This paper presents the Rhode Island edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals examine the impact of state policy on 1) identifying effective teachers, 2) retaining those deemed effective and 3) exiting those deemed ineffective. While Rhode Island is making progress toward meeting a few goals, it lags behind other states in most others. The state completely missed 11 goals, met a small portion of two, partially met one and nearly met one. Rhode Island's best performance is in its effective induction for new teachers. The goals needing significant work include ensuring its pension system is neutral and fair, making tenure decisions meaningful, articulating consequences for teachers with unsatisfactory evaluations, and strengthening its policies regarding teacher compensation issues. Rhode Island's progress toward meeting these goals is summarized. The body of the report provides a more detailed breakdown of the state's strengths and weaknesses in each area. Rhode Island has an overall performance of F for 2008. Goals for each area are appended. (Contains 57 figures.) [Additional support for the 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" was provided by the Teaching Commission. For the national summary, see ED514690.]