Strategies to Consider

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. 

Determine the success of current efforts to provide inservice support for educator preparation program graduates. 

Examine hiring practices and other human resource policies to ensure vacancies are filled with excellent educators. Ensure that late hiring timelines are not a barrier to recruitment. 

Survey effective teachers and leaders currently working in high-poverty schools to determine what type of financial compensation may influence their decisions to move to or stay in high-need schools. It may be that financial incentives alone do not play a large role in teacher and leader recruitment and retention and therefore should be combined with other efforts to increase access to great teachers and leaders. 

Examine incentive-based programs to encourage teachers to stay in or move to high-need schools. 

If teacher turnover at some of the partner schools is high, work with the schools to collect data that may point to possible sources of the problem and suggest potential solutions (e.g., teacher satisfaction surveys and school climate indicators).

Strengthen partner school and district capacity by providing unique professional development opportunities for partner school teachers and administrators, assisting schools and districts in collecting useful data, and working with them to undertake valuable research and evaluation projects. 

Strengthen educator preparation program clinical training by:

• Working together with partner schools to ensure that the program provides the best clinical experience possible for program candidates.
• Providing clinical opportunities that expose candidates to learners with diverse backgrounds and needs.
• Ensuring that the program’s partner schools reflect the culture and the student demographics of the schools in which the majority of the program’s graduates are initially placed.