Student evaluations of faculty

There's an interesting article in Social Science Quarterly this month that reports the results of a study of bias in student evaluations of faculty. The article, Leveling the Playing Field: Should Student Evaluation Scores be Adjusted? by Michael A. McPherson and R. Todd Jewell presents some interesting findings:

• teachers can "buy" better evaluation scores by inflating students' grade expectations
• the teaching experience of instructors has an impact on evaluation scores, but this effect is largely an increase in the score of faculty who have received tenure
• there is a bias against nonwhite faculty