Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In this paper we describe research that investigates the effects of extending the time before which teachers receive tenure (the probationary period) on teacher effort, proxied by absence behavior, and students test achievement. We also assess the likelihood that different types of teachers progress through the probationary period and are tenured. We rely on natural experiments in North Carolina and Washington State, each of which previously extended time to tenure by one year, to estimate difference-in-difference models that show whether there is an association between the extension of time to tenure and teacher and student outcomes for teachers who are in cohorts affected by the new laws.

Across both states we find robust evidence of decreases in teacher absences for teachers who are in their early years of in-district experience (experience that counts toward tenure) who are subject to the new extended tenure laws. Contrary to expectations, however, the estimated relationship between the new law and absences in the specific year in which tenure was extendedis sensitive to model specification. The findings on the achievement of students who are assigned to teachers subject to the new law are inconsistent across states for a specified experience toward tenure level. Findings on student achievement are also sensitive to the inclusion of teacher fixed effects.

In both states there are different patterns of probationary teacher mobility after the extension of time to tenure: in North Carolina there is little change in the overall proportion of probationary teachers who are tenured, but fewer teachers switch districts and more teachers exit North Carolina public schools; in Washington teachers are more likely to both switch districts and exit the public school system under the new law compared to the old law in the timeframe of our sample. Despite these mobility changes, we find little evidence that the extension of the probationary period is systematically associated with the type of probationary teachers – their absences or value added – who remain in districts long enough to be eligible for tenure.