The Florida Department of Education retained MGT to conduct a comprehensive, mixed methods evaluation study of the Great Teachers and Leaders portion of Florida’s Race To The Top (RttT) grant. Study goals included:
- Evaluating the implementation of the new teacher evaluation program.
- Evaluating the impact of the new teacher evaluation program.
The evaluation included multiple components involving all school districts across the state. The research included:
- An online survey sent to more than 30,000 teachers and administrators in 15 case study districts.
- Site visits to interview school- and district-based staff.
- Correlation analysis of teacher evaluation data and student performance data.
MGT identified findings relative to Florida’s implementation of the RttT activities. It was clear that all districts were implementing the required components, but there was mixed evidence of impact of the RttT evaluation system. Some of the issues came from ongoing concerns about the changing student evaluation systems that make it hard for teachers and the state to identify and claim evidence of (student) impact.
