Teacher Turnover, Tenure Policies, and the Distribution of Teacher Quality

The full report can be found at:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/pdf/teacher_attrition.pdf

Research is continuing to prove what many have known for years. High quality teachers can have a significant influence on student achievement. Recently, there has been an increased focus on the distribution of effective teachers in high poverty and low poverty schools and the pattern of gross inequities in teacher assignments. A report by the Center for American Progress, Teacher Turnover, Tenure Policies, and the Distribution of Teacher Quality focuses on three aspects of this problem: (1) the distribution of teacher quality, (2) teacher turnover, and (3) tenure policies.

The report highlights the challenges in measuring teacher quality and notes that the characteristics of teachers that are most often tracked for hiring decisions and compensation systems (e.g., academic major, advanced degrees, years of experience) explain only about 3 percent of the variation in student achievement. Researchers and policy makers are turning to new measures afforded by improvements in information technology and the proliferation of data from state-sponsored achievement tests. While these "value-added" measures have limitations, they offer promise for documenting inequities in the distribution of teacher quality. The report notes that the qualifications of teachers typically differ, often dramatically so, between high-poverty and low-poverty schools where low-income students have less access to highly effective teachers. This is exacerbated by the attrition and mobility patterns of teachers which are often higher in low performing schools. The authors also review the current literature regarding tenure policies. They report that the evidence suggests that earning tenure is unrelated to a teacher's ability to positively impact student achievement. Therefore, they conclude that it is important to explore changes in tenure policy to increase low-income students' access to effective teachers.