When Tenure Ends: Teacher Turnover in Response to Policy Changes in Louisiana

In 2012, the Louisiana leg­is­la­ture made major reforms to teacher tenure, empow­er­ing dis­tricts to dis­miss inef­fec­tive teach­ers. In this study, we esti­mate the short-term effects of this pol­i­cy change on teacher exits from pub­lic school employ­ment. We draw the fol­low­ing con­clu­sions: After the removal of tenure, the over­all teacher exit rate for all tra­di­tion­al pub­lic school teach­ers increased by 1.5 per­cent­age points per year. Effects were largest among teach­ers who already held tenure, as their loss of job secu­ri­ty was great­est. The effects of remov­ing tenure were great­est among teach­ers who were eli­gi­ble for retire­ment with imme­di­ate, full pen­sion ben­e­fits. These were also the most expe­ri­enced teach­ers with at least 25 years of pub­lic school employ­ment. The increase in teacher exits was high­est in schools with the low­est stan­dard­ized test scores. Schools with a let­ter grade of ​“F” on the state report card saw exits increase from 7.4% to 9.4% (a 27% increase), while ​“A”-rated schools saw no change. Our results sup­port pri­or find­ings that teach­ers val­ue the job secu­ri­ty that tenure pro­vides. In places where the sup­ply of teach­ers is already lim­it­ed, dis­tricts may need to pro­vide high­er teacher salaries or improve work­ing con­di­tions to make up for the dimin­ished job secu­ri­ty that accom­pa­nies tenure reform. Though we can­not address the effects of this pol­i­cy change on its main tar­get, teacher qual­i­ty, these effects on turnover rates are impor­tant in themselves.

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