Over 2,000 teachers in the state of Washington received reduction-in-force (RIF) notices across the 2008–09 and 2009–10 school years. We link data on these RIF notices to an administrative data set that includes student, teacher, school, and district variables to determine the factors that...

This report addresses the comparison of teacher evaluation systems and proposes ways to achieve a uniform standard for dispensing funds to districts to recognize exceptional teachers without imposing a uniform evaluation system on those districts. The report provides practical procedures to...

This paper examines the mobility of early-career teachers of varying quality—measured using value-added methods—and focuses on the variation in these effects across the effectiveness distribution. On average, more effective teachers remain in the profession and stay in their...

This working paper illustrates—theoretically and through simulations—that the Rothstein falsification test is not definitive in indicating bias in value-added model estimates of current teacher contributions to student learning.

While numerous studies have found that school accountability boosts test scores, it is uncertain whether estimated test score gains reflect genuine improvements or merely ?gaming? behaviors. This paper brings to bear new evidence from a unique five-year, three-round survey conducted of a census...