An exploration of how middle school principals make sense of current teacher evaluation policy and how their understanding impacts their work to help teachers develop instructional practice

<p>Principals are required to be instructional and managerial leaders for their schools, which includes the responsibility of implementing educational policy. The primary purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how middle school principals interpret what they must do to comply with Michigan's current teacher-evaluation policy and how that understanding affects their work to help teachers develop instructional practice. To frame the research, three questions were used. First, how do middle school principals make sense of what they must do to comply with emerging teacher-evaluation policy in Michigan, including the questions "How do principals learn what they must do to comply with emerging policy?" and "How do principals describe what they have decided they must do to comply with emerging policy?" Second, what do middle school principals currently do to help teachers develop instructional practice? And third, how do middle school principals describe their work to develop teachers' instructional practice prior to recent changes in teacher-evaluation policy in Michigan? Three principals, serving in different geographical areas of Kent County, participated in the study. Data collection procedures included a face-to-face interview, principal observation, and reviewing teacher-evaluation artifacts. After I analyzed word tables, three findings stood out: context mattered as school districts made a difference in terms of how the principals made sense of and implemented teacher-evaluation policy; the middle school principal's job requirements increased due to teacher-evaluation legislation or district policy; and each of the principals described collaborating with teachers as a way to help develop instructional practice.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Only Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Leadership and Counseling

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Traughber, Joshua Emerson

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Gary Marx, Chair
• Dr. Ron Williamson
• Dr. James Berry

• education and state
• middle schools
• supervsion
• rating of teachers
• Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/658

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-2037