This book is based on author James H. Stronge's 20-plus years of consulting with school districts and other educational organizations in designing, piloting, and training educators in the use of teacher-performance evaluation systems. Its primary purpose is to help both teachers and their evaluators collect more comprehensive and accurate assessment data for judging teacher effectiveness.

The author provides field-tested teacher-evaluation systems based on performance standards which include data collection tools and performance appraisal rubrics.