What does pre-service teacher quality tell us about entry and retention in the profession?

Posted on May 1, 2018April 27, 2018 by coreeducation

It is often difficult for school and district leadership to identify high-quality teachers who will remain in the classroom, especially among those who are just entering the profession and in the first years of employment. However, a recent study by Robert Vagi, Margarita Pivovarova and Wendy Miedel Barnard suggests that examining a prospective teacher’s instructional Read more about What does pre-service teacher quality tell us about entry and retention in the profession?[…]

Attracting Minorities to the Teaching Profession

Posted on April 4, 2018March 29, 2018 by coreeducation

Michael Hansen, Diana Quintero, and Li Feng of the Brookings Institute recently explored incentive policies that show evidence of attracting minority teachers. Excerpts from their piece appear below: Many education policymakers and practitioners across the country recognize the need to recruit and retain more racial and ethnic minorities into the teaching profession. As we’ve previously Read more about Attracting Minorities to the Teaching Profession[…]

NCTQ Releases Analysis of States’ Efforts to Address Teacher Shortages and Surpluses

Posted on March 14, 2018March 9, 2018 by coreeducation

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released its Teacher Shortages and Surpluses Databurst, an analysis of states’ work to track teacher shortages and surpluses, and to implement policy solutions to address these challenges. This resource includes an overview of promising practices currently being implemented, a snapshot of all 50 states’ and the District Read more about NCTQ Releases Analysis of States’ Efforts to Address Teacher Shortages and Surpluses[…]

States’ Sense of Urgency to Improve Teacher Policies Grinds to a Halt

Posted on January 5, 2018December 21, 2017 by coreeducation

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released its biannual 2017 State Teacher Policy Yearbook (Yearbook), which finds that the rapid progress made by states over the last decade to modernize their teacher policies has largely slowed. Since the last edition of the Yearbook in 2015, few states have initiated any new actions to Read more about States’ Sense of Urgency to Improve Teacher Policies Grinds to a Halt[…]

Landscapes in Teacher Prep: Undergraduate Elementary Education

Posted on January 26, 2017January 23, 2017 by coreeducation

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released new ratings for 875 undergraduate elementary teacher preparation programs. The latest Teacher Prep Review found evidence that the nation’s top programs–those that graduate teachers well versed in both evidence-based content and methods of teaching–are not all the nation’s best known elite universities, but include Purdue University, Read more about Landscapes in Teacher Prep: Undergraduate Elementary Education[…]

New Teachers Make Up a Significant Segment of Profession

Posted on October 26, 2016October 22, 2016 by coreeducation

Everybody involved in K-12 education knows that new teachers tend to need a lot of extra support. What they may not fully grasp, however, is just how many new teachers are out there. As a segment of the total U.S. teaching force, their representation appears to be considerable. Nationally, 12 percent of all public school Read more about New Teachers Make Up a Significant Segment of Profession[…]

Evaluating Teacher Preparation: The problems with inputs — and outputs

Posted on February 25, 2016February 18, 2016 by coreeducation

In a recent article in RealClear Education, Ashley LiBetti Mitchel and Chad Aldeman explore the difficulty with evaluating teacher preparation. Excerpts of “Our Failed Investments in Teacher Preparation” appear below: Each year, new teachers collectively spend about $4.85 billion dollars and 302 million hours on their preparation work. But there is no evidence that any Read more about Evaluating Teacher Preparation: The problems with inputs — and outputs[…]

The Importance of Teacher Supply to Education Reform

Posted on October 23, 2015October 22, 2015 by coreeducation

Paul Bruno at the Brookings Institution explores the relationship between teacher evaluation policies and the supply of teachers in a recent article. Overall, teacher evaluations have been ramping up in recent years, with some evidence in New York City and Washington D.C. that they are improving student achievement. However, in general, teacher evaluation reforms in Read more about The Importance of Teacher Supply to Education Reform[…]

Districts Facing Teacher Shortages Look for Lifelines

Posted on September 25, 2015September 19, 2015 by coreeducation

You may have been hearing in the news about teacher shortages in various communities around the country. Looking a little bit more closely at these situations reveals that, while enrollment in teacher preparations programs has certainly declined in recent years, there does not appear to be an across-the-board problem with finding and hiring teachers in Read more about Districts Facing Teacher Shortages Look for Lifelines[…]

Can We Interest You In Teaching?

Posted on September 2, 2015August 28, 2015 by coreeducation

Frank Bruni has penned a piece highlighting the teaching shortages that have made the news around the country in recent weeks. The shortages are so acute in some places, both urban and rural, that teachers are being brought in who are not even fully certified yet. After researching and talking with various noted education professionals, Read more about Can We Interest You In Teaching?[…]

Improving Teacher Preparation

Posted on June 3, 2015May 31, 2015 by coreeducation

With an estimated 1.5 million new teachers entering schools over the next decade, what can policymakers do to ensure that the next generation of teachers is ready to teach on day one? A new brief released by the Education Policy Center at American Institutes for Research (AIR), A Million New Teachers Are Coming: Will They Read more about Improving Teacher Preparation[…]

Interest in Teaching Careers Declining

Posted on April 30, 2015April 28, 2015 by coreeducation

The percentage-and overall number-of high school students reporting an interest in teaching has steadily declined since 2010, according to The Condition of Future Educators 2014. This ACT report compares data on the self-reported career interests of nearly 1.85 million 2014 US high school graduates who took the ACT® test, compared to those who took the Read more about Interest in Teaching Careers Declining[…]

Teacher Retention and TFA

Posted on March 19, 2015March 16, 2015 by coreeducation

More than 87 percent of TFA teachers say they don’t plan on remaining teachers throughout their careers, compared with 26.3 percent of non-TFA teachers working in the same subjects, grades, and schools, according to an analysis released last week by Mathematica Policy Research (PDF). The study suggests the risk of turnover is relatively high for Read more about Teacher Retention and TFA[…]

Educational Equity: Challenges for Educator Effectiveness

Posted on March 4, 2015March 2, 2015 by coreeducation

Jane Best and Emily Winslow at McREL Education have released a new brief focusing on current challenges of working toward equity in education. Particularly in a post Vergara vs. California education climate, educator equity and how to effectively distribute teachers to all students it is an issue on education professionals’ minds. With increasingly diverse student populations, Read more about Educational Equity: Challenges for Educator Effectiveness[…]

Gene Wilhoit: Transforming how we recruit, train, and develop teachers

Posted on February 13, 2015February 8, 2015 by coreeducation

In the final installment of Marc Tucker’s blog series on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, Gene Wilhoit, the former Executive Director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, discusses the need to transform how we recruit, train, and develop our teachers and the consequences of failing to do so. Wilhoit and Read more about Gene Wilhoit: Transforming how we recruit, train, and develop teachers[…]

October Issue Brief: Access to Effective Teachers

Posted on October 21, 2014October 20, 2014 by coreeducation

The U.S. Education Department has recently rolled out another phase in its quest to ensure that lower income students have similarly excellent teachers as their higher income peers. What is the research behind the push for equitable distribution of teacher effectiveness? What are the issues and complexities of this work? In this month’s issue brief, Read more about October Issue Brief: Access to Effective Teachers[…]