General Resources

Teacher Evaluation in Chicago

This report by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research finds that Chicago Public Schools teachers with low-end scores on Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago’s Students (REACH), Chicago’s new teacher evaluation system, are overrepresented in schools with the most high-need students while highly evaluated teachers are overrepresented in low-poverty schools. The report also finds that schools with better organizational and learning climates attract teachers with higher REACH scores, even in high-poverty schools.

The Impact of Incentives to Recruit and Retain Teachers in “Hard-to-Staff” Subjects: An Analysis of the Florida Critical Teacher Shortage Program

This paper analyzes the impact of the Florida Critical Teacher Shortage Program (FCTSP), which is aimed at increasing recruitment and stemming attrition of teachers in subject areas with shortages. The FCTSP adopted a three-pronged approach to increase the supply of teachers in “hard-to-staff” subjects: loan forgiveness, tuition rates in designated subjects, and one-year bonuses. The analysis found that two of the three approaches reduced attrition rates, while the loan-forgiveness program was found to attract high-quality candidates.

Making Time for Instructional Leadership

This three-volume report describes the “SAM” process, which is intended help principals spend more time on improving classroom instruction and less time on administrative and managerial tasks. Research shows that instructional leadership is highly influential in improving student outcomes. The SAM approach is currently used by around 700 schools across the country.

The State of Teacher Diversity in American Education

This report examines the progress made in recent years in increasing teacher diversity in public schools. The report discusses the benefits of a diverse teaching population for all students, particularly minority students, and investigates the hiring, distribution, and turnover of minority teachers in nine major U.S. cities.

The STEM Teacher Drought: Cracks and Disparities in California’s Math and Science Teacher Pipeline

In California, seven out of 10 of the state’s fastest growing occupations are in STEM fields. Low-income, minority students have less access to STEM learning opportunities and experience less success in STEM subjects compared to their more advantaged peers. This report examines how the shortage of STEM teachers in California is impacting low-income students’ access to a high-quality STEM education.

Preliminary Report on Teacher Preparation for Literacy Instruction

This report examines states’ preservice teacher preparation programs and their efforts to prepare teachers for literacy instruction. The document provides a summary of state requirements for program content and program assessments, and state licensure requirements by school level.

The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development

In this report, TNTP looks at challenges in the area of teacher improvement, and finds that large investments have been made by school districts and systems across the country in recent years in programs aimed at helping teachers develop and improve. TNTP focused on a sample of three large school districts and set out to identify supports that successfully boost teacher growth. The report finds little evidence that year-on-year improvements are taking place; moreover, researchers were unable to identify particular practices helping teachers who do demonstrate improvement.

Giving Teachers the Feedback and Support They Deserve

This report examines how five school districts in Texas, Tennessee, Oregon, Georgia, and Louisiana implemented new educator evaluation and support systems and lessons learned along the way. The report finds that a process of regular observation and feedback is an important component of an effective evaluation system and identifies five essential practices for ensuring that teachers receive effective feedback and support from evaluation systems. 

Ensuring Equitable Access to Strong Teachers

This brief from The Education Trust presents ideas for states to consider when developing a state plan to ensure that all students, particularly disadvantaged students, have access to effective teachers. Recommendations include using data to identify patterns of teacher access, working with stakeholders to determine the main causes of disparities, and creating policies to spur change that give priority to schools with the most urgent problems.

Public School Teacher: Attrition and Mobility in the First Five Years

This federal report presents data on teacher attrition and mobility from a longitudinal study following teachers who began teaching in 2007–08. Analysis of the data reveals that in contrast to the 40–50 percent attrition rate found in earlier studies, only 17 percent of new teachers left their jobs in the first five years.

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