Call For Papers: Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation

EPAA/AAPE Call for Papers

Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation

Guest Editor: Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Arizona State University 

Special Topic: Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation

In January of 2016, former President Barack Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001), in many ways to undo the adverse effects caused by the accountability tenets written into NCLB, as well as the federal Race to the Top (2011) legislation that followed.

While ESSA is not without controversy, pertinent to this special issue is that ESSA has returned responsibility for measuring student, teacher, and school performance back to states. Although states are still required to test students annually as per NCLB’s earlier provisions, and report on these indicators by race, income, ethnicity, disability, etc., states can now decide how and to what extent states (and districts) might or might not value or weight students’ test scores as components of their revised teacher evaluation policies and systems.

Likewise, the educational policies, systems, and practices surrounding teacher evaluation are now changing (Close, Amrein-Beardsley, & Collins, 2018), again, because ESSA has allowed states to recover authorities over this area. Hence, it is the purpose of this special issue, titled: Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation Promise to capture how the teacher evaluation situation is, indeed, changing and ideally changing for the better post-ESSA.

This special issue will bring together scholars and practitioners researching, implementing, and assessing such changes or innovations in teacher evaluation policies and practices, all the while drawing upon diverse theoretical, methodological, and conceptual perspectives. Accordingly, contributors to this special issue will shed light on new policies and practices of promise, in the United States and beyond, whether theoretical, empirically examined, or in practice and in need of empirical examination, via a set of peer-reviewed (1) theoretical commentaries (no more than 2,000 words not including references), (b) empirical articles (no more than 8,000 words not including references), or (c) conceptual and “from the field” commentaries (no more than 2,000 words not including references), respectively. All authors must present or discuss teacher evaluation policies and practices that move (well) beyond high-stakes teacher evaluation systems as solely or primarily based on teachers’ impacts on growing their students’ large-scale test scores over time.

Interested contributors are invited to submit (1) their curriculum vitas (CVs) or resumes, along with (2) an extended abstract as aligned with the special issue theme and noted as a submission that is (a) theoretical, (b) empirical, or (c) conceptual and “from the field” as described prior. Extended abstracts should be no more than three single-spaced pages and include an abstract; a purpose statement; a theoretical, conceptual, or literature-based lens; a methods section (for empirical articles only); a findings section (for empirical articles only); conclusions; a section on implications for policy; and references. Submissions should also include the names of three “accessible” and potential peer reviewers (with their emails, titles, and affiliations). Please note, however, that should authors’ submissions make it past initial review, the recommended peer reviewers will not review the recommenders’/submitting authors’ documents in order to keep the peer review process double-blinded.

References

Close, K., Amrein-Beardsley, A., & Collins, C. (2018). State-level assessments and teacher evaluation systems after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act: Some steps in the right direction. Boulder, CO: Nation Education Policy Center (NEPC). Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/state-assessment  

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, § 115 Stat. 1425. (2002). Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/legislation/ESEA02 /

Race to the Top Act of 2011, S. 844—112th Congress. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s844

About the Journal: Celebrating its 26^th year, EPAA/AAPE is a peer-reviewed, open-access, international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal designed for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and development analysts concerned with education policies. EPAA/AAPE accepts unpublished original manuscripts in English, Spanish and Portuguese without restriction as to conceptual and methodological perspectives, time or place.

Submission Information:All documents must be submitted for editorial review by guest editor Audrey Amrein-Beardsley (who is also the Lead Editor of EPAA/AAPE) by May 31, 2019.  To submit, you must register as an author on the journal website at https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/epaa/user/register. After registering, when you log into the website, the submission portal [New Submission] will be on the right side of the page. When submitting your abstract, please select the journal section Policies and Practices of Promise in Teacher Evaluation in Step 1. Please also please any names of reviewers (they may already be EPAA reviewers or not) that would be qualified to review this theme.

Timeline

Abstracts submitted for guest editor review: May 31, 2019

Full manuscripts and commentaries invited: June 30, 2019

Manuscripts submitted for peer and guest editor review: August 31, 2019

Peer reviews of manuscripts completed: November 30, 2019

Revisions and resubmissions of manuscripts completed: January 31, 2020

Manuscripts proofs completed: February 29, 2020

Issue ready for publication: April 1, 2020

Questions concerning this call for papers should be directed to Audrey Amrein-Beardsley at audrey.beardsley@asu.edu