Education quality is a concern for the New Zealand community and there are various views about how it can be achieved. There is significant support for the view that excellence in teaching is the key to quality education, and therefore teacher appraisal has become an increasingly important issue. Two broad schools of thought on teacher appraisal can be identified, and they are based on different assumptions about teachers and the nature of the teaching task. In this article I have called these two perspectives the bureacratic managerial perspectice, and the professional perspective. In reviewing teacher foundational issues, ethical issues, and affective issues. In concluding this article, the implications of these issues are explored for educational leadership, particularly in the context of the recent educational reforms in New Zealand.