State Education Leader

Survey effective teachers and leaders currently working in high-poverty schools to determine what effect, if any, financial compensation has on their decisions to move to or stay in high-need schools.

Examine local and national incentive-based programs for lessons learned in encouraging teachers to stay in or move to high-need schools. 

Support local innovation related to recruitment and retention incentives (e.g., housing incentives and local market-based salary bonuses) as well as career advancement opportunities that encourage effective teachers to stay in hard-to-staff schools. 

Leverage teacher and principal evaluation results to identify targeted, job-embedded professional development.

Reliably implement a comprehensive educator evaluation system to help determine whether the access to great teachers and leaders is equitable in your school, across your district, and across your state.

Evaluate and consider expanding the professional development opportunities that colleges of education provide specifically to strengthen teaching in high-need schools:

Evaluate any current efforts to provide inservice support, through a survey of preparation program graduates who have received it. 

Identify the most beneficial inservice assistance that educator preparation programs can provide for their graduates and partner schools. Assistance should:

• Draw on the strengths of program staff and faculty.
• Avoid duplication of support that graduates can more readily obtain from the district and other sources.
• Leverage the program’s unique relationship with its graduates and unique program resources. 

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of new teachers as the basis for developing inservice support:

• Survey educator preparation program faculty, staff, and graduating students about their perceptions of program strengths and weaknesses.
• Survey recent graduates in their first year or two of teaching, especially graduates who have placements in high-need schools, about the most challenging problems they face in their work.
• If possible, survey principals and mentor teachers about program graduates’ on-the-job performance.