Recent State Action on Teacher Effectiveness

During the 2010, 2011, and 2012 legislative sessions, a combination of federal policy incentives and newly elected governors and legislative majorities in many states following the 2010 elections sparked a wave of legislation addressing teacher effectiveness. More than 20 states passed legislation designed to address educator effectiveness by mandating annual evaluations based in part on student learning and linking evaluation results to key personnel decisions, including tenure, reductions in force, dismissal of underperforming teachers, and retention. In many cases states passed multiple laws, with later laws building on previous legislation, and also promulgated regulations to implement legislation. A few states acted through regulation only.

To view/download individual state reports (PDF files), click any of the states in green above.

In an effort to help policymakers, educators, and the public better understand how this flurry of legislative activity shifted the landscape on teacher effectiveness issues—both nationally and at the state level—Bellwether Education Partners analyzed recent teacher effectiveness legislation, regulation, and supporting policy documents from 21 states that took major legislative or regulatory action on teacher effectiveness in the past three years. This analysis builds on a previous analysis of teacher effectiveness legislation in five states that Bellwether published in 2011. This expanded analysis includes nearly all states that took major legislative action on teacher effectiveness over the past three years.

To the extent that these states have also produced regulations supporting or implementing teacher effectiveness legislation, those documents are also included in our analysis. The authors have also analyzed regulations from a few states, including Rhode Island, that changed their teacher effectiveness policies primarily through regulatory action. This analysis is based on state policies and documents as of August 2012. Because policy and implementation continue to evolve, and some policies described here will change over time, readers should take this into account in using this document.

The analysis focuses on states’ teacher evaluation policies and legislative or regulatory provisions linking evaluation to key personnel decisions. The authors score each state’s teacher effectiveness legislation and/or regulations against 13 criteria (see report for additional details):

• Are all teacher evaluated annually?
• Are principals, as well as teachers, evaluated?
• Is evidence of student learning a factor in educator evaluations?
• Do evaluations differentiate between multiple levels of educator effectiveness?
• Are parents and the public provided clear information about educator effectiveness?
• Are educator preparation programs accountable for graduates’ effectiveness?
• Is tenure linked to effectiveness?
• Does state law or policy provide clear authority to dismiss ineffective teachers and a reasonable
  process for doing so?
• Is teacher effectiveness, rather than seniority, the primary consideration in reductions in force?
• In cases of teacher excessing, is there a process for teachers to secure new positions through
  mutual consent, and for those who cannot find a position to eventually be discharged from
  district employment?
• Do principals have the authority to decide who teaches in their schools?
• Does the law protect students from being assigned to ineffective teachers for two or more
  consecutive years?
• Are effective teachers rewarded with increased compensation?

Key findings of the analysis are summarized in the table below:

Feature	# of states with policy
Annual Teacher evaluations?	14
Principals included in evaluation?	20
Evaluation significantly informed by student learning?	21 (Preponderant criterion in 14)
Differentiate at least 4 levels of effectiveness?	18
Provide transparent information to parents and the public about teacher quality?	4
Teacher preparation programs accountable for effectiveness of graduates?	5
Tenure linked to effectiveness?	12
Clear authority to dismiss ineffective teachers?	16
End “last in, first out” layoffs?	13
End forced teacher placements/require hiring and assignment by mutual consent?	6
Process for discharge of excessed teachers who fail to gain placements through mutual consent?	1
Prevent students from being consecutively assigned ineffective teachers?	1
Reward effective teachers with increased compensation?	14

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Compulsory School Attendance: What Research Says and What It Means for State Policy

During his 2012 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama offered several recommendations on education policy, including one specifying that all states increase the age of compulsory school attendance to 18. Approximately 25 percent of public school students in the U.S. don’t obtain a regular high school diploma, a tragedy for them and a heavy burden for the nation and the communities and states in which they live. Certainly, America needs to address this problem, but is raising the compulsory school attendance (CSA) age a viable solution?

In a new paper, Compulsory School Attendance: What Research Says and What It Means for State Policy, Russ Whitehurst and Sarah Whitfield perform original analysis to investigate if CSA ages actually affect graduation rates. Their data show that states with higher CSA ages do not have higher high school graduation rates than states with lower CSA ages. 

Other key findings include:

• The costs of raising the CSA age for additional teachers and classrooms are likely to be minimal because compliance with a higher CSA age will be low.
   
• Raising the CSA age does little to address the root causes of high dropout rates and is unlikely to produce increases in high school graduation rates that will be noticeable to state policymakers and taxpayers.
   
• There is no consistent relationship between the leniency in the laws governing the CSA age and rates of school attendance.
   
• Raising the CSA age may induce some portion of the population of eventual school dropouts to stay in school a few weeks or months longer in order to reach the legal age at which they can leave school.  They may benefit as a result but not nearly so much as they would if they persisted until graduation.
   
• There are a number of interventions and policies that target students and schools that experience high dropout rates that have been shown to be effective in increasing persistence and high school completion.  Any effort to meaningfully reduce dropout rates needs to include such interventions.

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Teacher Attitudes Toward Unions, Education Reform

Over the past decade, teachers have seen changes in both their conditions of employment—from pay to retirement benefits—and their practice. Far too often, these policies have been made by people who talk about teachers, rather than talking to them.
Last fall, Education Sector surveyed a nationally representative random sample of more than 1,100 K-12 public school teachers. The results of that survey are published in a new Education Sector report, Trending Toward Reform: Teachers Speak on Unions and the Future of the Profession. Co-authors Sarah Rosenberg and Elena Silva look at teacher attitudes on a variety of teacher-centered reforms, including new approaches to evaluation, pay, and tenure, and the role of unions in pushing for or against these reforms.
The 2011 survey repeats questions from Education Sector’s 2007 survey Waiting to Be Won Over and a 2003 Public Agenda survey on these same issues. So Trending Toward Reform shows how teachers’ thinking has evolved on some reform issues.
The findings show continued strong support for teachers unions. Compared with earlier years, teachers say their union plays an important role in protecting jobs and addressing working conditions.
But teachers want more from their unions. In 2007, 52 percent of teachers said their union should “stick to bread and butter issues” rather than focusing on reform; today, just 42 percent of teachers feel that way. At the same time, the number of teachers who want their union to put more focus on reform has risen from 32 percent to 43 percent. As one example, 75 percent of teachers surveyed said that unions should play a role in simplifying the process to remove ineffective teachers—up from 63 percent in 2007.
Other key findings from the survey reveal that:

• Teachers think evaluations are improving. In 2011, 78 percent said their most recent evaluation was done carefully and taken seriously by their school administration.
• Three out of four teachers—76 percent—say that the criteria used in their evaluation were fair.
• Teachers are warming to the idea that assessing student knowledge growth may be a good way to measure teacher effectiveness, with 54 percent of 2011 teachers agreeing. This compares with 49 percent in 2007.
• Teachers are still opposed to including student test scores as one component of differentiated pay, with just 35 percent supporting that idea.
• Teachers do support differentiated pay for teachers who work in tough neighborhoods with low-performing schools (83 percent support). Teachers also support differentiated pay for teachers who have earned National Board of Professional Teaching Standards certification or for those who teach hard-to-fill subjects.
Read Trending Toward Reform: Teachers Speak on Unions and the Future of the Profession.

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