Overall, the research by Winters and Cohen (2013) found that there is not
substantial evidence that these policies will increase the quality of teachers in a given state
(2013, p. 638). The authors state that in order to make “substantial improvements to the teacher
quality distribution, it is not simply enough to adopt a policy…it is vital that policymakers con-
sider how the policy will identify the teachers for removal” (2013, p. 638). The researchers came
to this conclusion because they also identified some of the reasons why teachers choose to
leave the classroom early in their careers. The authors suggest that in some ways, this pattern
of voluntary attrition is “correlated with teacher quality” (2013, p. 639).
Reforms to teacher tenure and systems such as those described by Winters and Co-
hen (2013) are increasingly proposed as promising policy solutions. The authors state that the
“expected effect of deselection policies…might be far smaller than many of its advocates antic-
ipate” (2013, p. 650). Additionally, the authors describe decreasing class sizes to be nearly ten
times as effective in increasing teacher quality but note that the costs of decreasing class sizes
are “likely far higher…relative to imposing
deselection policies” (2013, p. 651). Winters and Cohen conclude that they “interpret [their]
findings as providing cautiously optimistic results” when both policy design and “ability to
estimate teacher effectiveness” concerns are addressed (2013, p. 652).
IMPACT Policy in Washington, D.C.
Beginning in 2009, teachers in Washington, D.C. received employee
performance evaluation scores that incorporated factors other than supervisor
observation; notably, these evaluation scores were made up in part by the student achievement
results of students assigned to their classrooms. The program, called IMPACT, was one of the
first so-called high-stakes teacher evaluation programs (Dee & Wyckoff, 2018). Using IMPACT
as a model, “two out of three U.S. states overhauled teacher evaluations between 2009 and
2015,” with the aid of federal grant programs, including NCLB (Dee & Wyckoff, 2018). While
this particular reform, as well as similar reform initiatives across the country, received “back-
lash… fueled by concerns about over-reliance on standardized tests, the accuracy of new evalu-
ations, and the efficacy of performance-based incentives,” there have been measurable positive
effects on the quality of teaching as well as student performance on standardized tests (Dee &
Wyckoff, 2018).
In order to determine whether incentive-based pay could increase teacher
performance and retention, Dee and Wyckoff studied the implementation of the IMPACT poli-
cy in Washington, D.C. Public Schools (2015). Their longitudinal study analyzed teacher reten-
tion and performance patterns over the first three years of the
IMPACT program (2015, p. 268). The conclusions of this particular study are in
contrast to the conclusions of Winters and Cohen’s 2013 study. Dee and Wyckoff claim that
when presented as a new way of work, significant financial incentives for high performing
teachers combined with threats of dismissal for underperforming teachers have “substantial
effects, both increasing the voluntary attrition of low-performing teachers and improving the
performance of” teachers who remained a part of
Washington, D.C. Public Schools (2015, p. 269).
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