Teachers

In the face of unavoidable teacher layoffs, policymakers must juggle a variety of issues in choosing the best criteria for laying off teachers. The standard approach in most school districts relies on measures of seniority. Analyzing data on 4th and 5th grade teachers in New York City public schools, CALDER researchers find substantial differences in which teachers get cut under a seniority-based layoff policy versus a policy based on teacher effectiveness (value-added). The authors model the two layoff scenarios to respond to a (fictional) budget shortfall equivalent. The bottom line is that informing teacher layoffs with information about effectiveness, while not perfect, can improve student performance.

Search theory suggests early career job changes lead to better matches that benefit both workers and firms, but this may not hold true in teacher labor markets characterized by salary rigidities, barriers to entry, and substantial differences in working conditions. Education policy makers are particularly concerned that teacher turnover may have adverse effects on the quality of instruction in schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children. Although these schools experience higher turnover, on average, than other schools, the impact on the quality of instruction depends on whether more productive teachers are more likely to depart. In Texas, the availability of matched panel data of students and teachers enables the isolation of teachers' contributions to achievement. Teachers who remain in their school tend to outperform those who leave, particularly those who exit Texas public schools entirely. This gap is larger for schools serving mainly low income students— evidence that high turnover is not nearly as damaging as many suggest.

This study is the first to exploit policy variation within the same state to examine the effects of school accountability on tacher job changes. Using student-level data from Florida State the authors measure the degree to which schools and teachers were "surprised" by the change in the school grading system (in summer of 2002)— what they refer to as an "accountability shock"— by observing the mobility decisions of teachers in the years before and after the school grading change. They find over half of all schools in the state experience an accountability "shock" due to this grading change. Also, teachers are more likely to leave schools facing increased accountability pressure— and even more likely to leave schools shocked downward to a grade of "F". They are less likely to leave schools facing decreased accountability pressure. Moreover, schools facing increased pressure experience an increase in the quality of teachers who leave or stay and schools with no accontability shock experience no significant change to the quality of teachers that leave or stay.

There are more than 19,000 nonprofit organizations devoted to supporting public education in the United States. These organizations include booster clubs, parent-teacher groups, public education funds, scholarship funds, high school alumni associations, and others. This report assesses the current status of education support organizations; provides details on the activities, capacities, and resources of public education funds; and compares Public Education Network member organizations with other types of education funds. On the basis of a survey of public education funds and an analysis of the latest data available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, the report identifies key similarities and differences among the groups.

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. 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 over policies that enhance teacher quality, this brief evaluates how well early-career performance signals teacher effectiveness after tenure.