Database on State Teacher Evaluation Policies (STEP)
Content
Home
State-level teacher evaluation policy is undergoing a dramatic shift in both
form and focus. Performance-based evaluation systems, often combined with measures
of student growth and learning, are taking shape in many states across the country.
To promote information sharing and collaboration as states and districts engage
in this work, this new resource, the STEP Database, collects information on state-level teacher evaluation policies
across multiple states and organizes the information under the eight key
components of a comprehensive teacher evaluation system
(see Browse the Components for a detailed overview).
Eight Key Components
This website allows users to compare information across all eight components
for up to three states at a time or to compare multiple states on a single topic
of their choosing. For detailed information on how to access the information in the
database, see How to Use This Resource.
For a detailed summary of key findings from the database, see
Executive Summary.
State Roles
Traditionally the purview of districts, control over teacher evaluation policy is
increasingly shifting to the state level; there is wide variation, however, in what
role states adopt and what degree of flexibility is left to districts in designing and
implementing new teacher evaluation systems. As a supplement to the database, this
website provides a short description of the roles each state and its districts have
taken in teacher evaluation policy design and implementation. The
State Roles page provides a brief narrative describing the distribution
of control over teacher evaluation policy in each state. To allow for easy comparison,
each state is categorized according to one of three hypothetical models representing
low, moderate, or high levels of state control over teacher evaluation policy.