American federal policy initiatives, such as the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), A Nation at Risk (ANAR) (1983), No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) and Race to the Top initiative (RTT) (2009) led Indiana to... [ view full abstract ]
American federal policy initiatives, such as the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), A Nation at Risk (ANAR) (1983), No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) and Race to the Top initiative (RTT) (2009) led Indiana to join forty-four other states to design and implement educational reform programs geared towards more rigorous teacher evaluation systems. Indiana mandated the evaluation of teachers based primarily on their teaching performance and student learning via standardized tests. These evaluations may result in reward, retention, or dismissal of teachers involved.
A qualitative case study method was used to investigate principals’ experiences with and perceptions of the evaluation of physical education (PE) teachers. Five elementary, two middle, and two high school principals participated in the study. Inductive analysis and constant comparison were used for data analysis within a social constructivist paradigm.
Results indicated that a rushed implementation, inadequate training of principals, unclear guidelines, heavy workload, and excessive paperwork resulted in considerable subjectivity and ‘rater bias’ (Rowan & Raudenbush, 2016) in the evaluation of Indiana PE teachers. Principals used a variety of lenses and methods to evaluate PE teachers based on teacher characteristics they valued most in PE teachers, such as student physical activity levels, safety, management of behavior, and relationships with students. Principals with coaching experience viewed PE differently from principals who had never coached. Principals with elementary and middle school teaching experience viewed the PE teacher’s job differently. Teacher evaluation did not lead to professional development of PE teachers.
The results raised questions on the overall effectiveness of the PE teacher evaluation process and its impact on teaching and learning in PE and professional development (Donaldson et al., 2016). Similar studies should be carried out in other counties and states in the United States to better understand teacher evaluation in PE.
