The Wiley Handbook of Educational Supervision

By Sally J. Zepeda

An authoritative guide to educational supervision in today’s complex environment

The Wiley Handbook of Educational Supervision offers a comprehensive resource that explores the evolution of supervision through contributions from a panel of noted experts. The text explores a wealth of topics including recent and dramatic changes in the complex context of today’s schools. This important resource:

• Describes supervision in a historical context
• Includes a review of adult learning and professional community
• Reviews new teacher preparation and comprehensive induction systems
• Contains perspectives on administrative feedback, peer coaching and collaboration
• Presents information on professional development and job-embedding learning
• Examines policy and implementation challenges in teacher evaluation

Written for researchers, policy analysts, school administrators and supervisors, The Wiley Handbook of Educational Supervision draws on concepts, theories and research from other closely related fields of study to enhance and challenge our understanding of educational supervision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Sep 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781119128298

Book preview

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Introduction

Sally J. Zepeda and Judith A. Ponticell

Intent and Rationale

The Handbook of Educational Supervision offers a view of the field of supervision as it has evolved to the present. We hope that, through this spotlight, the Handbook points the reader to the research, theory, and applications about supervision that have surfaced in the broader fields of educational leadership and teacher preparation to keep pace with what occurs in practice in preK‐12 schools in the United States. This handbook is important because much of what we know about supervision rests between its theory and its applications in schools and systems that have provided fertile ground for supervision as we know it today.

Ultimately, we hope that the reader will see that supervision as a field has not only evolved and endured in its intents and purposes, but has also grown from complexities and variances in practice and through contributions across other closely related fields of study that extend its theories and foundations. Getting to the point of creating a handbook was an arduous task given the time that elapsed from the watershed Handbook of Research on School Supervision, edited by Ed Pajak and Gerald Firth in 1998. To frame this Handbook, we examined research, theory, applications, and translations of supervision and intersections with other fields that support school improvement. This chapter establishes the intent and rationale of the handbook, explaining the purpose of the text and the why behind the purpose. An overview of the organization of the text, highlighting the sections and chapters is offered.

From our analysis of textbooks on supervision and leadership, along with conference presentations from such bodies such as the American Education Research Association, the University Council of Educational Administration, and the Council of Professors of Instructional Supervision (COPIS), exemplars emerged that showed how leadership broadly and finitely has incorporated and extended the purposes and intents of supervision, how the field of supervision has changed and moreover served as the foundation and legacy of theory, research, and practice. For these reasons and more, we believe the field of supervision, albeit fraught with tensions and controversies, has been foundational for practices, constructs, and further understandings in other fields.

The following are tensions that we identified in our analysis:

Clinical supervision in the historical context vs. today’s high‐stakes accountability reality;

Individual adult learning vs. professional community;

Power and control vs. empowerment and trust;

Beginning teacher clinical supervision vs. comprehensive induction systems;

Observation vs. action research, portfolio development, etc.;

Administrative feedback vs. peer coaching and collaboration;

Motivation and compliance vs. reflection and cognitive development;

Evaluation vs. professional development and job‐embedded learning;

Individual problem solving vs. professional capacity building in schools;

Individual teacher changes vs. school and system changes to improve the learning environment;

Individual conferences vs. courageous conversation within a professional learning community.

Aims of the Handbook of Educational Supervision

The field of supervision in practice and in research has evolved to be much more inclusive and broadly constructed. The social, political, and historical contexts in which practices have emerged are vast—No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 (2002), Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), the emergence of digital learning environments, restructuring of schools (e.g., charter schools), the dramatic change in school demographics that create shifting communities of students and teachers, and advancements in fields such as adult learning and professional learning. These changes necessitate asking critical questions to frame the field of supervision for today and tomorrow. Hence, the primary aim of the Handbook is to examine the concepts, research, practices, and aims of supervision that are embedded broadly and finitely in and across leadership within PreK‐12 schools and their systems.

A secondary aim of the Handbook is to examine the theoretical constructs that have been drawn from the field of supervision that have been expanded upon in other fields. These theoretical constructs have served to deepen our understanding of the field (e.g., mentoring, coaching, learning communities) as practices have evolved to meet the needs of school personnel.

Another aim of the Handbook is to serve as a bridge to other fields of study that share the same intents, purposes, and tensions but that have pushed through to frame supervision as a construct for growth and development of personnel and impetus for school improvement.

Finally, this Handbook examines the conflicts inherent in the field of supervision, with intent to expand discussion within the field by including perspectives of leading scholars in closely‐related fields in education such as leadership, the politics of education, teacher leadership, and so on.

Objectives of the Handbook

Complementing the aims of the Handbook are eight primary objectives:

To draw attention to the critical aspects of supervision that have evolved across fields in leadership, policy, teacher preparation, and professional learning.

To broaden the lens of supervision beyond what the supervisor does by showing how supervision has evolved to fit system changes and the leadership imperative to lead schools by building capacity.

To connect the work, purposes, and intents of supervision as they evolved to support leadership needed for increased student learning amid the complexities of accountability.

To illustrate how supervision has evolved to be a communal, collaborative, and proactive problem‐solving strategy shared by a community of learners whose purpose it is to improve outcomes for students.

To focus on corollary fields of study and the research these fields have yielded to extend our notions of how people construct and reconstruct practices to learn from supervision.

To provoke conversation across fields of study to bring into focus the conflicts that have propelled the field and examine how cohesion has been achieved through unique and constantly emerging permutations of supervision.

To disseminate across fields insights into how, why, and in what ways supervision has evolved.

To capture the voices, perspectives, and research from top scholars in fields that have stewarded supervision across many configurations.

The chapter authors allow us to see how the past has shaped the constructs that have evolved to add to the knowledge and theory of a relatively small field and to broaden constructs across disciplines.

No longer should the field of supervision be firmly nestled and entrenched in a silo because its foundations—knowledge, theory, applications, and even inherent conflicts—pave the way for more current applications of its practices and more robust avenues for research and scholarship. By spanning fields of study, an increasing cadre of scholars have extended our thinking about the possibilities for educational supervision to evolve and transform to fit the complexities of schools and systems.

The field of educational supervision has been influenced by political entrenchment and folly at the state and federal levels and its focus on hyper‐accountability in the name of teacher quality and effectiveness. The field is in a prime position to look at its legacies with pride and, hopefully, to embrace how other fields of study and their scholars have contributed to the larger discussion, responding to the increasing sense of urgency to create coherence across efforts to support teacher and leader growth.

An Overview of the Organization of the Handbook and Its Sections

The Handbook of Educational Supervision is divided into five sections and 25 chapters: Section I: The Context of Supervision; Section II: The Intents of Supervision; Section III: The Processes of Supervision; Section IV: The Key Players—Enactors of Supervision; Section V: The Outcomes of Supervision.

Within the organization of each section are chapters that examine topical areas, constructs, and models that have shaped the field of educational supervision. The five sections are organized to lead the reader from the historical foundations of supervision to its aspirational outcomes.

Of special note is that we have had the pleasure of working with some of the most prominent scholars in the fields that have embraced supervision, people who have served as trailblazers in carrying forward the messages that have shaped and will continue to shape the field, and who have provided thought‐provoking scholarship within their chapters.

The Context of Supervision

The chapters in Section I: The Context of Supervision situate supervision in its historical context, in its foundations in adult learning and cognition, in the reform movements that focused on professionalization of teaching, and in the current context of high stakes accountability.

Historical Context

In Chapter 2, A Policy and Political History of Educational Supervision, W. Kyle Ingle and Jane Clark Lindle trace the history of educational supervision in the context of formal roles and sociopolitical dynamics of historical eras in education. They examine how historical events such as the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the ongoing era of increased accountability through standards, assessment, and school choice options have shaped education politics and policy surrounding educational supervision.

Throughout the historical eras, Ingle and Lindle identify and examine the evolving roles and theories of educational supervision, including its shifting purposes and definitions. Moreover, they discuss the development of professional identities among teachers and educational leaders, the development of differentiation of educational supervision among educators and educational leadership roles and positions as well as the specializations and expertise within these roles. Considerable detail is offered in the discussion about the politicization of student learning outcomes and their conflation with accountability of states, districts, schools, and teachers and educational leaders.

The Foundations of Adult Learning and Cognition

In Chapter 3, Foundations in Adult Development and Learning: Implications for Educational Supervision, Stephen P. Gordon and Jovita M. Ross‐Gordon provide a brief review of the literature on adult development as well as the major underpinnings of individual, group, and organizational learning embedded within the framework of educational supervision either through direct supervisory assistance or indirectly through learning groups facilitated by the supervisor. In addition, incorporating experiential, reflective, and job‐embedded learning within supervision can augment individual learning through interactive and synergistic cycles of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting.

Gordon and Ross‐Gordon make clear that organizational learning is multileveled, largely dependent on learning at the individual, group, and organizational levels. They also share their view that learning can occur when various aspects of adult development are deeply rooted in supervision programs accompanied by high‐quality implementation. Moreover, they remind the reader that supporting teachers in navigating developmental and learning experiences calls for a collective effort by supervisors and other educators in the school community.

The Context for the Professionalization of Teaching

In Chapter 4, Theories of Professions and the Status of Teaching, Pamela Martin Fry presents and then analyzes the history, concepts, and challenges of professions and how teachers develop as theoretical practitioners with higher degrees of jurisdictional autonomy, particularly in the areas of curriculum and teaching. Fry then examines the construct of the professionalization of teaching, tracing its history to the present day and offering insights about how leaders support teachers. The role of educational supervision is integral in supporting increased professionalization of teachers. The role shifts from one of managerial oversight to building networks between and among educational supervisors and teachers that reflect mutual trust, increased expertise, and reasonable strategies for accountability.

The Context of Job‐embedded Learning for School Improvement

In Chapter 5, Job‐embedded Learning: How School Leaders Can Use Job‐Embedded Learning as a Mechanism for School Improvement, Kirsten Lee Hill and Laura M. Desimone explore the relationship between job‐embedded professional development and organizational learning, highlighting the role that school leaders play in establishing professional development as a tool for school reform. They use policy attributes theory to support a framework and its utility as a streamlined way for school leaders to evaluate and shape support and leadership around professional development efforts.

Supervision in the Context of High‐stakes Accountability

In Chapter 6, Instructional Supervision in the Era of High‐stakes Accountability, Lance D. Fusarelli and Bonnie C. Fusarelli examine the changing nature of instructional supervision in an era of high stakes accountability, including the rise of performance‐based assessment and accountability, federal efforts to improve teacher evaluation, barriers and obstacles to effective teacher evaluation, the use of value‐added models and data‐based decision making, and the role of university‐based principal preparation in improving instructional supervision.

Fusarelli and Fusarelli provide a brief history of instructional supervision and teacher evaluation followed by a discussion of specific legislative reforms that instigate high stakes, performance‐based accountability, causing transformational shifts in many levels of teacher supervision and evaluation (e.g., No Child Left Behind Act (2002), Race to the Top initiative). Critical issues of practice (e.g., value‐added measures) tied to teacher evaluation and supervision are examined in light of federal policy. Although the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) gives states and local educational officials more power and authority, it is doubtful that states and districts will depart from focusing on the use of student testing scores for the purposes of teacher evaluation.

The Intents of Supervision

In Section II: The Intents of Supervision, chapters examine the why behind supervision, including the constructs of control and compliance, monitoring and evaluation, trust and empowerment, and emerging interests in professional capacity building. The chapters in this section move from targeting individual change to collective enactment and organizational culture.

Control and Compliance

In Chapter 7, Accountability, Control, and Teachers’ Work in American Schools, Richard M. Ingersoll and Gregory J. Collins suggest that few educational issues have received more attention in recent times than the problem of ensuring that elementary and secondary classrooms are staffed with quality teachers. Seemingly endless streams of commissions and national reports have targeted improving teacher quality as one of the central challenges facing schools.

Ingersoll and Collins offer a critique of the teacher accountability movement, drawing from a series of empirical research projects on the levels, distribution, and effects of accountability and control in American schools. They report that the control of schooling in the United States is relatively decentralized and that American teachers are less likely than teachers of other nations and their principals, to have substantial influence over key decisions in schools. The current educational reforms to regulate, monitor, and keep school teachers accountable for their work are important; however, reforms overlook critical considerations necessary for changes to endure and to promote the autonomy and engagement of those involved in the practice of teaching and supervision.

Monitoring and Evaluation

In Chapter 8, Coming to Understand the Wicked Problem of Teacher Evaluation, Helen M. Hazi portrays the practice of teacher evaluation, identifying its past and current influences. The metaphor of teacher evaluation as a wicked problem is a unifying element to examine enduring influences including its purposes, the classroom visit, the instrument, the generic teacher, the conference, and the law. Those influences become complicated by the national educational reform agenda that includes state oversight, metrics mania, multiple measures, and the infrastructure. The practice of teacher evaluation at present encourages the neglect of teaching and its improvement. Hazi argues that emerging influences in teacher evaluation tend to be cosmetic rather than leading to substantive changes.

Trust and Empowerment

In Chapter 9, Discretion and Trust in Professional Supervisory Practices, Megan Tschannen‐Moran and Christopher R. Gareis examine the significance of professional discretion and trust in daily supervisory practices that lead to fruitful results at the individual and organizational levels. Tschannen‐Moran and Gareis identify the current barriers that detract from the full benefits of discretion (standards, accountability, bureaucracy, and evaluation). They explicate the critical roles of supervisors and supervisory practices (professional development, action research, coaching, and mentoring) that foster trust, and they provide different examples from the field that portray how supervisors enhance teacher development through the use of both discretion and trust.

Professional Capacity Building

In Chapter 10, Managing Collaborative Inquiry for Continuously Better Practice: A Cross‐Industry Perspective, Jane G. Coggshall, Catherine Jacques, and Judith Ennis explore how the teaching and medical professions have approached the improvement of practice and outcomes through practitioner‐led collaborative inquiry. The purpose of this chapter is to inform the smart design of effective professional learning systems for teachers. There is a description of roles of evidence and facilitation in selected collaborative inquiry designs in both industries, and considerations for supervision and policy are provided. In many ways. Coggshall, Jacques, and Ennis accentuate how different fields within teaching and medicine can adopt ideas and learn from each other, and collaborate for the purpose of collectively improving and supporting practices.

In the process of collaborative inquiry, key players—namely teachers, facilitators, supervisors, and professional development providers—must be aware of certain roles and critical skills for practice to flourish. Educational supervisors, for example, must establish the structural, cultural, social, and technical conditions necessary for robust collaborative inquiry practices in order to ensure positive outcomes. In the end, supervisors must fully embrace the notion of supporting both system and individual performance through sustained efforts.

The Processes of Supervision

Section III: The Processes of Supervision examines the ways supervision has been conducted: observation and feedback by supervisors and building administrators; mentoring and induction of beginning teachers; peer coaching; collaborative learning; and action research and reflective practice. The processes move from external monitoring of individual teacher practice to collaborative enactment to reflective practice as a hallmark of the profession of teaching.

Observation and Feedback

In Chapter 11, Observation, Feedback, and Reflection by Supervisors and Administrators, Judith A. Ponticell, Sally J. Zepeda, Albert M. Jimenez, Philip D. Lanoue, Joyce G. Haines, and Atakan Ata explore three interrelated supervisory practices—intent and impact of classroom observation, feedback, and reflection on practice. They identify the roles of teachers, principals, and superintendents in supporting and building capacity for instructional leadership. They also address the enduring challenges in enacting effective practices that confirm teachers’ professionalism and provide meaningful professional learning experiences.

Feedback and reflection are two sides of the same coin. Under the best circumstances, feedback should occur frequently, be tailored to individual needs, and allow for analysis and reflection. But, more often than not, feedback given to teachers continues to be supplanted by performance ratings and judgmental statements that overshadow thoughtful reflection about instructional practices.

Implications for leaders are offered. Principals need to build capacity at the school level by supporting leadership among educators and by creating a culture that fosters collaboration and forges trusting relationships geared toward learning. Superintendents must work alongside school leaders by reinforcing the practice of classroom observations and feedback as a necessary norm of school culture. In the era of high stakes accountability, leadership needs to be practiced collectively by skillful group members, rather than individual leaders.

Mentoring and Induction of Beginning Teachers

In Chapter 12, Teacher Mentoring in Service of Beginning Teachers’ Learning to Teach: Critical Review of Conceptual and Empirical Literature, Jian Wang systematically reviews both conceptual and empirical literature on the function of teacher mentoring, typically designed to nurture and support novice teachers in improving their teaching practice. Wang also examines teacher mentoring practices and the influences of mentoring program policy; mentor training; school contexts, cultures, curriculum, and teaching organization; and the administration of teacher mentoring practices. The findings, methodologies, and directions for future research on teacher mentoring are synthesized, and the implications of these findings for policy makers and practitioners are discussed. Gaps in the research about various functions and aspects of mentoring are identified with specific evidence that these gaps are worth further exploration.

Peer Coaching

In Chapter 13, Peer Coaching in Education: From Partners to Faculties and Districts, Bruce Joyce and Emily F. Calhoun offer the view that peer coaching was invented because most people in most complex fields, not just education, when working alone without support have serious difficulty in transferring new complex knowledge and skills into the workplace for the long term. Through peer coaching, the gap between training or self‐instruction and transfer to the workplace is usually bridged. Joyce and Calhoun provide the research base, academic reforms, and practices that shaped the creation and evolution of peer coaching. More importantly, Joyce and Calhoun pose a critical question, How do teachers learn? to address professional development, the problems of transfer, and the affirmation of teachers working together. They offer key practices to support robustness in coaching across schools and systems.

Collaborative Learning

In Chapter 14, From Supervision to Super Vision: A Developmental Approach to Collaboration and Capacity Building, Eleanor Drago‐Severson and Jessica Blum‐DeStefano describe a collaborative, developmental approach to leadership and supervision that supports individual and organizational capacity building. They identify and explain the key principles of constructive developmental theory, and they offer in detail four research‐based, collaborative pillar practices—teaming; providing adults with leadership roles; collegial inquiry; and mentoring—that can be employed with developmental intentionality to support growth and instructional improvement. Drago‐Severson and Blum‐DeStefano provide insightful strategies that supervisors can use to support teachers and their ways of knowing, cautioning that approaches must be differentiated.

Action Research and Reflective Practice

In Chapter 15, Encouraging Reflective Practice in Educational Supervision Through Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry, Jeffrey Glanz and Revital Heimann focus on the relationship between action research and appreciative inquiry in educational supervision. They suggest that action research and appreciative inquiry have the potential to serve as valuable research tools for scholars and practitioners of educational supervision to improve schools.

Glanz and Heimann acknowledge supervision as central to instructional improvement, and action research and appreciative inquiry are complementary methods to supervisory processes. Five forms of engagement are examined: external–internal collaboration; internally or organizationally based collaboration; participative inquiry; individual inquiry; and reflective self‐study. They draw connections in these forms of engagement across action research and appreciative inquiry and focus attention on how supervision can be enhanced through such efforts.

The Key Players—Enactors of Supervision

The chapters in Section IV: The Key Players—Enactors of Supervision explore the ways supervision is influenced and enacted by various players within the supervision context: national policy/standards, state policy makers, local implementers (district administration and school leaders); and university preparation programs.

National Policy Standards

In Chapter 16, National Policy and Standards: Changes in Instructional Supervision since the Implementation of Recent Federal Legislation, Fred C. Lunenburg examines the history of federal legislation through the lens of the changes in supervisory practices designed to improve students’ academic success.

The increased role of the federal government in education, particularly efforts to hold schools accountable for achieving educational results for all children, has changed the role of the supervision of instruction. The escalating pressure for schools to improve student performance, close the achievement gap, and ensure high‐quality teaching necessitates that the correct support for teaching and learning is present, precisely central to the focus of school, and channeled through multi‐interrelated practices, namely: (a) focusing on learning; (b) promoting collaborative work; (c) analyzing school data; (d) aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment; (e) providing assistance; and (f) employing sound teacher evaluation with effective implementation to improve instruction. However, these practices are inconsequential unless school leaders establish a successful learning environment where the entire school community is committed to student learning and accepts responsibilities for success.

Lunenburg suggests a supervisory framework for accomplishing sustained district‐wide success for all students, and the primacy of the work of the principal is examined. Principals foster a school’s improvement, enhance its overall effectiveness, and promote student learning and success by developing the capacity of staff to function as a learning community. Developing and maintaining a positive school culture cultivates a learning community, the learning and success of all students, and the professional growth of faculty.

State Policymakers

In Chapter 17, State‐mandated Teacher Performance Assessments Developed during the Duncan Era, Caitlin McMunn Dooley, Stephen J. Owens, and Mark Conley offer an overview of how teacher performance assessments (TPAs) were implemented throughout the United States during the reign of Arne Duncan as US Secretary of Education. A state‐by‐state overview of policy enactment and a critique, as well as recommendations for improving assessment systems, are provided.

To frame this chapter, McMunn Dooley and her colleagues collected data from State Department of Education websites to examine states’ TPAs. They found many states (n = 41) developed new systems so as to receive federal funds, and the most commonly adopted model was the Danielson Group’s Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument. They also report stateside trends relative to specific weights of qualitative and quantitative data measures used in teacher evaluation systems as well as the types and frequencies of classroom observations and the relationship between teacher evaluation and professional learning, for example.

This examination suggests that most states quickly implemented TPAs to receive federal funds, causing quality issues. Although student growth is an important component of teacher evaluation, it can cause unintended consequences, compromising TPA validity. Finally, teacher evaluation systems that are not positioned for teacher growth undermine education.

Local Implementers—District Administration

In Chapter 18, Principal Supervisors and the Challenge of Principal Support and Development, Laura K. Rogers, Ellen Goldring, Mollie Rubin, and Jason A. Grissom review the changing role of principal supervision in the context of school district central office reform, from a compliance‐focused middle manager in the system hierarchy to a developmental coach in support of principals as instructional leaders. The authors address tensions among the components of the new and old roles, and they describe challenges districts may face in redesigning the role.

Previously, two major movements, namely the scientific management movement (top–down compliance) and the human relations movement (more individual‐focused), accounted for how supervision was performed in twentieth‐century school systems. Subsequent criticisms, increasing demands, accountability, and newfound standards that followed these movements helped facilitate the current focus of supervision—a total shift toward improving instructional leadership capacity. However, recent studies regarding the mission of principal supervisors in supporting principals unveiled several challenges ranging from lack of experience in the role of principal supervisors to being the sole supporter assigned to a large number of principals and having additional administrative duties from the central office. Each of these scenarios deprive principals and their respective supervisors of meaningful learning experiences. With inherent tensions, national professional standards for principal supervisors set the tone for working relationships between supervisors and principals holding them accountable for their work.

Local Implementers—School Leaders

In Chapter 19, The Principal: Building the Future Based on the Past, Mary Lynne Derrington describes the progression of the principal’s teacher‐supervisory role through the lens of change theory. Derrington then provides perspectives about the principal’s present supervisory responsibilities, and suggests future directions for principal supervision and evaluation of teachers.

One overarching change in the supervisory and evaluative roles of principals has been the shift from being authoritarian and controlling to acknowledging teachers as professionals, a step that requires the synergistic power of partnership and leadership within the school organization. For instance, the shift to formative supervision increased demands for individualized, job‐embedded professional development. In turn, such professional development required the active involvement of other key educators (e.g., instructional coaches) to manage the various aspects of formative supervision and to reach the incredible potential of teacher effectiveness which cannot be achieved by a single individual–the school principal. Derrington concludes that supervision as we know it today has been influenced by the past, is shaped by the present, and will contribute to new knowledge in the future.

Local Implementers—University Preparation Programs

In Chapter 20, Necessity Is the Mother of Re‐invention: Making Teaching Excellence the Norm through Policy and Established Clinical Practice, Nancy L. Zimpher and Jessica Fisher Neidl describe in detail the work of TeachNY, a nationally groundbreaking collaborative undertaken in New York State to re‐invent teacher preparation policy and practice statewide. The aim of TeachNY is to make teacher and school‐leader preparation the clinical, rigorous professional discipline it must become to reliably meet the developmental needs of all students, regardless of district, and the complex, multiskill‐driven workforce and sector demands of the twenty‐first century economy. Begun in 2014, TeachNY is an ongoing process led and convened by the State University of New York, the largest comprehensive public university system in the nation, which produces a quarter of the state’s teacher workforce, in partnership with the New York State Education Department. The work described in this chapter provides a model for other states and higher education systems and institutions that prepare today’s and tomorrow’s teachers and school leaders.

At a time when educational attainment is increasingly crucial for ensuring individual success, and knowing the role played by excellent teaching in attainment, states face an increasingly urgent demand for more excellent teachers. Zimpher and Neidl ask two key questions that supervisors need to keep at the forefront of their minds: how do excellent teachers become excellent teachers? And, when that question is answered, how can states ensure that every teacher, from prospective to novice to veteran, has the training and support she or he needs to enter the classroom every day fully prepared do their best so that students—no matter the school district, no matter what zip code they live in—can achieve their best?

The Outcomes of Supervision

In Section V: The Outcomes of Supervision, chapters examine the intended results of supervision: improving individual teacher practice; improving the school‐wide learning environment; building professional community (aimed at high performance from teachers and in increased student achievement); and developing a supervisory identity.

Improving Individual Teacher Practice

In Chapter 21, Improving Teacher Practice‐based Knowledge: What Teachers Need to Know and How They Come to Know It, Diane Yendol‐Hoppey, Jennifer Jacobs, and Rebecca West Burns identify the practice‐based knowledge that in‐service teachers and teacher candidates need to develop strong instructional practice✔ and they identify how this practice based knowledge is developed. The authors establish that although evaluation might serve as a gatekeeper, improving teacher quality requires coupling evaluation with support that facilitates teacher practice‐based knowledge development. They illustrate the importance of using the same approaches to teacher candidate learning as currently called for in the research‐based, job‐embedded, practicing teacher professional learning literature.

Yendol‐Hoppey and her colleagues highlight the importance and complexity of developing and adopting an inquiry stance that is powerful enough to guide teachers through career‐long learning via cyclical processes that include defining a problem of practice, asking related questions, finding a possible solution, developing and implementing a plan, reviewing collected data, and sharing findings with others. The importance of providing for both individual and social learning through observation and reflection are examined.

Improving the School‐wide Learning Environment

In Chapter 22, Shaping the School‐Wide Learning Environment Through Supervisory Leadership, Erin Anderson and Diana G. Pounder characterize supervision in the broadest terms, suggesting supervision includes a full array of leadership and organizational policies and practices intended to support and improve a school’s teaching and learning environment. They establish that a school leader’s supervisory responsibilities go far beyond that of routine classroom observations, annual teacher performance evaluations, or even faculty development. Rather, supervisory leadership responsibilities include shaping school conditions that promote the central educational mission of effective teaching and learning. They suggest and discuss supervisory leadership practices that can favorably shape a school’s learning environment because school climate is an important factor to promote student achievement.

High‐performing Teachers and Equity

In Chapter 23, High‐performing Teachers, Student Achievement, and Equity, Kendall Deas describes how teacher evaluation and supervision have evolved in light of accountability and standards movements. Specifically, he examines the impact of policies originating from these movements have had on the quality of educational supervision for teachers as well as the overall goals of producing high‐performing teachers, increased student achievement, and greater equity. Deas is explicit that there are inequalities inherent in the focus on student achievement and teacher effectiveness and quality because there are vast differences between states in terms of teacher preparation programs, licensing standards, access to professional development, and the enforcement of standards.

Developing a Supervisory Identity

In Chapter 24, Supervisory Identity: Cultural Shift, Critical Pedagogy, and the Crisis of Supervision, Noelle Arnold reports that as a result of the influence of neoliberalism on educational policy, educational leadership has become standardized, resulting in performance and audit‐based supervisory practices. Moreover, school leaders will find enacting supervision difficult if they have not formulated and identified a professional identity that is inclusive of the cultural shifts that shape and reshape the types of programs and services that faculty and students need. Arnold’s premise is that you have to see yourself doing something before you can do it effectively.

Arnold proposes an emerging framework with four interrelated facets that lead to teachers and leaders focusing on student achievement as the core work of teaching. Collectivism (one of us) supports collaboration by bringing people to work together with the aim of increasing student achievement. Advantaging (for us) creates the advantage for teachers to engage in professional development focusing on learning that leads to increased student achievement. Place‐making (a sense of us) creates trust and connection to support a collective culture and vision for student achievement. Purposefulness (making us purposeful) takes into account others’ identity to create a frame for supervisory purposes.

In Chapter 25, Conflicts, Convergence, and Wicked Problems, we look at key points raised in the five sections of the Handbook—context, intent, process, enactors, and outcomes—considering educational supervision as a field of study and practice that is challenged to respond to the changing nature of the work of teachers, school and district leaders, and schools themselves. We also explore multiple ways in which educational supervision still struggles with a dual identity, caught between both philosophical and practical underpinnings of management, direction, and correction as well as professional learning, developmental support, and empowerment. Throughout the chapter, we provide commentary in relation to recurring themes of conflict, convergence, and wicked problems.

References

Firth, G. R., & Pajak, E. F. (Eds.). (1998). Handbook of research on school supervision. New York, NY: Macmillan Library Reference.

Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. (2015–2016). Pub. L. No. 114‐95, § 114, Stat. 1177.

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. (2002) Pub. L. No. 107‐110, § 115, Stat. 1425.

Part I

Context

2

A Policy and Political History of Educational Supervision

W. Kyle Ingle and Jane Clark Lindle

As classroom teachers, we want the type of supervisor sponsored today by the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota, and Columbia University—an expert fitted by intensive special training for the particular job of supervision. He must have experience, personality, ability to organize his teaching force for the study of professional problems, and a scientific standard of judging results. He must know his teachers, their work, their needs, and their abilities.

(Hayes, 1925, pp. 225–226)

This excerpt from Fannie B. Hayes, a teacher at Omaha Technical High School, was published in the School Review in 1925. The use of the pronoun he hints at men’s overwhelming predominance in educational supervision at the time. However, Hayes’s plea also captures an early‐twentieth‐century classroom teacher’s list of other desired characteristics in a supervisor, including professional preparation, experience, organization, and capacity for relationships and engagement with teachers. Ms. Hayes also called for changes in educational supervision primarily characterized by cooperation between the supervisor and teachers rather than autocratic master and subservient pupil relationships. In the introductory chapter of Supervision: New Perspective for Theory and Practice, Glanz and Zepeda (2016) noted how the field has sought to become more democratic, collaborative, collegial, and less autocratic and controlling—in theory. Zepeda and Glanz (2016) stated that, Despite such advocacy for redefining and reconceptualizing supervision, the field, in our estimation, seriously needs to translate such lofty ideals into practical proposals that impact life in classrooms across America (p. 2). Indeed, others (Murphy, Hallinger, & Heck, 2013; K. D. Peterson, 1987, 2000; Wise, Darling‐Hammond, McLaughlin, & Bernstein, 1985) have noted that teacher–principal relations are complicated by educational supervisors (e.g., principals) serving as both the facilitator of teachers’ improving instruction and arbiter of summative employment decisions.

Although the connotations of educational supervision change throughout history (Zepeda, 2006), at least one persistent idea denotes the supervisory role as a formative one. Formative approaches to supervision seek to engage teachers as peers in consultation over matters of instruction and learning (Blase & Blase, 1999; Cogan, 1973; Glickman, 1981; Goldhammer, 1969). In contrast, the evaluative, or summative, role may engender fear, given principals’ power over teachers’ careers (Blase, 1990; Brunner & Shumaker, 1998). Summative evaluation of teachers’ classroom performance affects their continued employment (Popham, 2013), and culminates in a decision to renew contracts or to terminate them. That summative decision, with its dire consequences, elevates the evaluator’s power over teachers, creating situations of both fear and coercion (Blase, 1990; Bradley, 2014; Popham, 2013).

So what, if anything, has changed in the field of educational supervision since the time of Ms. Hayes’ instruction in the first decades of the twentieth century and the present day? As laid out in this chapter, different periods of schooling’s history attached different terms and definitions to the supervision of education, schools, teachers, classrooms, and students. The span of supervision shifted with the types of facilities housing schools as well as with the gender and expertise of those with roles in classrooms or among the communities that schools served. The changes in education policy shifted in each era and those changes affected understandings of the meanings and practices of education supervision. The purpose of this chapter is to map the history of US educational supervision in the context of formal roles and sociopolitical dynamics of historical eras in education, primarily focusing on the Progressive Era (the late nineteenth century) through the present day. In the twentieth century, the understanding of schooling, and educational supervision responded to several post‐World War II eras, including the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, and especially, the ongoing era of increased accountability through standards, assessment, and school choice options. We draw on a variety of sources, including legislation, governmental reports such as A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), educational administration textbooks, and peer‐reviewed research studies. We examine the evolving roles and theories of educational supervision, including its shifting purposes and definitions, across these historical eras. Further, we discuss the development of professional identities among teachers and educational leaders, the development of differentiation of educational supervision among educators and educational leadership roles and positions as well as the specializations and expertise within these roles. We then turn our attention to the politicization of student learning outcomes and their conflation with accountability of states, districts, schools, and individual educators (teachers and educational leaders).

The Professionalization of Educational Supervision

A social function, such as education, develops institutions and refines roles of practitioners, and this process evolves a profession and identity (Barr, Burton, & Brueckner, 1938; Glanz, 1991; Metzger, 1987; Tyack & Hansot, 1980). Educational supervision is essentially a twentieth‐century development that depended upon the professionalization of teaching and the development of nineteenth‐century common schools (Barr et al., 1938; Button, 1966; Glanz, 1991; Kyte, 1930).

In the colonial period of what eventually became the United States, the provision of education was an activity chiefly assumed by churches. Education historians (Cubberley, 1934; Kaestle, 1983; Smith, 1967) asserted that the development of public education in the United States owed much to the Protestant churches that largely oversaw the provision of education in the colonial period. At that time, educational supervision was inspectorial in nature, with church and community leaders serving in supervisory roles (Duffy, 2016; Smith, 1967). These leaders often served multiple schools and communities, riding along circuits of small communities and through country roads (Blumberg, 1985; Nall, 1942; Smith, 1967).

Educational supervision shifted to the purview of school administrators (rather than church and community leaders) towards the end of the nineteenth century when an influx of immigrants accompanying the industrial age wrought long‐lasting changes to US society and to the provision of education (Duffy, 2016; Smith, 1967). Given this influx, the common schools movement developed (Spring, 2011; Smith, 1967; Tyack & Hansot, 1980; 1982). The common schools, or Progressive, movement has distinctive features intended to assimilate students and form a patriotic American identity, including: (a) educating all children in a common schoolhouse to create a common culture; (b) ameliorating public ills (e.g., crime, poverty, immorality); and (c) creating state agencies to oversee local schools (Button, 1966; Cubberley, 1934; Spring, 2011: Tyack & Hansot, 1982). Not surprisingly, the focus on common schooling created an increased demand for teachers (Spring, 2011). With more schools and more teachers, the costs of public education escalated, exacerbating funding issues (Glanz, 1991; Spring, 2011). Higher costs for schooling also led to higher expectations about what teachers did in the schools.

Keeping School or Teaching School?

With its roots in a missionary zeal, colonial schooling promoted religion as much as fundamental literacy (Burnham, 1976; Spring, 2011; Tyack & Hansot, 1982). The career paths of clergy included temporary stints in classrooms, implicating the education of youth as a low‐status, entry‐level rite of passage, rather than a career in itself (Kliebard, 1995; Sullivan, 1980). Thus, the persistent notion that schools were kept, rather than taught, not only signaled the lack of a rigorous curriculum and low expectations about student achievement, but that teaching merely involved hearing rote recitations (Burr, 1924; Eisner, 1964). After undertaking observations of classrooms across the United States, Burr (1924) noted that: The teacher is only keeping school; she is ignorant of the values of the classroom, careless of the rights of the pupils, and blind to their reaction to what she does (p. 226).

Keeping school also included a literal list of tasks ranging from keeping order among the students to keeping up all aspects of classroom, building, and grounds maintenance including stoking fires and coal stoves during the agricultural down seasons of school terms (Kliebard, 1995; Spring, 2011). The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the beginning of the Progressive common schools movement, bringing a clarifying distinction that school keepers were not necessarily the best teachers as they short‐changed both students and the common good on a number of levels (Dewey, 1904; Eisner, 1964; Kliebard, 1995; Tyack, 1991).

Thus, the Progressive education movement promoted teaching and learning as the focus of schooling, and raised concerns about instructional quality (Kliebard, 1995; Tyack, 1991). The Progressives’ focus on pedagogical influences on students led to campaigns to improve teacher preparation in normal schools, eventually elevating such institutions to schools and colleges of education (Bullough, 2001; Dewey, 1904; Clifford & Guthrie, 1988; Glanz, 1991). During this era, school supervision moved from accounting and inspection of one‐room schools to supervision of teachers and their practices; what contemporary professionals understand as instructional supervision (Burnham, 1976; Button, 1966; Tracy, 1995).

From the beginning of the Progressive era, a tension existed between the inspection of classrooms that included a literal accounting of enrollments, teachers, and supplies and the contrasting oversight of specific activities of teaching and learning in the classroom (Cubberley, 1934; Hayes, 1925; Kliebard, 1995; Tracy, 1995). Urban (1976) noted that teachers in the Progressive era were largely opposed to efforts to centralize and professionalize education, preferring practices of teacher hiring and firing by the ward trustees rather than professional administrators whose interests differed from those of the teachers, ward trustees, and parents (p. 37). Along with Fannie B. Hayes’ (1925) wish, some proponents of instructional supervision intended a formative and facilitative role to aid teachers and, ultimately, students in the teaching–learning process (Garman, 1986; Lucio, 1969; Tracy, 1995).

To achieve the lofty goal of better teaching and learning, the development of the educational supervisor’s role raised myriad questions, which remain somewhat unsettled today (Burnham, 1976; Burr, 1924; Frymeier, 1969; Tracy, 1995). In the specification of support for teaching, these questions include the precise nature of the advice for teachers, the process for developing and offering that advice, and questions about who fills the advisory role with what credentials (Button, 1966; Lucio, 1969; Sullivan, 1980). Another issue is making sense of the various terms associated with this field of study—educational supervision (e.g., Kyte, 1930; Scott, 1925), clinical supervision (e.g., Cogan, Anderson, & Krajewski, 1993; Goldhammer, 1969), instructional supervision (e.g., Barr et al., 1938), instructional leadership (e.g., Blase & Blase, 1999; MacKenzie & Corey, 1954)—sometimes considered synonymous; sometimes not. Zepeda and Glanz (2016) noted that: Supervision as a concept and term has been vociferously debated by scholars and practitioners. The term itself has received criticism harking back to the field’s early history wherein supervision was conceived, mainly, as an inspectional, bureaucratic function (p. 1). We explore these terms throughout the remainder of this chapter.

Supervisory approaches start with definitions of good teaching, and the resulting contests over content and methods of good instruction persist as policies about education change (Tracy, 1995; Tyack & Hansot, 1980). The Progressives’ focus on method, instead of content, may have been a reaction to the dominance of rote memory and recitation, against which, arguably, Dewey led the charge for engagement and discovery methods of instruction (Bullough, 2001, 2014; Deng, 2007; Dewey, 1904). Ironically and simultaneously, the demise of normal schools resulted from the argument that these practical vocational schools offered little in the way of content knowledge, focusing only on methods (Bullough, 2001; Clifford & Guthrie, 1988; Deng, 2007; Frymeier, 1969). Theories of scientific management heavily influenced educational supervision in the early years of the twemtieth century (Heck & Hallinger, 2005), including a growing interest in test data (Cubberley, 1929; Wetzel, 1929).

By the middle of the twentieth century, Sputnik’s launch kindled a new concern about whether teachers were teaching content at a depth necessary to win the Cold War, and sharpened the methods‐versus‐content debates (Clifford & Guthrie, 1988; Deng, 2007; Frymeier, 1969). The rise of teacher‐proof curricula and a reliance on texts resulted from arguments about the depth of teacher content‐knowledge (Doyle & Ponder, 1977; Segali, 2004; Sloan, 2006). By the end of the twentieth century, concerns about instructional methods reawakened as did a dawning recognition that method and content might be inseparable (Deng, 2007; O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995; Segali, 2004). These efforts to distinguish content from method for the preparation of teachers represented the dilemmas that educational supervisors faced in addressing quality of instruction, and in any case, supervision’s formative and summative efforts were both affected by this historical progression of the content‐or‐methods debate.

One of the earliest metaphors about supervision entailed a vision of the supervisor as a teacher of teachers; emulating preparation programs’ strategies while on the job (Button, 1966). Yet, differing approaches to classroom observations or advising teachers on their practices had a cyclical existence throughout the twentieth century (Tracy, 1995). Some of these approaches overlapped supervision of student teachers with practicing teachers’ supervision (Garman, 1986). Despite their intentions of helping teachers improve, many approaches became ritualized, imbued with power differentials between teacher and supervisor, and ultimately understanding evaluation as a summative judgment, rather than formative professional growth and improvement (Garman, 1986; Hazi & Rucinski, 2009).

Supervision’s intent is to improve teaching and to elevate the profession, but ironically, the introduction of professional supervisors exalted them over the teacher force, illuminating a number of power and gender issues (Acker, 1995; Holcomb, 2006a, 2006b; Kliebard, 1995; P. E. Peterson, 1974). Eventually, women dominated classrooms, as men became less willing to work for lower teacher pay (Grumet, 1988; Rury, 1991). As schools and school districts began to proliferate, educational supervision devolved from the hands of superintendents to school principals.

Thus, the power differentials of positional authority and socialized gender relationships permeated the rituals of supervision (Acker, 1995; Garman, 1986; Griffin, 2015). Professionalism also embodied bureaucratization, arguably urban‐centric models that might not have scaled well to rural schools (Bishop, 1967; Glanz, 1991; Kliebard, 1995; Steffes, 2008). These issues existed despite the lack of precision in identifying a specific supervisory role as supervisory tasks attached to a variety of positions from superintendent to supervisor to principal (Burnham, 1976; Glanz, 1991; Lucio, 1969; Rousmaniere, 2007; Tracy, 1995).

When professional organizations re‐identified as teacher unions and multiple options for teacher bargaining arose during the final decades of the twentieth century, the power differentials between teachers and supervisors widened, depending on which side of the contract bargaining tables these groups sat (Bills, 1972; Bishop, 1967; Kinsella, Klopf, Schafer, & Young, 1969; W. F. Young, 1969). Historically the National Education Association (NEA, n.d.) staffed its leadership from among professionals (men) leading districts. With competition from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which sought to empower and unionize teachers, the NEA faced fragmentation among its membership (Bills, 1972; Burford, 1970; Griffin, 2015; la Noue & Pilo, 1970; Moore, 1978; NEA, n.d.; Wiggins & MacNaughton, 1980). The rivalry between the NEA and AFT revealed power differentials between teachers and any position of administration (Bills, 1972; Lieberman, 1973). Eventually, the conflict splintered the NEA into a stand‐alone teacher organization and at least two kinds of administrator organizations for superintendents and supervisors (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004; Bills, 1972; Bishop, 1967; Griffin, 2015; Hanley, 1973; Lieberman, 1973; P. E. Peterson, 1974; Wiggins & MacNaughton, 1980).

The move from keeping school to teaching school began with intentional improvements in teaching and learning through the vehicle of professionalization of classroom experiences for both teachers and students. As teaching professionalized, educational supervisors’ roles emerged that shifted between formative and summative approaches, increasing instructional quality. How supervisors help teachers get better remains a complex process involving questions of what and who interact in the helping process. As with all interactions, the underlying themes of power, socialized gender roles, and fairness in terms of workloads and benefits complicated this approach. Along with questions about what to improve in teaching, and about how students experience learning also problematize historical attempts to improve teaching, and ultimately learning.

Politicized Teaching Policies: Supervisory Implications

If literacy drove the common school movement, then opportunity drove the civil rights movement for poor, minority students, and eventually for students with disabilities (Hanley, 1973; Holcomb, 2006c, 2006d; Orfield, 2014). The landmark US Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case and the Civil Rights movement as a whole were, undoubtedly, steps toward progress. However, there were negative outcomes too. An ironic and unintended consequence of efforts to desegregate schools and of the broader Civil Rights movement was the large‐scale loss of jobs among Black educators—teachers and principals alike (Cecelski, 1994; Tillman, 2004). As Tillman (2004) noted:

The loss of jobs by African American educators after Brown affected the African American community culturally, socially, economically, and academically…. Thus, the economic balance of the Black community and the expertise of Black educators as a cultural artifact was disturbed. (p. 298)

One can only wonder how these losses affected African American student achievement and African Americans’ likelihood of pursuing careers in education in the long term. Thus, the complications in professionalizing teaching persist through the integration of schools and play out in ongoing covert conflicts of power, sexism, and race.

Clinical supervision began in the late 1950s and proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the work of Cogan (1973), clinical supervision sought to improve instruction and learning through observations of classroom instruction and the provision of feedback to teachers. Over time, others, such as Goldhammer (1969), developed a staged process by which interactions between supervisor and teachers, observations of instruction, and the provision of feedback would occur. This process began with a pre‐observation conference, in which the teacher and supervisor pre‐planned the observation and what the focus (or foci) would be. After the pre‐observation stage were the observation of instruction, the analysis of observation data, and the post‐observation conference between the supervisor and teacher. Lastly, the supervisor would reflect on the process and interactions with the observed teacher. Another influence on educational supervision was Hunter’s (1979) mastery teaching model, which sought to provide supervisors and teachers with a framework to inform planning and instruction through elements of instruction (e.g., objectives, modeling, checking to ensure student understanding, guided, and opportunities for practice). Cogan (1973) cautioned against clinical supervision becoming mechanistic and the imposition of the supervisor’s notions of what quality instruction should be. Likewise, Goldhammer advocated for meaningful interactions between supervisors and teachers. In spite of these cautions, clinical supervision received criticism for becoming more ritual than substance and for its domination by supervisors in practice (Garman, 1986; Hazi & Rucinski, 2009). Critics of Hunter’s mastery teaching model decried it as overly proscriptive, mechanistic, and simplistic (Gibboney, 1987).

Any discussion of education reform efforts in the USA hearkens back to the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). The report led to a greater emphasis on an economic market agenda for education, called into question the quality of the teaching workforce, teacher preparation, teacher pay, and highlighted critical teacher shortages in math and science. The contradictions between a facilitative supervisory role and the economic development impetus of A Nation at Risk exacerbated the tensions in formative and summative approaches to improving teaching. Prior to its publication, teacher evaluation legislation and practice varied greatly from state to state and district to district (Good, Biddle, & Brophy, 1975; Lavigne, 2014). Lavigne (2014) noted that in 1973, 27 states had some form of accountability legislation. Teacher evaluations were present in 12 states (p. 3).

The decade of the 1980s was a fertile time for developments in educational supervision. A number of luminaries in the field published seminal texts on educational supervision, largely in response to criticisms leveled at clinical supervision and mastery teaching models. For example, Thomas McGreal (1983) explored the variations in supervision approaches for teachers based on where they were in their careers (pre‐tenured versus tenured). Alan Glatthorn published Differentiated Supervision (1984), advocating that teachers should have input and direction into their own professional growth and development. In 1985, Carl Glickman published the first edition of Supervision of Instruction: A Developmental Approach, seeking to improve instruction through supervision. There was also a growing recognition that teachers can and should play integral roles in facilitating the success of other teachers as peer coaches (Joyce & Showers, 1980, 1982). These seminal works began a shift toward differentiated approaches to supervision.

There developed keen interest in improving teacher quality through strategies such as teacher competency testing (e.g., the National Teacher Examination) and the development, adoption, and proliferation of instruments to assess teachers’ on‐the‐job performance (Darling‐Hammond, Wise, & Pease, 1983). Notably, the state of Georgia implemented a systematic statewide effort to evaluate on‐the‐job performance of teachers in 1980 with its Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument (TPAI), requiring professional knowledge and the demonstration of teaching‐competency mastery. Each prospective teacher was required to pass a criterion‐referenced test in advance of receiving a three‐year nonrenewable certificate. Recertification required the development of a teaching portfolio, together with assessment and observations by trained evaluators (Darling‐Hammond et al., 1983; Ellett, Capie, & Johnson, 1980). Georgia’s model garnered interest, adaptation, and adoption in other US states, particularly those in the Southeast (Darling‐Hammond et al., 1983). Teacher evaluation drew upon what one observed a teacher doing in a classroom, but there was a nagging concern about the performance of US students in comparison to those in other countries (Hanushek, 2009).

The National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) made seven recommendations for improving the preparation of teachers or making teaching a more rewarding and respected profession. The Commission noted that each of the seven stands on its own and should not be considered solely as an implementing recommendation (1983, p. 76). These were:

Persons preparing to teach should be required to meet high educational standards, to demonstrate an aptitude for teaching, and to demonstrate competence in an academic discipline. Colleges and universities offering teacher preparation programs should be judged by how well their graduates meet these criteria.

Salaries for the teaching profession should be increased and should be professionally competitive, market‐sensitive, and performance‐based. Salary, promotion, tenure, and retention decisions should be tied to an effective evaluation system that includes peer review so that superior teachers can be rewarded, average ones encouraged, and poor ones either improved or terminated.

School boards should adopt an 11‐month contract for teachers. This would ensure time for curriculum and professional development, programs for students with special needs, and a more adequate level of teacher compensation.

School boards, administrators, and teachers should cooperate to develop career ladders for teachers that distinguish among the beginning instructor, the experienced teacher, and the master teacher.

Substantial nonschool personnel resources should be employed to help solve the immediate problem of the shortage of mathematics and science teachers. Qualified individuals, including recent graduates with mathematics and science degrees, graduate students, and industrial and retired scientists could, with appropriate preparation, immediately begin teaching in these fields. A number of our leading science centers have the capacity to begin educating and retraining teachers immediately. Other areas of critical teacher need, such as English, must also be addressed.

Incentives, such as grants and loans, should be made available to attract outstanding students to the teaching profession, particularly in those areas of critical shortage.

Master teachers should be involved in designing teacher preparation programs and in supervising teachers during their probationary years. (pp. 76–77)

It is of note that the National Commission on Excellence in Education did not offer a discrete definition of teacher quality. The aforementioned recommendations (notably recommendation (1) suggests that a high‐quality teacher should meet high educational standards, and have an aptitude for teaching and command of content‐area knowledge. Recommendation (2) is more explicit in terms of prescribing national and state interventions in teacher retention, compensation, and evaluation. The publication sowed the seeds of reform efforts that developed in the decades that followed. For example, the impact of Recommendation (5) revealed itself in the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and its provision for highly qualified teachers, which reinforced the importance of highly qualified teachers in all schools and classrooms. This provision focused on how best to train, produce, and credential teachers across US states. The rationale for requiring teacher certification is that, in its pursuit, the teachers will learn skills and demonstrate behaviors that positively affect students’ performance. Alternative certification programs that developed varied across US states, but debated the strength of certification as a signal for teacher quality. States and districts wrestled with finding a balance of subject‐area expertise and on‐the‐job training that emphasizes instruction and classroom management skills (typically alternative route) versus a mixture of more subject‐area content, educational foundations/methods course, embedded clinical experiences, and student teaching experiences (traditional certification route). The federal Race to the Top (RttT) program required participating states and school districts to adopt standards and assessments that prepared students for college and the global economy; developed data systems that measure student growth and improved instruction; recruited, developed, rewarded, and retained effective teachers and principals; and turned around the lowest‐achieving schools.

Following the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), teacher quality became a policy instrument and student achievement dominated over any methods for addressing differences in student needs, backgrounds, or opportunities (McDonnell, 1995; Starratt, 2003). The long‐range impact of this report was a change of focus on teacher quality. Observable teacher behaviors and proxies, such as the selectivity of the institution from which a teacher graduated, test scores (e.g., SAT, ACT, NTE) were replaced by the ability of teachers to contribute in measurable ways to student gains on standardized tests (Goldhaber & Theobald, 2013). Furthermore, student achievement data were not just a means of holding teachers, schools, and districts accountable. They also held promise in addressing another recommendation from the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983)—greater accountability of teacher and educational leadership preparation programs (Goldhaber, Liddle, & Theobald, 2013).

Despite the Reagan administration’s heavy mark on the instigation and publication of A Nation at Risk, it took no major federal action in response to its recommendations. A US House of Representatives staffer of the era, John F. Jennings, proffered a plausible insight into that administration’s hands‐off approach. Jennings (1995) described Reagan as

a firm believer that the federal government had no real role in education, [who] had tried to eliminate the Department of Education and to repeal many federal programs, and so he was not inclined to mount any new national school reform effort. (p. 201)

On his election, President George H. W. Bush pledged to be the Education President (Norpoth & Buchanan, 1992). Not long after his inauguration, the senior President Bush convened an education summit with the state governors (led by then Arkansas Governor, Bill Clinton) at Charlottesville, Virginia. What emerged was a published report entitled America 2000: An Education Strategy (United States Department of Education, 1991). The report stated:

Eight years after the National Commission on Excellence in Education declared us a nation at risk… our education trend lines are flat …