The Personnel Evaluation Standards is intended to support personnel evaluation practices in schools and universities. Instructors and administrators alike may find the standards beneficial for developing both assessment practices at their own schools, as well as workshops or training on how to assess school personnel. A summary of the standards is provided below as an introduction to the main topics of concern in school personnel evaluation.
It is recommended that the those intending to engage in personnel evaluation reference the full book, which includes detailed application instructions and real-world case studies. It is available from Corwin Press and a variety of sellers on Amazon.com.
Standards Statements
Propriety Standards
The Propriety Standards are intended to ensure that a personnel evaluation will be conducted legally, ethically, and with due regard for the welfare of the evaluatee and those involved in the evaluation.
- P1 Service Orientation Personnel evaluations should promote sound education, fulfillment of institutional missions, and effective performance of job responsibilities, so that the educational needs of students, community, and society are met.
- P2 Appropriate Policies and Procedures Guidelines for personnel evaluations should be recorded and provided to the evaluatee in policy statements, negotiated agreements, and/or personnel evaluation manuals, so that evaluations are consistent, equitable, and fair.
- P3 Access to Evaluation Information Access to evaluation information should be limited the persons with established legitimate permission to review and use the information, so that confidentiality is maintained and privacy protected.
- P4 Interactions with Evaluatees The evaluator should respect human dignity and act in a professional, considerate, and courteous manner, so that the evaluatee’s self-esteem, motivation, professional reputations, performance, and attitude toward personnel evaluation are enhanced or, at least, not needlessly damaged.
- P5 Balanced Evaluation Personnel evaluations should provide information that identifies both strengths and weaknesses, so that strengths can be built upon and weaknesses addressed.
- P6 Conflict of Interest Existing and potential conflicts of interest should be identified and dealt with openly and honestly, so that they do not compromise the evaluation process and results.
- P7 Legal Viability Personnel evaluations should meet the requirements of all federal, state, and local laws, as well as case law, contracts, collective bargaining agreements, affirmative action policies, and local board policies and regulations or institutional statutes or bylaws, so that evaluators can successfully conduct fair, efficient, and responsible personnel evaluations.
Utility Standards
The Utility Standards are intended to guide evaluations so that they will be informative, timely, and influential.
- U1 Constructive Orientation Personnel evaluations should be constructive, so that they not only help institutions develop human resources but encourage and assist those evaluated to provide excellent services in accordance with the institution’s mission statements and goals.
- U2 Defined Uses Both the users and intended uses of a personnel evaluation should be identified at the beginning of the evaluation so that the evaluation can address appropriate questions and issues.
- U3 Evaluator Qualifications The evaluation system should be developed, implemented, and managed by persons with the necessary qualifications, skills, training, and authority, so that evaluation reports are properly conducted, respected and used.
- U4 Explicit Criteria Evaluators should identify and justify the criteria used to interpret and judge evaluatee performance, so that the basis for interpretation and judgment provide a clear and defensible rationale for results.
- U5 Functional Reporting Reports should be clear, timely, accurate, and germane, so that they are of practical value to the evaluatee and other appropriate audiences.
- U6 Professional Development Personnel evaluations should inform users and evaluatees of areas in need of professional development, so that all educational personnel can better address the institution’s missions and goals, fulfill their roles and responsibilities, and meet the needs of students.
Feasibility Standards
The Feasibility Standards are intended to guide personnel evaluation systems so that they are as easy to implement as possible, efficient in their use of time and resources, adequately funded, and viable from a political standpoint.
- F1 Practical Procedures Personnel evaluation procedures should be practical, so that they produce the needed information in efficient, non-disruptive ways.
- F2 Political Viability Personnel evaluations should be planned and conducted with the anticipation of questions from evaluatees and others with a legitimate right to know, so that their questions can be addressed and their cooperation obtained.
- F3 Fiscal Viability Adequate time and resources should be provided for personnel evaluation activities, so that evaluation can be effectively implemented, the results fully communicated, and appropriate follow-up activities identified.
Accuracy Standards
The accuracy standards determine whether an evaluation has produced sound information. Personnel evaluations must be technically adequate and as complete as possible to allow sound judgments and decisions to be made. The evaluation methodology should be appropriate for the purpose of the evaluation and the evaluatees being evaluated and the context in which they work.
- A1 Validity Orientation The selection, development, and implementation of personnel evaluations should ensure that the interpretations made about the performance of the evaluatee are valid and not open to misinterpretation.
- A2 Defined Expectations The qualifications, role, and performance expectations of the evaluatee should be clearly defined, so that the evaluator can determine the evaluation data and information needed to ensure validity.
- A3 Analysis of Context Contextual variables that influence performance should be identified, described, and recorded, so that they can be considered when interpreting an evaluatee’s performance.
- A4 Documented Purposes and Procedures The evaluation purposes and procedures, both planned and actual, should be documented, so that they can be clearly explained and justified.
- A5 Defensible Information The information collected for personnel evaluations should be defensible, so that the information can be reliably and validly interpreted.
- A6 Reliable Information Personnel evaluation procedures should be chosen or developed and implemented to assure reliability, so that the information obtained will provide consistent indications of the evaluatee’s performance.
- A7 Systematic Data Control The information collected, processed, and reported about evaluatees should be systematically reviewed, corrected as appropriate, and kept secure, so that accurate judgments about the evaluatee’s performance can be made and appropriate levels of confidentiality maintained.
- A8 Bias Identification and Management Personnel evaluations should be free of bias, so that interpretations of the evaluatee’s qualifications or performance are valid.
- A9 Analysis of Information The information collected for personnel evaluations should be systematically and accurately analyzed, so that the purposes of the evaluation are effectively achieved.
- A10 Justified Conclusions The evaluative conclusions about the evaluatee’s performance should be explicitly justified, so that evaluatees and others with a legitimate right to know can have confidence in them.
- A11 Metaevaluation Personnel evaluation systems should be examined periodically using these and other appropriate standards, so that mistakes are prevented or detected and promptly corrected, and sound personnel evaluation practices are developed and maintained over time.
Copyright & Citation
The standard names and statements, as reproduced above, are under copyright to the JCSEE and are approved as an American National Standard. Permission is freely given for stakeholders to use them for educational and scholarly purposes with attribution to the JCSEE. Authors wishing to reproduce the standard names and standard statements with attribution to the JCSEE may do so after notifying the JCSEE of the specific publication or reproduction.
The full work should be cited as follows:
Gullickson, A.R., & Howard, B.B. (2009). The Personnel Evaluation Standards: How to assess systems for evaluating educators (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.