| Research and practice have now well demonstrated that teachers play a central role in helping students achieve important outcomes (e.g., Baker, 1999; Chetty, Rockoff, & Friedman, 2012, 2013; Croninger & Lee, 2001; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005), yet current systems of teacher evaluation and support are little more than perfunctory, compliance-based exercises (e.g., Kauchak, Peterson & Driscoll, 1985; Weisberg, Sexton, Mulhern, & Keeling, 2009). In response, states and districts have moved quickly to design and implement, standards-based, multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems (SBMMTES) intended to better identify and cultivate teacher quality (National Council on Teacher Quality, 2013). Despite their potential to improve the way in which we assess and support teacher quality, the extant research on the implementation and impacts of SBMMTES remains limited, leaving several important questions unanswered. To contribute to the growing knowledge base on SBMMTES, I turn to the unique context for teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) during the 2010-2012 school years, and answer a series of questions that further advance our understanding of the implementation and impacts of SBMMTES on the teacher labor market.;In my first paper, I examine how teachers and administrators make sense of a SBMMTES and the relationship between the understandings they construct and implementation. By taking a theory-driven approach to examining implementation, I move beyond cataloguing teacher and administrator reactions to SBMMTES and dig deeply into the role of understanding in driving observed variations in implementation. I find that teachers and administrators draw on their previous experiences and existing beliefs to construct an understanding of SBMMTES and that while understanding is related to implementation, this relationship is mediated by several characteristics of the teacher-administrator pair including the mutual commitment of both stakeholders to implementation and the nature of interactions they share during implementation.;In my second paper, I examine the broader effects of implementing SBMMTES on the teacher labor market. One assumption underlying the theory of action for SBMMTES is that implementing these new systems of teacher evaluation and support will lead to positive changes in teacher and administrator behavior with respect to the teacher labor market. However, as with other forms of accountability, teachers may respond in unintended to the implementation of SBMMTES. To better understand the relationship between SBMMTES and teacher mobility I examine how, if at all, participating in the EGDC impacts teachers' school- and classroom-level mobility. I find that simply implementing a SBMMTES may not lead to changes in teacher labor market behavior---either positive or negative---in light of increased accountability for performance, and that other policy mechanisms may be necessary to induce the positive changes in the composition of the teacher labor market that SBMMTES are expected to produce. These findings provide additional information to policymakers about how, if at all, implementing SBMMTES may impact teacher mobility and the extent to which these new systems contribute to changes in the composition of the teacher labor market.;In my third paper I dig further into the impact of SBMMTES on the teacher labor market by explicitly examining how additional accountability for performance may impact teacher mobility differently for different types of teachers (e.g., those in tested grades/subjects or certain "hard-to-staff" contexts), and the extent to which teacher mobility may differ based on how teacher performance information is released. This is of particular policy relevance as SBMMTES redefine the type of information available about teacher performance, which in itself may have implications for teacher mobility, and many states and districts are grappling with issues about how best to release this new performance information---either publicly to parents and the community, or privately to teachers and administrators in the context of a SBMMTES. I find that teachers with access to additional performance information do respond differently to the threat of additional accountability, and that the nature of this threat---either public or private---may matter for who teaches and where. Together, these findings further our understanding of the differential effects of SBMMTES on different types of teachers with access to different information about their performance and offer initial evidence to policymakers about the implications for teacher mobility of publicly versus privately releasing teacher effectiveness data. |
