State Education Leader

New York rural schools and districts have a high percentage of core teaching assignments filled by highly qualified teachers; there are only small differences across key factors such as poverty and the need for school improvement. Urban schools—particularly those in New York City—have fewer core assignments filled by highly qualified teachers.

As part of their 2006 equity plan, state education agency personnel in Delaware sought to conduct an in-depth analysis to understand the reasons behind the teacher access patterns in the state. Staff from the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality supported the development of research-based protocols for this analysis. A webcast presentation describing the work and options for regional centers is available.

This report from The Education Trust recommends policy changes that districts and states can consider to address issues of school culture, and how these issues relate to rates of teacher dissatisfaction and turnover in schools that serve students from low-income and minority families.

Ensuring safer schools requires establishing effective indicators of the current state of school crime and safety across the United States and regularly updating and monitoring these indicators. This report presents the most recent data available on school crime and student safety, including topics such as victimization, teacher injury, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, the availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, and student perceptions of personal safety at school. Indicators of crime and safety are compared across different population subgroups and long term.

To create a support system for teachers, Adams 12 School District in Thornton, Colorado, introduced “student-achievement coaches.” This article describes the initiative's coaching, considerations in starting a teacher-coaching program, and some of the experiences of Adams 12 and other districts that have implemented coaching policies. 

Drawing on research for a doctoral dissertation, this report examines the design of the Center for Educational Leadership’s professional development coaching program. The multiple layers of a coaching cycle are outlined, and the conditions that result in instructional improvement are described.

This report from The Education Trust provides recommendations to improve teacher evaluation policies in a way that fairly and comprehensively measures performance and provides a focus on professional growth. 

The Rossier School of Education offers advanced degree and professional development programs both online and on-campus, including a master of education in advanced instruction, that specifically aim to strengthen the knowledge and skills of current teachers and administrators who work or wish to work in urban schools. Rossier students specialize in one of four areas: special education (differing abilities); elementary or secondary science, technology, engineering, or mathematics education; or secondary humanities.

Using student and teacher data from Miami-Dade County, Florida, the authors found that less experienced, minority, and female teachers are more likely to be assigned students with lower average prior achievement, more prior behavioral problems, and lower prior attendance rates, especially in schools with stable senior staffs. Moreover, novice teachers were more likely to be assigned students from black and low-income families within the same school.

This study examined whether new teachers are, in fact, assigned to the toughest classrooms, and, if so, what effect that has on new teacher turnover. Using administrative data from Florida and the National Schools and Staffing Teacher Follow-Up Survey, the author found that inexperienced teachers usually taught in schools with low-performing, minority, or limited-English-proficient students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.