Using Performance on the Job to Inform Teacher Tenure Decisions

Race to the Top encourages states to adopt policies that measure the impact of individual teachers on student learning and use those measures to inform human capital decisions including tenure and compensation. As a number of states begin to revamp their tenure-granting policies, the idea that high-stakes personnel decisions need to be linked to direct measures of teacher effectiveness is gaining traction among education policymakers. Contributing to the debate about policies that can enhance the quality of teachers, this brief evaluates how well early-career performance signals teacher effectiveness after tenure.

[American Economic Review 100(2):250–255 (2010)]