Rhee's D.C. Teacher-Evaluation System Is Working

October 21, 2013

Study Finds D.C.'s Controversial Teacher- Evaluation System Is Working. The IMPACT system—started by Michelle Rhee when she was chancellor of Washington's public schools— has caused more low-performing teachers to leave the school system and seems to have improved the performance of both strong and weak teachers, according to a study by Thomas Dee of Stanford University's Graduate School of Education and James Wyckoff of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Teachers judged effective, by classroom observation and test scores, received significant raises.  The New York Times's Economix blog has a good review of the findings released last week, while the American Enterprise Institute's Rick Hess in Education Week offers some thoughts on what makes IMPACT unique.