School districts with successful teacher evaluation programs all treat evaluation as a major district responsibility, allocate considerable resources to evaluation, carry out the programs as planned, keep administrators and teachers well informed about the plan, develop methods for ensuring the competence of evaluators, and use the evaluation results. These conclusions were drawn following a survey of 32 school districts across the nation with highly developed teacher evaluation programs, and after further, intensive study of four of the most advanced districts: Salt Lake City, Utah; Lake Washington, Washington; Greenwich, Connecticut; and Toledo, Ohio. The four systems differed, but were similar in sharing the traits found to be common in successful programs. It was concluded that five factors were critical to the development of an effective program: (1) the teacher evaluation system must suit the educational goals, management style, and community values of the school district; (2) the district must be willing to commit time and money to evaluation; (3) the district must establish the goals for its program and design the program accordingly; (4) the program must be useful to the district, to the school community, and to the community at large; and (5) teachers must be involved and given responsibility. (PGD)