Teacher Evaluation in Tennessee: What We Have Learned from a Decade of Research

About the Brief

In this brief, we draw on a broad body of research evaluating Tennessee’s evaluation system over the last ten years to explore whether it has led to gains in student achievement.

Key Findings

1. Student achievement improved more after Tennessee’s evaluation reform than we would have expected otherwise.
2. Teacher retention decisions became more selective with respect to teacher performance following evaluation reform.
3. The rate of teachers’ year-over-year improvement increased following evaluation reform.
4. Tennessee’s teachers increasingly perceive the evaluation system to be leading to improvements in their practice and students’ achievement.

Suggested Citation

Guthrie, J. E., Hernández, M., & Grissom, J. A. (2020). Teacher evaluation in Tennessee: What we have learned from a decade of research. Tennessee Education Research Alliance. Teacher Evaluation Synthesis