After New York City encouraged principals to be more deliberative in awarding tenure, ineffective teachers were more likely to leave schools or the profession voluntarily—to the benefit of students, according to a recently released working paper.
Even though the overall percentage of teachers actually denied tenure did not change much, the more-rigorous process appears to have reshaped the workforce—suggesting that changes in practice rather than underlying tenure laws, may bear fruit, said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford University professor and one of the study's authors.
