911197

research-article2020
BULXXX10.1177/0192636520911197NASSP BulletinDandalt and Brutus

Article
NASSP Bulletin

Teacher Performance
2020, Vol. 104(1) 20­–33
© 2020 SAGE Publications
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DOI: 10.1177/0192636520911197
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636520911197
Policy Case Analysis journals.sagepub.com/home/bul

Ed Dandalt1 and Stephane Brutus1

Abstract
This article uses an analysis of the language used in the Teacher Performance Appraisal
Technical Requirements Manual in Ontario to highlight some procedural issues.
Arguably, the existence of flaws in the teacher evaluation system is not only limited to
evaluation practices but is also embedded in evaluation regulations. Furthermore, the
article provides a novel example of how a study of teacher evaluation systems can go
beyond teachers’ perspectives of evaluation practices and can also consider teacher
evaluation regulations as a source of empirical inquiry and a form of knowledge.

Keywords
performance appraisal, Ontario, teachers

Recently, teacher performance evaluation was made mandatory in Ontario public

school system. Rules guiding teacher evaluation are underscored in the Teacher
Performance Appraisal Technical Requirements Manual (referred herein as TPA). This
provincial regulation was introduced by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 2002 to
enhance professional accountability and improve teacher practice. This policy can be
construed as part of the consolidation of neoliberalism tendencies in the management
of the education workforce in this province.
The introduction of neoliberal values in education was inspired by the work of
Milton Friedman. In his 1955 essay, The Role of Government in Education, Friedman
argued that free market principles such as competition and efficiency should regulate

1
Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

Corresponding Author:
Ed Dandalt, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, 1450 Guy Street, Montreal, Québec
H3G 1M8, Canada.
Email: ed.dandalt@gmail.com
Dandalt and Brutus 21

the delivery of education services. In educational administration, neoliberalism has

been characterized by a combination of managerial control practices, accountability,
transparency, and quality control (Lorenz, 2012). The search for efficiency is what led
the Ministry of Education and teacher unions or associations (e.g., Ontario Teachers’
Federation) to develop the TPA as a quality control tool to hold teachers accountable
and to harmonize the appraisal procedures in the provincial public school system.
Under the guidelines of TPA, experienced teachers are required to be evaluated once
every 5 years by school principals. In addition, early-career teachers are required to
undergo two appraisal processes in the first year of their hiring.
So far, only a few studies (e.g., Larsen, 2009) have investigated the quality of
teacher evaluation systems in Ontario. The research framework used in these studies
is mostly informed by teacher perspectives (Hannay et al., 2003; Lawton et al., 1988).
This methodological approach involves studying the actions of those affected by and
involved in the implementation of evaluation policy. To date, no such studies have
used the discourse of an evaluation policy as a primary data source.
The lack of methodological variance in the study of teacher evaluation is not only
limited to Canadian education research. In the United States, for instance, most schol-
ars (Farrell & Morris, 2009; Kauchak et al., 1985; Steinberg & Garrett, 2016) studying
the quality of performance evaluation have limited their research method to the per-
spectives of evaluation stakeholders such as teachers and principals. Arguably, the use
of an evaluation policy as a primary data source to critique a performance appraisal
system is not that common in education research.
The same observation could also be made about contemporary Canadian management
scholars (Brutus et al., 2009) who have mostly limited their study of the intricacy of
employee performance evaluation systems to the experiences of those involved and
affected by evaluations. With this in mind, this article seeks to provide for a different
perspective on the topic by analyzing the actual language used in the TPA. It is important
to analyze the language used in this regulation because there is some literature that sug-
gests flaws in the Ontario teacher performance evaluation system (Larsen, 2009; Maharaj,
2014). We aim to find out whether these flaws are not only limited to appraisal practices
but are also embedded in the content of the TPA itself.

Literature Review on Performance Appraisal

Research in Performance Appraisal
The TPA is a subject of interest because management research suggests that little is
known about how performance appraisals operate, how they are implemented, and
whether they are fair, effective, and transparent (as argued by Cappelli & Conyon,
2018). So far, research on the implementation of performance appraisals indicates that
managers perceive that evaluating their team members or employees is both important
and time consuming. Performance appraisals are perceived as important because they
help management allocate rewards (e.g., distribution of wages) and motivate employ-
ees to work in the interests of their employers.
22 NASSP Bulletin 104(1)

As stated earlier, the literature on performance appraisals focuses on identifying

meaningful attributes of the evaluators and evaluate (Ilgen et al., 1993) and on the
perceived acceptance of the appraisal process by employees (Pichler, 2012). However,
little has been done so far on the actual language of the regulations of performance
appraisals. Still this body of literature provides some insights about the type of labor
covered by performance appraisals. Occupations associated with complex and sepa-
rate tasks are more likely to be covered by performance appraisals (Brown & Heywood,
2005). In addition, research suggests that performance appraisals are characterized by
two rating models: objective measures of performance (those that are at least concep-
tually straightforward to measure) and subjective measures (those that are conceptu-
ally difficult to measure) of performance (Cappelli & Conyion, 2018).
The literature suggests that subjective appraisals are often biased, entangled in
manager-employee relations, cultural fitness, and other contingent factors (Frederiksen
et al., 2017; Meier & O’Toole, 2013). Prendergast and Topel (1993) argue that subjec-
tive appraisals are systemically biased and create an enabling environment where
managers’ preferences and biases lead to unfair rewards. Meier and O’Toole (2013)
also argue that subjective appraisals are mostly arbitrary and open a door for managers
to give preferential treatments to in-group members while underrating out-group
members. For that reason, we probed the issue of subjectivity in the content of TPA
and teased out, in the regulations provided by TPA, language aimed at preventing rat-
ing bias in the teacher performance evaluation.
So far, the body of literature on performance appraisals has been dominated by a
psychological interpretation of traditional and transactional appraisal processes and
outcomes, leading some scholars to hold a critical view of these processes (Levy &
Williams, 2004; Murphy & Cleveland, 1995). Many argue that performance appraisal
must also be studied from a social and institutional paradigm rather than from a cogni-
tive paradigm only. As such, this article aligns itself with the rationale of the aforemen-
tioned scholars by addressing the issue of teacher performance evaluation from an
institutional paradigm rather than from a cognitive one.

The Phasing out of Performance Appraisal

Increasingly, corporate organizations are phasing out transactional models of perfor-
mance appraisal and about 70% of multinational firms are replacing their transactional
appraisal model such as annual reviews with a summative appraisal model (Cappelli
& Tavis, 2016). Simply said, employers are moving away from a punishment-reward
culture. Evaluations are now being used by management to provide feedback and
improve employees’ professional development. One reason that could explain this
paradigm shift is that firms have realized that effective talent management is one of the
indicators and predictors of organizational efficiency and employee retention. They
have also come to terms with the fact that 95% of managers are not satisfied with their
organizations’ performance management processes (Meinert, 2015). According to the
Society for Human Resource Management, 66% of employees believe that the current
performance appraisal process interferes with their productivity and 65% of them do
Dandalt and Brutus 23

not believe that the feedback provided during or after the appraisal process is relevant
to their work (Meinert, 2015).
In consideration of such findings, some scholars (e.g., Cohens & Jenkins, 2010)
have called for organizations to stop the practice of transactional performance apprais-
als on the assumption that, in most organizations, they do more harm than good. These
scholars suggest that transactional and traditional performance appraisals should be
replaced with alternative talent management models such as coaching and feedback
(Cohens & Jenkins, 2010; Trost, 2017). This antitransactional view of performance
appraisals is also shared by many corporate organizations who believe that transac-
tional appraisals such as annual reviews are old fashioned and constitute one of the
antecedents of management distrust and workplace conflicts (Cappelli & Tavis, 2016).
However, while corporate organizations in Canada and other industrialized coun-
tries are shifting their appraisal culture from accountability to personnel development,
it appears that governments in those countries are doing the contrary when it comes to
issues of school staffing. But compared with Canada, the overemphasis on account-
ability is more pronounced in the educational reforms proposed by governments in
certain industrialized countries such as the United States (e.g., teacher merit pay, based
on student test scores). Still, provincial governments across Canada want school dis-
tricts to implement a traditional and transactional teacher performance evaluation
model centered on accountability while also acknowledging the necessity of such an
appraisal model to improve teachers’ professional development. Arguably, in intro-
ducing the TPA, the government of Ontario shares the same personnel development
view with today’s corporate approach while at the same time maintaining the old-
fashioned accountability appraisal culture in local school districts.

TPA Policy: Implementation Flaws

The TPA policy was adopted by provincial school districts in 2002 after the Ontario
government passed the Quality in the Classroom Act and amended the Education Act in
2001. The Education Act is the main statute governing Ontario public education juris-
diction. It has been amended a few times to address the changing educational priorities
of the province and sets the powers and responsibilities of all stakeholders (school
boards, educators, parents, students, ministry of education). The enactment of TPA was
part of Harris government’s public sector reform legislation, namely the Common-
Sense Revolution. This reform movement was an outcome of the Ontario government’s
efforts to implement the methods (e.g., performance standards, output controls, account-
ability, cost reduction) of New Public Management (NPM) in the public sector.
The NPM is a neoliberal managerial model that involves monitoring the public sec-
tor with corporate-like rules (Lorenz, 2012; Williams et al., 2012). Since being espoused
by the federal governments of Clark, Trudeau, and Mulroney in the 1980s, the NPM has
been adopted at the provincial level to make education and health care systems more
businesslike (Glor, 2001).
In Canada and the United States, the introduction of NPM methods in the manage-
rial culture of schools has been underscored by corporate practices such as teacher
24 NASSP Bulletin 104(1)

performance evaluations. In the past years, school boards in Ontario have sought to
evaluate teachers to ensure that students receive the benefit of a public school system
staffed by teachers who are carrying their instructional tasks satisfactorily (Larsen,
2009). Yet, since enacting the TPA, controversies have emerged around the implemen-
tation of this evaluation policy in provincial schools. A survey study by Larsen (2009)
on the intended and unintended effects of the implementation of the TPA, for example,
reveals that only 20% of teachers felt that the evaluation process was fair. Most of
those surveyed felt that the implementation of the TPA has not enhanced their profes-
sional development. Teachers complained that it was too time consuming to prepare
for an evaluation and that the appraisal process was frustrating. Concerns were raised
about the accuracy of the professional judgment of principals in rating teachers’ work
quality during classroom observations. As a result, Larsen (2009) concluded her study
by arguing that some significant limitations exist in the implementation of the TPA.
In the same vein, research conducted by Maharaj (2014) shows that the TPA is not
implemented fairly and is entangled by some challenges. A consideration of the above
rationale suggests that our case study is relevant and could potentially inform policy
makers (teacher unions, school boards, government, and other stakeholders) about
flaws in the TPA manual, thus, proving an argument for the need to increment this
evaluation regulation. Taking into account the above literature review, this case study
aims to address the question of whether the language of TPA presents significant
limitations.

Method
Findings of the above research (Larsen, 2009; Maharaj, 2014) on the implementation
of the TPA informed our decision to use Modernizing Accountability in the Public
Service (MAPS) for textual analytical framework. MAPS was introduced by the fed-
eral government in 2002 to address issues of unfairness in performance evaluation,
promotion, and staffing in the public sector. Although not intended for school staffing,
the five principles of MAPS provide a typology of fairness that we applied to analyze
the content of the TPA manual in depth.
Of the five principles used, the first principle argues that the roles and responsibilities
of those involved in the evaluation process should be clarified. The second principle sug-
gests that the expectations that public sector workers must achieve for promotion should
be clearly defined before proceeding with a performance evaluation. The third principle
argues that a balance should be found between the performance expectations that those
under evaluation must achieve and their capacities to meet those expectations. Applied
to the teaching occupation, it implies that teachers should not be tasked to achieve goals
that are not adequate with the limited resources that they have access to.
The fourth principle underlined in MAPS pertains to making credible reporting of
public sector workers’ achievement. It suggests that, after the completion of an evalu-
ation, those who are evaluated should be provided with credible and timely feedback
about what has been achieved. The fifth principle is a discursive extension of the
fourth principle and suggests that the outcome of the evaluation should underline the
Dandalt and Brutus 25

objectives that have not been achieved. In addition to applying those principles to
interpret the content of the TPA manual, we used a summative approach to identify and
compare underlying patterns in key texts. To identify those textual patterns in the TPA,
we employed the following five analytical steps:

1. Read the material three times without interruption.

2. Summarize the content of the material through the lens of MAPS principles.
3. List the strength and limitation of the language of the material.
4. Compare and contrast the limitation and strength of the language of the mate-
rial with the findings of existing literature on teacher performance
evaluations.
5. Discuss the overall interpretation and implication of the language of the
material.

Policy Review Findings and Discussion

A Clear Definition of the Role of Stakeholders
Our analysis of the content of the TPA manual reveals that the roles and responsibili-
ties of evaluation stakeholders are clearly defined. These stakeholders are the school
boards, supervisory officers, principals, vice-principals, and teachers. Yet the roles and
responsibilities of principals and teachers are defined in more depth than those of other
stakeholders. One reason that can explain this differential is that supervisory officers
and vice-principals are ascribed a secondary role in the evaluation process. Their par-
ticipation in the evaluation process is contingent on the unavailability of principals as
pointed out in section 277.17 and 277.18 of the Education Act. Teachers’ responsibili-
ties involve engaging in professional learning activities, participating in the school
leadership and community building, and commitment to students. This definition is
consistent with how the role of teachers has evolved in the 21st century, from a teacher-
centered role to a student-centered role.
Principals’ responsibilities involve assessing the performance of teachers assigned
to their school. They are provided with guidelines on how to prepare and conduct a
performance evaluation. Of these guidelines, the principal is advised to follow three
chronological procedures: pre-observation, classroom observation, and post-observa-
tion. The pre-observation phase consists of meeting with the teacher to prepare for the
classroom observation and to discuss the competencies that will be the focus of that
evaluation. The classroom observation involves rating the instructional practice and
leadership of teachers at work through principals’ professional personal judgment. The
post-observation phase consists of meeting with the teacher to provide feedback and
discuss the outcomes of the evaluation. Following these three aforementioned steps,
the principal is required to write and send a summative report of the evaluation result
to the school board.
A consideration of these procedural tasks suggests that the evaluation roles of prin-
cipals reflect Weber’s bureaucratic rationalism. Simply put, their roles are tied to the
26 NASSP Bulletin 104(1)

ideal type of legal-rational authority that characterizes the leadership habitus of mod-
ern organizations. According to Weber, legal-rational authority is a form of authority
whose legitimacy is bounded to established organizational and formal rules. Yet, judg-
ing by the language of the TPA, it appears that this bureaucratization of evaluation
provides principals with much say over the outcome of the evaluation. The rating
procedure is chiefly based on principals’ subjective interpretation of the quality of
teacher work. As mentioned in the manual, “The principal uses his or her professional
judgment in weighing the evidence and deciding on the rating of overall performance”
(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010, p. 35).
The use of principals’ professional judgment may not represent a major problem
but the lack of rules in the TPA to monitor this subjective procedure may lead to the
occurrence of arbitrary ratings. Some policy makers may argue that arbitrary evalua-
tions are less likely to occur because principals undergo rigorous training before being
assigned to manage a school. But this does not mean that such training absolutely
immunes them from making wrong and biased decisions. This thesis could be true
given that it has been credited by Larsen’s (2009) findings on the implementation of
TPA. Her findings suggest that teachers have doubts about the accuracy of the profes-
sional judgment of principals during classroom observations.
However, there are also some studies (Grissom & Loeb, 2017; Jacob & Lefgren,
2008; Taylor & Tyler, 2012) that suggest that using personal judgement when rating
teachers is not always a predictor of unfair outcomes. The result of Jacob and Lefgren’s
(2008) research on teacher evaluation at a midsize U.S. school district, for example,
shows that principals generally identified teachers who produced the largest and small-
est standardized achievement gains despite using their professional judgment. Findings
of Taylor and Tyler’s (2012) study of mid-career math teachers in the Cincinnati Public
Schools reveal that subjective evaluation by principals can spur teachers’ professional
growth. Grissom and Loeb’s (2017) study findings suggest that principals’ subjective
evaluation of teacher effectiveness in low- and high-stakes environments is quite posi-
tive. However, considering that these studies on principalship are mostly U.S. based,
we cannot speculate at this stage that principals’ professional judgment is a predictor
of accurate evaluation in Ontario.

A Professional Growth-Oriented Expectation

The language of TPA regarding performance expectations focuses on ensuring that the
outcome of evaluations will enhance teachers’ professional growth. What this means
is that the teacher evaluation is conceived as a summative measure. This summative
practice involves providing teachers with opportunities to complete professional
development programs regardless of their rating results. For example, when teacher
receive an unsatisfactory rating or is put on review status, they are required to com-
plete an Enrichment Plan or an Improvement Plan depending on their teaching senior-
ity. These professional development programs are designed by the principal with the
input of the teacher. The plans outline the different actions or steps that a teacher
should take to improve their performance level (see Ontario Ministry of Education,
Dandalt and Brutus 27

2010). Simply put, the TPA supports a participatory and democratic evaluation mecha-
nism. It conceives teachers both as evaluation subjects and contributors to the manage-
ment of the evaluation process.
However, despite this policy emphasis on teacher professional development, the
research conducted by Maharaj (2014) on this matter suggests that Ontarian teachers
believe that evaluations do not enhance their professional growth. This is not for the
first time that researchers have questioned the effectiveness of an evaluation system on
teacher professional growth. Some researchers in the developed world (Darling-
Hammond, 2017); Jensen, 2010; Taylor & Tyler, 2012) have also raised the same ques-
tion by arguing that the ubiquity of teacher performance evaluation in schools does not
always improve professional practices.
Darling-Hammond (2015) ascribes this shortcoming to the lack of resources to sus-
tain the appraisal system. School jurisdictions in the United States have often focused
on designing instruments for rating teachers without developing the structural ele-
ments needed to support an effective appraisal system. A survey study conducted by
Jensen (2010) on Australian teachers indicates that 61% of respondents stated that
teacher evaluations do not improve their practice. About 63% of respondents stated
that the evaluations were largely completed to fulfill administrative requirements and
that they were not provided with the necessary resources to improve their
professionalism.
Akin to the point raised by Darling-Hammond (2015) and other education research-
ers, our analysis of the content of TPA reveals that aside from mentioning the post-
evaluation professional development programs that teachers should undertake to
improve their practice (i.e., Annual Learning Plan, Improvement Plan, Enrichment
Plan), this regulation has fallen short of outlining the resources that Ontarian teachers
require to enhance their teaching quality. With that in mind, there is some dissonance
between the policy objectives and the means to achieve those objectives.
Furthermore, the TPA does not explicitly define the notion of professionalism in
detailed and measurable meanings. As a result, it may be confusing for teachers in
Ontario to monitor their professional growth. It may also be confusing for principals
to know what can be counted as effective professional knowledge. This lack of clarity
in meanings represents a limitation considering that some researchers such as Bates
et al. (2011) have argued that professionalism is a vague concept on which there is
little consensus. It is contingently constructed, not always evidence-based, and not
very explicit. Cohen and Goldhaber (2016) note that even when the meaning of profes-
sionalism is explicitly stated, classroom observations will always be susceptible to
subjectivity. This contingency is also pointed out by Tschannen-Moran (2009) who
noted in her work that there are elements of professionalization that go beyond the
school workplace. Where certainty about practice does not exist, educators will con-
tinually seek to discover the most responsible course of action.
Moreover, the emphasis of TPA on professional development suggests that the goal
of the government and teacher unions is about building communities of learning.
Other employment policies such as the New Teacher Induction Program, Teacher
Learning and Leadership Program, and the Ontario Leadership Framework make the
28 NASSP Bulletin 104(1)

same emphasis. The Teacher Learning and Leadership Program, for instance, was
developed by the Ministry of Education and the Ontario Leadership Framework to
support teachers undertaking self-directed professional development and to help them
share their instructional leadership practices with their peers. The emphasis put on
professional development is not only peculiar to the TPA, evaluation policies in other
provinces have also adopted the same tone (e.g. The Teacher Growth, Supervision and
Evaluation Policy of Alberta). But compared with Ontario, not all provinces have har-
monized their teacher evaluation system. All in all, the principle of clarifying perfor-
mance expectations is not fully encapsulated in the language of TPA.

A Limited Discourse on Credible Reporting

The language of TPA appears to make no textual reference on the need to address the
risks of potential principals’ unconscious bias from affecting teacher ratings. This lack of
antibias guidelines needs to be addressed considering that teachers’ employment termi-
nation is tied to principals’ personal professional judgment. Critical studies on staffing
diversity in Ontarian public schools show that the workplace environment of those orga-
nizations is not inclusive enough (e.g., Guppy & Lyon, 2012). This is not a negligible
matter considering that minority teachers represent 10% of the province’s 70,520 sec-
ondary school teachers and 9% of the 117,905 elementary school teachers. But in raising
the above concern, we are not suggesting that minority teachers are unfairly evaluated by
principals since no study has been conducted on the intersectionality of teacher perfor-
mance evaluation in Ontario, and that the Education Act requires that school boards
provide an inclusive and accepting working environment for everyone regardless of sex,
social positioning, and race. In addition, school districts operate under a collective bar-
gaining system that values diversity, fairness, and multiculturalism.
School districts in other provinces also operate under a collective bargaining sys-
tem that promotes diversity staffing and prohibits discrimination at work as per the
Employment Equity, Canadian Human Rights, and Canadian Multiculturalism Acts.
However, judging by the rationale developed by evaluation scholars, the silence of
TPA on evaluation bias represents a concern considering that the rating of teachers is
tied to principals’ personal professional judgment (see Frederiksen et al., 2017; Meier
& O’Toole, 2013; Prendergast & Topel, 1993). For that reason, we suggest that
research should be conducted on the effect of principals’ professional judgment on
minority teachers’ experience with the evaluation process in Ontario.
The same research could also be extended to investigating the intersectionality of
credible evaluation reporting in other Canadian school jurisdictions. Doing so could
help policy makers and researchers to develop a better understanding of the implica-
tion of systemic discrimination on teacher retention in the Canadian education work-
force because a U.S.-based study from researchers Drake et al (2019) shows that the
ratings of teachers are influenced by principals’ implicit biases. As a result, minority
teachers were 50% more likely than their White colleagues in the same school to
receive a poor evaluation rating. In the same vein, research by Grissom and Loeb
(2017) on unfair evaluation outcomes shows that higher lower-rating frequencies
Dandalt and Brutus 29

among teachers of color were tied to the subjective nature of classroom observations
and principals’ unconscious bias.
In addition to the above limitations, the TPA does not cover contractual teachers
and continuing education teachers (see Ontario Ministry of Education, 2010). Thus, it
could be argued that the teacher evaluation system in Ontario is not fully harmonized.
Permanent teachers may be the only teaching workforce who have access to standard-
ized evaluation procedures. For the sake of organizational justice, appraisal guidelines
dealing with contingent teachers should also be included in the TPA. Doing so will
ensure that the staffing system related to performance appraisals is equal to everyone.
Some policy makers may disagree with our argument for incremental TPA changes
and argue that the Ontario Regulation 274/12 provides some guidelines to evaluate
contractual teachers. The Ontario Regulation 274/12 was enacted by the provincial
government in September 2012 under the Education Act to promote a consistent,
transparent, and fair hiring process for contractual teachers. But compared with the
TPA, the procedures of that employment legislation on teacher performance evalua-
tion are underdeveloped. All things being equal, the above review result infers that the
language of TPA on the principle of credible reporting is limited.

Implications for Evaluation Policy Incremental

The findings of this case study infer that employment policies regulating teacher per-
formance evaluations in Ontario are underdeveloped. The limitations of TPA under-
score some of the flaws addressed in past teacher perspective-based studies on the
quality of the provincial teacher evaluation system and the general literature on the
component of principals’ professional judgment (Larsen, 2009; Maharaj, 2014). It is
important for education policy makers to address those procedural flaws. However, in
arguing for the need for incremental policy change, this article does not suggest that
the current teacher evaluation system is completely inadequate and flawed.
Addressing issues of procedural evaluations is not a task that only policy makers in
Ontario or other provinces need to undertake. Policy makers in the United States need
also to increment their teaching evaluation system considering that studies (Cohen &
Goldhaber, 2016; Darling-Hammond, 2015; Pogodzinski et al., 2015) suggest that the
teacher evaluations have been a source of collective bargaining controversies in the
United States. Cohen and Goldhaber (2016) and Darling-Hammond (2015) argue for
the need for education policy makers to improve the systems of teacher performance
evaluations for more accuracy, transparency and fairness. Yet none of the above
researchers or we have come closer to designing and proposing the one best way of
accurately evaluating teachers. Accordingly, more research is needed on developing
the best managerial practices and procedures to evaluate teacher performance.
Moreover, a consideration of TPA flaws and the findings of existing studies on
teacher performance evaluation in Ontario provides a bargaining rationale for teacher
unions to consider renegotiating the terms and conditions of teacher evaluations with
respective school boards and the government (Larsen, 2009; Maharaj, 2014).
Renegotiating the terms and conditions of teacher performance evaluation is essential
30 NASSP Bulletin 104(1)

to improve the transparency of all evaluation procedures. As argued by Stodolsky

(1984), there are many challenges in evaluating teacher performance, and classroom
observations alone may not provide enough information to the principals to fully
understand the context of teachers’ practice.
Therefore, evaluation ratings based on classroom observations may not completely
represent teachers’ performance. Should then teacher unions pressure school boards
and the government to develop an alternative appraisal system that is more quantita-
tive based? Not necessarily, given that research suggests that quantitative-based rat-
ings such as considering student test scores or value-added modeling do not always
accurately identify more and less effective teachers (Baker et al., 2010; Darling-
Hammond, 2017).
Perhaps, the best course of actions for teacher unions is to bargain for the adoption
of evaluation practices that lead to strengthening trust between principals and teachers.
Unions could also bargain for the overhaul of the current rigid bureaucratic orientation
that overemphasizes the authority of principals (Tschannen-Moran, 2009). Simply put,
there is a need to question the implementation of some of the managerial methods of
NPM in today’s school administration.
But in calling for teacher unions to bargain for the incremental of TPA, we do not
suggest that these organizations have or are doing nothing to address the issue of
teacher performance evaluation in Ontario, considering that the existing literature
(e.g., Rose, 2002, 2015) on labor relations in education suggests that in Canada teacher
unions have and are opposing the government’s accountability evaluation measures.
These bargaining organizations share the same perspective with the scholars (Cohens
& Jenkins, 2010; Trost, 2017) who have called for the overhaul and abolishment of
traditional and transactional performance appraisal systems in contemporary
organizations.

Conclusion
In response to the main research question of this article, the above review findings
suggest that the TPA contains some flaws. Thus, the ubiquity of flaws in the Ontario
teacher performance evaluation system is not only limited to appraisal practices but is
also embedded in evaluation regulations or policies. But these findings cannot be gen-
eralized because they do not represent the perspective of teachers about TPA. For that
reason, it would be necessary for researchers to explore the perception of teachers of
TPA. Doing so is important considering that most studies on teacher performance
evaluation focus on measuring or exploring the attitudes of teachers towards the evalu-
ators (e.g., principals) rating their performance rather than on the policies regulating
the process of performance appraisals per se. The perceptions of teachers as related to
evaluation regulations need to be explored because research shows that teachers are
the most affected by the outcomes of performance appraisals. This call for a new
approach in examining the quality of teacher performance evaluation system is not
only directed to Canadian researchers but also to education scholars in other industri-
alized countries.
Dandalt and Brutus 31

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

ORCID iD
Ed Dandalt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0522-6426

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11.633275

Author Biographies
Ed Dandalt is a research fellow at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University,
Canada. He completed his PhD from McGill University. His research centers on the intersection
of technology and the organization of work, and employment relations in education.
Stephane Brutus is the Royal Bank of Canada Chair at the John Molson School of Business.
His research centers on performance appraisal, feedback, employee selection, and managerial
development.