Recent changes in the policy environment have led states and districts in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast & Islands Region to increase the rigor of their teacher evaluation systems by including more frequent observations or student test score data. States and districts nationwide began reforming their evaluation systems as early as 2006 and were further spurred to action by federal programs such as the Teacher Incentive Fund and the 2009 Race to the Top grant program. This study examined associations between teachers' perceptions of school professional climate and their satisfaction with the evaluation process. It used the responses of a nationally representative sample of teachers from four linked questionnaires from the National Center for Education Statistics 2011/12 Schools and Staffing Survey and 2012/13 Teacher Follow-up Survey. Key findings are: (1) Most teachers reported being satisfied with the evaluation process: 79 percent reported strongly agreeing or somewhat agreeing that they were satisfied with the teacher evaluation process in the previous year; (2) Teachers reported positive perceptions of their principal's leadership but perceived themselves to have little influence over school policies. On average, teachers somewhat agreed that their principal provides positive leadership (mean of 3.1 on a scale of 1, strongly disagree, to 4, strongly agree) but that they had minor influence over school policies (mean of 2.2 on a scale of 1, no influence, to 4, great deal of influence); (3) Of the two concepts used to measure school professional climate--principal leadership and teacher influence--only principal leadership was associated with teachers' satisfaction with the evaluation process. Teachers with more positive perceptions of their principal's leadership were more likely to be satisfied with the evaluation process; (4) Teachers who were rated at the highest level on their evaluation in 2011/12 expressed more satisfaction with the evaluation process that year than teachers who were rated at lower levels; and (5) Teachers whose evaluation process included student test scores were 2.5 times less likely to be satisfied with the evaluation process than teachers whose evaluation process did not include student test scores. The following are appended: (1) Literature review; (2) Data sources and study methods; and (3) Supplementary tables and analyses.
