. Authored by Kevin Close, Audrey-Amrein-Beardsley, and Clarin Collins. (Note: being one of the authors on this piece, it is important to note that I had no involvement in the peer-review process whatsoever).
5. How Middle School Special and General Educators Make Sense of and Respond to Changes in Teacher Evaluation Policy. Authored by Alisha M. B. Braun and Peter Youngs.
6. Entangled Educator Evaluation Apparatuses: Contextual Influences on New Policies. Authored by Jake Malloy (University of Wisconsin – Madison).
7. Improving Instructional Practice Through Peer Observation and Feedback: A Review of the Literature. Authored by Brady L. Ridge (Utah State University) and Alyson L. Lavigne.
8. Using Global Observation Protocols to Inform Research on Teaching Effectiveness and School Improvement: Strengths and Emerging Limitations. Authored by Sean Kelly, Robert Bringe (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Esteban Aucejo, and Jane Cooley Fruehwirth.
9. Better Integrating Summative and Formative Goals in the Design of Next Generation Teacher Evaluation Systems. Authored by Timothy G. Ford and Kim Kappler Hewitt.
10. Moving Forward While Looking Back: Lessons Learned from Teacher Evaluation Litigation Concerning Value-Added Models (VAMs). Authored by Mark Paige.