Why principals lie to ineffective teachers: Honesty takes too long

August 13, 2017

By Jay Mathews

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Researchers Jason Grissom of Vanderbilt University and Susanna Loeb of Stanford University published a study in the journal Education Finance and Policy similar to the study by Kraft and Gilmour in Educational Researcher. Both reports compared the formal district evaluations principals submitted with how those principals assessed the same teachers in confidential surveys. The formal and confidential assessments were as different as your view of your company’s latest mission statement might be when talking to your boss or your spouse.

In the Grissom-Loeb study of 100 principals in the Miami-Dade County schools, the teachers who were scored “very ineffective” on the confidential assessment were on average deemed “effective” on the reports the principals filed with their districts.

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