Overview

From 2010 through 2012, more than 20 states passed legislation or enacted significant regulations designed to overhaul teacher evaluation practices, link evaluation results to key personnel decisions, and give districts and school-level principals greater authority in hiring, placing, and dismissing teachers. In 2011, Bellwether Education Partners analyzed 5 states’ laws against a set of criteria that we believe reflect a high-quality law. In 2012, we expanded this analysis to include 22 states that passed legislation or established significant new regulations from 2010-2012. This report, widely used by government agencies and in the policy community, is the go-to source of information for state policymakers, advocacy groups, journalists, and researchers about the features and provisions of recent state legislation on teacher effectiveness, and has served to establish a “gold standard” for the field of key features that should be addressed in state legislation addressing teacher evaluation.