| Summary: | <p> Despite teacher evaluation reforms, there is little evidence of improvements in the quality of teachers’ performance or in student achievement. This raises questions of principals’ implementation of teacher evaluations, and how evaluation-related practices are implemented and utilized within schools to meet the dual purposes of evaluations as an accountability measure and to improve teacher performance. Principals’ implementation of teacher evaluations and using the subsequent data to drive improvement is dependent upon their content and pedagogical knowledge and understanding of and experience with teacher effectiveness, evaluations, and evaluation-related practices. In addition, principals’ biases and perspectives, framing, experience and ability, training, time, and position influence how they make sense of, analyze, interpret, and integrate evaluations within their buildings. This phenomenological study uses sensemaking theory to uncover charter school leaders’ authentic experiences as they interpret evaluations as a policy initiative, determine how to balance the accountability component with their existing school goals and instructional values, and how (and if) they use information derived from evaluation rubrics to design and implement professional learning to support teacher performance. Specifically, I ask: <i>What are charter school leaders’ experiences gathering data to drive teacher evaluation decisions? And What are charter school leaders’ experiences using teacher evaluation data to facilitate growth in teacher performance?</i> Findings indicate that leaders see promise in evaluations to support teacher growth, yet seek greater autonomy in evaluating teachers due to constrictions of evaluation framework design and of summative reporting. </p><p>
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