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The Effect of Louisiana Tenure Reform on Teacher Attrition

Nathan Barrett

Date & Time
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
12:00–1:00 pm
Location
1555 Poydras Street, Suite 700
Conference Room #760
New Orleans Louisiana

The last decade has been a time of tumult in teacher employ­ment poli­cies. With the increased use of high-stakes teacher eval­u­a­tion poli­cies, atten­tion has turned to the use of eval­u­a­tions in deci­sions regard­ing teacher com­pen­sa­tion, pro­mo­tion, and even reten­tion. Louisiana, and New Orleans in par­tic­u­lar, have con­tributed to this trend. In 2012, Louisiana elim­i­nat­ed teacher tenure for new teach­ers and replaced the life­time teach­ing cre­den­tial with a five-year license depen­dent on rat­ings of teacher effec­tive­ness. Teach­ers through­out the state now have no per­ma­nent tenure rights and can be ter­mi­nat­ed for poor per­for­mance. In New Orleans, these state laws apply in a con­text where most teach­ers are employed through at-will con­tracts with char­ter man­age­ment orga­ni­za­tions. This pre­sen­ta­tion will exam­ine how the removal of tenure pro­tec­tions affect­ed the teacher work­force in New Orleans and Louisiana. Did the elim­i­na­tion of tenure lead cer­tain types of teach­ers to exit teach­ing? Did New Orleans’ char­ter schools also expe­ri­ence the effects of this pol­i­cy change? Pol­i­cy impli­ca­tions for char­ter schools, tra­di­tion­al school dis­tricts, and oth­er states will be discussed.

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