News Tip: Expert Can Discuss Tenure, Other Proposed Changes to N.C. Education

Jacob VigdorProfessor of public policy and economicshttp://fds.duke.edu/db/Sanford/jacob.vigdorVigdor specializes in educational achievement, teacher labor markets, and racial inequality. Quote:"North Carolina has been a leader in establishing merit pay for teachers, offering school-wide bonuses based on test performance for more than a decade. In the past two years, however, budget pressures have led the Legislature to cancel bonus payments. Merit pay is, in fact, pay and costs money. Hopefully the Legislature is aware of that."You won't necessarily have any impact on public school HR decisions by eliminating tenure alone. In an ordinary business, non-performing employees need to be dealt with because they raise the risk of bankruptcy. Public school managers don't think the way businesses do because they don't face the same pressure."