A state law, which helped Tennessee win Race to the Top money, pushed schools to implement a system that had limited pilot-testing. Education officials in Tennessee are taking flak from teachers and unions for rushing the implementation of the new teacher-evaluation system that will eventually undergird tenure decisions--a move, some worry, that…

This article reports on how states strive to overhaul their teacher tenure policies. Over the past year, a handful of states have begun to overhaul their tenure-granting processes by increasing the number of years it takes teachers to win due process rights, and by trying to improve the evaluations that are supposed to guide determinations of…

After 39 applicants went home losers from the first round of the Race to the Top competition, many states regrouped and raised the stakes for round two--changing laws to revamp teacher evaluations, drumming up more support from districts and teachers' unions, and getting more aggressive about turning around low-performing schools. The authors…