Leading Change in Hillsborough County Public Schools

In August 2010, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), in Tampa, Florida, began implementing one of the most ambitious and comprehensive teacher evaluation systems in the United States. Covering all of the district‘s 12,000 K-12 teachers, the new system included three components: peer and mentor evaluations, principal evaluation, and student learning gains using value-added measures. These multiple measures of teacher effectiveness represented a significant break from the former evaluation system, which relied solely on principal input. The new system also required that all teachers be observed at least three times per year, a marked contrast from the time when tenured teachers required observation once every three years.