Absent meaningful accountability for student achievement, there has been little or no political or economic cost to the adult actors who have permitted dysfunctional teacher evaluation and tenure systems to persist. This has made teacher tenure reform for the most part a nonstarter in the United States until quite recently. Yet the educational cost to children stuck with ineffective teachers has been enormous…

Intensifying public and federal pressure around educational accountability and the development of new systems for measuring student achievement and teacher effectiveness have created a ripe moment for K-12 teacher tenure reform in the United States. State policymakers must seize this moment as part of a broader push to improve teacher quality; absent such changes, the tremendous energy currently being invested in school reform is likely to yield only limited gains in educational achievement.

Patrick McQuinn, “Ringing the Bell for K-12 Teacher Reform”