Resources

Teachers and principals alike play key roles in improving education. That’s why it’s crucial for school districts to have in place effective systems for evaluating their performance.

This brief, produced by Regional Educational Laboratory West (REL West), analyzes data from California’s Teacher and Principal Evaluation Survey, taken by more than 90 percent of the state’s local education agencies (LEAs).

The California Department of Education and the Integrated Leadership Development Initiative, a California cross-agency collaboration focused on improving school and district leadership, requested this report to inform their work, assist policymakers interested in teacher and principal evaluation reform, and illustrate how the evaluations of districts and direct-funded charter schools may differ.

Some key findings:

• Sixty-one percent of the LEAs indicated that their teacher evaluation systems are based on the California Standards for the Teaching Profession
• Forty-three percent of the LEAs do not use student achievement data as a criterion in teacher evaluation, and 21 percent indicated that these data are not used in principal evaluations
• Direct-funded charter schools reported greater reliance on student achievement results than did districtsPlease visit the REL West website for more information on REL West.Information about the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) system and other REL publications can be found at the national Regional Educational Laboratory Program website.