The Widget Effect is a wide-ranging report by Carnegie Corporation grantee The New Teacher Project that studies teacher evaluation and dismissal in four states and 12 diverse districts, ranging from 4,000 to 400,000 students in enrollment. From the beginning, over 50 district and state officials and 25 teachers’ union representatives actively informed the study through advisory panels in each state. Panel members provided ongoing feedback and perspective and were invited to submit unedited written responses to the study’s findings and recommendations. Their insights supplemented survey responses from over 15,000 teachers and 1,300 principals, and data from more than 40,000 teacher evaluation records.
Citation:
Weisberg, Daniel, Sexton, Susan, Mulhern, Jennifer, Keeling, David, THE WIDGET EFFECT: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness (The New Teacher Project, 2009)