The Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) was created in response to the 2009 House Bill 1 mandate requiring the development of a state teacher performance assessment. This study examined K-12 public school teachers’ dispositions toward OTES after the first year of implementation. Data were collected from 142 teachers over a 4-week period in 2015 using a 17-item survey with Likert-type responses.
Findings revealed teachers’ overall dispositions were considerably more negative than positive; specifically 86% of the respondents had a negative or moderately negative disposition toward the state model. With respect to specific aspects of OTES, the three most positive dispositions concerned individualized staff development, principal compliance with OTES, and walk-through observations. The three most negative dispositions concerned the amount of time required of teachers, infusing student value-added scores, and infusing vendor assessment scores.
The levels of association between the criterion variable (a teacher’s overall disposition toward OTES) and each of three predictor variables (gender, years of teaching experience, and grade level assignment) were small and negative. Collectively, the three predictor variables accounted for only 4.5% of the variation in the criterion variable.
The findings have both professional and political implications. Most notably, negative dispositions reported in this study, especially those pertaining to the infusion of student assessments into teacher performance evaluations are highly controversial. Professionally, for example, many scholars, administrators, and teachers challenge the reliability, validity and fairness of using these measures. Politically, for example, policymakers should consider the negative dispositions in terms of improving existing policy. Accordingly, recommendations for improving OTES policy and for future research were made.