House Joint Resolution 129, adopted by the 1974 session of the General Assembly, directed the Department of Education and the Board of Education to conduct a study into the problems associated with teacher evaluation and to report to the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health regarding the (1) nature and dimensions of the problems, (2) efforts at teacher evaluation made in other states and in Virginia, including pilot projects, and (3) reasons for their success or failure and to (4) recommend possible direction for the Joint Committees to further the study with a view towards possibly establishing an effective and fair system of evaluating teachers in Virginia's public schools and of basing salary scales, promotions and continued employment on the results of such evaluations.

A committee was formed and met on June 21, 1974. It reviewed earlier studies on evaluation and merit pay, including a study on merit pay that was made in 1962 pursuant to a request of the General Assembly (SJR 47).

It discussed the Standards of Quality requirement for evaluating teachers, principals, central office personnel, and other school employees and determined the areas to be included in the report on the study requested by the 1974 General. Assembly.

A preliminary draft of the report was distributed to the Committee and was discussed in detail at a meeting held on September 26, 1974. Suggestions agreed to by the Committee at this meeting are included in this report.