The purpose of this study was to determine if there are personal and demographic characteristics which can predict the most accurate teacher appraisers. The demographics were limited to the following: campus-level job assignment, employing district size, sex, race, number of years of experience as an administrator, previous level of teaching experience, and curriculum area taught by the appraiser. The 622 subjects were school administrators trained to utilize the Texas Teacher Appraisal System. The data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. Where an independent variable was significant (.05), a follow-up ANOVA and Tukey's multiple comparison were employed. Based on the findings of this study the following conclusions were drawn: 1. A summary data set indicated there was little evidence that any of the demographic variables was a significant predictor of accuracy in the evaluation process. 2. Six different data sets indicated that varying instructional settings and methodologies can influence evaluator accuracy. The campus assignment, years of experience, content area taught, race, and sex of the appraisers were all identified in at least one of the exercise sets as having significance. Except for sex and race, none of the variables was found to be significant when the overall prediction equation with all …

The problem of this study was to determine the perceived impact of the Texas Career Ladder Plan upon the motivational levels of teachers. The purposes were to determine: the impact of the Texas Career Ladder Plan as an incentive for improved job performance; the strengths and weaknesses of the current Texas Career Ladder Plan; the types of incentives that teachers believe would motivate them to perform better; and the suggestions that teachers have to modify the current Texas Career Ladder Plan. An opinionnaire was developed to obtain data pertinent to the perceived impact of the Texas Career Ladder Plan in providing incentives for improved job performance. A random sample of 500 elementary school teachers and 500 secondary school teachers was selected from the personnel rosters of the participating schools. Data from 92 percent of the subjects sampled was achieved. A descriptive analysis was used to interpret data collected in this study. The findings indicated that the Texas Career Ladder Plan has had no impact or a perceived negative impact upon the motivational levels of teachers as indicated by 14 of the opinionnaire items surveyed. There was a perceived positive impact upon the motivational levels of teachers as indicated by eight …

The problem of the study was to ascertain the perceptions of high school personnel and students regarding the effectiveness and implementation of the educational reforms and the No-Pass, No-Play section in Texas House Bill 72 and compare them to changes in reported student academic performances. Questionnaires were mailed to a stratified random sample of fifteen high schools in Texas. Six persons were asked to respond at each school. The sample consisted of ninety participants. In addition, each school provided forty student grade profiles, twenty from 1984 and twenty from 1986. The instrument, "Questionnaire on Texas Educational Reform Legislation, Extracurricular Activities and No-Pass, No-Play," had eighteen questions. Questions one and two provided demographic data for the study. Questions three through eighteen assessed the perceptions of high school personnel and students regarding educational reforms and the "No-Pass, No-Play" rules. Hypotheses one through four used chi-square Tests of Independence to determine the significance among variables. Hypothesis five used a t value to measure the comparison of the grade-point averages from 1984 and 1986. Hypothesis six compared the result of hypothesis five and a z value generated from a comparison of a percentage of participant responses and the neutral value. The findings were that …