Nationwide Changes in State Teacher Evaluation Policies: Links to Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Retention Rates, and Student Achievement Trends

Allison Atteberry

Over the last ten years, the majority of US states have revised their teacher evaluation policies, largely stimulated by RTTT. Despite this rapid rollout, there are quite conflicting theories about whether making these policies more stringent would positively or negatively affect the teacher workforce and student outcomes. Emerging studies have estimated the impact of a particular district’s or state’s high-stakes teacher evaluation policies. Findings are mixed due to differences in settings and methods. I seek to transcend local contexts to ask: Can this dramatic, national policy shift be linked to systematic changes for teachers or students writ large? I assemble the first, nationwide picture of whether changes in state-level teacher evaluation policies are associated with concurrent changes in: student achievement, achievement gaps, teacher job satisfaction, and teacher retention. I combine multiple data sources—NCTQ teacher evaluation policy reports, the Stanford Education Data Archive, and the School and Staffing Survey—in a novel way to link state-year variation in evaluation policies to outcomes that, theory suggests, should be responsive to these policy changes.

About Allison Atteberry

Allison Atteberry is an assistant professor in the Research and Evaluation Methodology (REM) program, at the CU-Boulder School of Education. Dr. Atteberry conducts research on teacher- and school-level interventions designed to improve the quality of instruction experienced by historically underserved students. As a field, we are increasingly aware of how difficult it is to determine whether policies, practices, and interventions have the intended impacts, and so Dr. Atteberry approaches her work with a strong interest in what constitutes compelling evidence of causal effects in quantitative research. Dr. Atteberry’s academic interests center on policies and interventions that are intended to help provide effective teachers to the students who need them most. This has led her to focus on the identification, selection, development, and retention of teachers who have measurable impacts on student outcomes.