“Quality Counts,” Education Week’s annual report on state-level efforts to improve
public education, lists state requirements for formal evaluations, including tying
teacher evaluation to student achievement and the ability of state data systems
to link teachers to student-growth data, among other accountability indicators.48
Also included are caps, or bans, on out-of-field teaching, and the requirement to
directly notify parents when out-of-field teachers are employed in classrooms.
Many of the above policies, including those designed to exit ineffective teachers
and those related to performance-based layoffs, could also be considered accountability
indicators. Additionally, the Center for Public Education, a national source
of information about public education and an initiative of the National School
Boards Association, identifies 13 states and the District of Columbia that require
aggregate, school-level evaluation data to be publicly reported.