The Impact of Providing Performance Feedback to Teachers and Principals: Final Report

This is a study of the implementation and impacts of a set of three educator performance measures: observations of teachers' classroom practices, value-added measures of teacher performance, and a 360-degree survey assessment of principals' leadership practices. A set of elementary and middle schools within each of eight districts were randomly assigned to either a treatment group in which the study's performance measures were implemented for two years or a control group in which they were not. In treatment schools, the study's measures were generally implemented for formative purposes, without formal stakes attached. A total of 127 schools participated in the study. This report provides findings on implementation of the measures and impacts of the feedback from those measures on educator and student outcomes. The study's performance measures were generally implemented as planned. All three measures differentiated educator performance, although the observation scores and principal leadership measure did not provide consistent feedback to educators on specific areas for improvement. Feedback from the study's measures had some positive impacts on teachers' classroom practice, principals' leadership, and student achievement. For instance, in Year 1, the intervention had a positive impact on students' achievement in mathematics, amounting to about four weeks of learning. In Year 2, the impact on mathematics achievement was similar in magnitude but not statistically significant. There was no impact in either year on reading/English language arts achievement.