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This paper uses the case of New York City teachers' interpretations of the labels that are assigned to their performance to explore how teachers experience teacher evaluation systems. Based on our analyses of 141 interviews with New York City teachers, we argue that the ordinal performance labels assigned to teachers by New York City's Advance teacher development and evaluation system—Highly Effective, Effective, Developing, and Ineffective—have meanings that extend beyond how they locate teachers in relation to one another, or in relation to an absolute standard of teaching performance. The labels can evoke powerful emotions in teachers, and may stymie policymakers' hopes that they will be motivated by the labels to redouble their efforts to teach well. Teachers' reactions to the labels can also reveal their strategies to resist the redefinition of teachers' work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment and evaluation at all levels of educational systems have become policy priorities for many countries. Two common reasons for this are student learning expectations and accountability. Although much effort has been put into the creation and refinement of content standards, standardized tests, and methods for using testing results, there has been less attention paid to the development of performance standards (proficiency levels) that greatly affect policy decision making. The present study investigates the Objective Standard Setting Model (OSS) as an improved criterion-referenced method for setting multilevel performance standards. To demonstrate how OSS can be employed for performance standard setting, our study used data from preservice teachers completing an assessment literacy test in a pre- and posttest environment. Using OSS, performance standard levels of proficient and excellent were established with clear content-related descriptions of growth in student content mastery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]