Implementation—Consider This
ESEA Flexibility Principle 3 Toolkit
Version 1.0 — February 6, 2012
By Circe Stumbo, West Wind Education Policy Inc.
Your ESEA Flexibility request must describe the ways in which you will ensure that LEAs implement
teacher and principal evaluation and support systems. This involves your process for piloting, guiding,
supporting, and monitoring district systems.
An entire subsection of Principle 3 in the application for ESEA Flexibility is devoted to implementation of
your system of evaluation and support. This is critically important. A recent review of the literature on
principal evaluation found, “Implementation trumped instrumentation in terms of how well evaluations
were conducted, how evaluation processes were perceived by principals, and how connected effective
evaluations were to promoting the principals' professional growth.”1 For as much time as we have spent
thinking about the indicators and measures of effectiveness, we must spend even more time helping to
make sure the systems are implemented to scale. This is no small task.
How will your system provide the accountability, guidance, and support to LEAs to make sure the state’s
vision is implemented? How will you describe this in your application for Flexibility?
Reflection
The ESEA Flexibility request reflects a growing recognition on the part of the U.S. Department of
Education (USED) that the challenge of taking reform to scale is significant. In the application, states
have an opportunity to demonstrate your vision for how to guide and support implementation in ways
that lead to faster and more effective uptake system-wide.
In a review of research on implementation science, the National Implementation Research Network
(NRIN) has discerned several contextual factors and drivers that promote implementation to scale. The
research indicates that when implemented without attention these factors, it takes an estimated
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Lessons from Research Guide the Development of Effective Principal Evaluation Systems
This document provides reflections for states to consider as you are designing or refining your systems of
educator evaluation and support. While this document and the Toolkit are organized around ESEA
Flexibility’s Principle 3, we believe they will be helpful whether or not you are applying for Flexibility.
Please note that there is no guarantee that addressing all of these considerations will ensure your waiver
application will be approved, but USED has indicated they intend to work with states toward approval.
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average of 17 years for only 14% of new scientific discoveries to enter day-to-day clinical practice (Balas
& Boren, 2000).2 With the use of effective implementation supports, over 80% of studied
implementation sites were able to reach full implementation in only 3.6 years.3
NIRN’s State Implementation & Scaling-up of Evidence-based Practices Center has been working with
state education agencies to test out the lessons learned in the research review. Several key
implementation supports are described below:

Implementation Teams: Gearing up a new system in a time of scarce resources at both the
state and local levels will require personnel to do their work different and/or to do different
work. Consider organizing a transformation team at the state level that interacts with and
support implementation teams at the regional, district, and school levels. In state with regional
educational service centers, consider engaging them as your regional implementation
infrastructure, with a focus on coaching local implementation teams.

Training: Training is one of several key “implementation drivers.”4 The application for flexibility
recognizes the important role of training when implementing new systems. “To ensure highquality implementation, all teachers, principals, and evaluators should be trained on the
evaluation system and their responsibilities in the evaluation system.”5 Refer back to your plans
in section 3.A that describe the trainings you will conduct for evaluators—and be sure that you
also address how you will orient and train those being evaluated to the system. Consider
partnering with your teacher and administrator associations to ensure everyone affected by the
system is oriented, and even in providing trainings on the processes.

Improvement Cycles and Transformation Zones: Many states will engage pilots to test out the
evaluation and support system. Consider designing your pilots in ways that not only allow you
to test out the instrumentation of your system, but also to build capacity and support the
process of policy refinement. Transformation Zones—and within that, the “PEP-PIP”6
improvement cycle—may be especially helpful. A Transformation Zone is a vertical slice of the
system that is small enough to be manageable and large enough to include nearly all the
relevant aspects of the current system.
o
Organized carefully, pilots in a Transformation Zone allow all stakeholders and policy
makers to make adjustments in policies and instrumentation throughout the pilot such
that barriers are eliminated across the system before the pilot has completed.
o
Make connections in your application between the section on implementation and your
discussion of stakeholder engagement. If you build in a system of input and feedback
2
Balas EA, Boren SA. Yearbook of Medical Informatics: Managing Clinical Knowledge for Health Care Improvement.
Stuttgart, Germany: Schattauer Verlagsgesellschaft mbH; 2000.
3
Fixsen, D. L., Blase, K. A., Timbers, G. D., & Wolf, M. M. (2001). In search of program implementation: 792
replications of the Teaching-Family Model. In G. A. Bernfeld, D. P. Farrington & A. W. Leschied (Eds.), Offender
rehabilitation in practice: Implementing and evaluating effective programs (pp. 149-166). London: Wiley.
4
Implementation drivers include recruitment and selection, training, coaching and consultation, systems-level
partnerships, facilitative administration, and decision support data systems.
5
U.S. Department of Education, ESEA Flexibility, page 5, emphasis added.
6
PEP-PIP = “Policy-Enabled Practice—Practice-Informed Policy”
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loops for stakeholder engagement, this is precisely the sort of system that would be in
use in a Transformation Zone.
o

Staffed appropriately, the work in a Transformation Zone builds systemwide knowledge
of the reform and its implementation, creating a deeper capacity to take promising and
effective practices to scale.
Data Systems: Another key implementation driver is decision management data systems.
These are systems that are available for decision-making at every level of the system. This is not
just a question of compliance; a key aspect of successful implementation is the use of data from
evaluations to inform supports. States may be facing a technical challenge when upgrading their
reporting infrastructure to incorporate the evaluation and support system. Many states have
data systems that allow for district reporting of indicators such as attendance, transcripts, highly
qualified teacher status for NCLB, and the like. States may be able to piggy back on those
systems to collect information about teacher and principal evaluations. However, the ability of
data systems to track student performance on standardized exams and connect them to
teachers and principals may be more difficult. States may want to report in this section how
they will be helping districts to manage their data.
Questions to Consider
As you develop your vision and plan for articulating the ways and means the state is engaging various
stakeholders, in addition to the questions that are outlined in the ESEA Flexibility request about your
system of evaluation (see the Toolkit’s compilation of Implementation Review Guidance), you may wish
to consider these questions:
1. How will you demonstrate your understanding of the heavy lift of implementation?
2. What is your process for ensuring that each LEA develops a high-quality local teacher and
principal evaluation and support system?
3. What is your process for ensuring that each LEA adopts a high-quality local teacher and principal
evaluation and support system?
4. What is your process for ensuring that each LEA pilots a high-quality local teacher and principal
evaluation and support system? How will you use the opportunity for piloting to also determine
state-level policies and practices that must change to support this effort?
5. What is your process for ensuring that each LEA implements a high-quality local teacher and
principal evaluation and support system?
a. What supports will you provide to your LEAs (training, networks, data systems, etc.)?
b. How might you partner with statewide associations—particularly teacher and
administrator associations—to share the process of engaging feedback loops,
information?
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6. What is your process for ensuring that each LEA involves teachers and principals in the design
and implementation of their local teacher and principal evaluation and support system?
Additional Information
See Implementation—State Examples for ideas about how states are describing and communicating
how they are engaging their stakeholders.
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