The author's statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions on the challenges faced by America's classroom teachers focuses on a few of the factors that lead to teacher frustration and burnout that higher pay, however well-intended, does not change. They include, but are not limited to, poor teacher preparation,…

Widespread critical shortages of high-quality teachers in the United States (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, Carver-Thomas, 2016) has prompted considerable research on staffing trends within the teaching profession. Research suggests both an increase in the demand for teachers and a "chronic and relatively high annual turnover compared with many…

One of the most pressing issues facing policymakers is how to staff classrooms with a stable teaching force responsive to complex student needs and the growing demands of the knowledge economy. Recurrent teacher shortages are a function of both declines in entrants to teaching and high rates of teacher attrition, especially in low-income schools.…

The professional expectations for today's teachers are high. They must work to prepare students for new economic realities, use new and innovative pedagogical techniques and technologies, adapt their instruction to meet students' increasingly diverse needs, and adjust to recent policy reforms that directly affect their practice. These changes have…

Many school districts in the United States are facing severe teacher shortages (Bordonaro, 2017; Palmer, 2017; Seattle Pacific University, 2017; Whaley, 2017). In several states--including Idaho--the difficulty of hiring qualified candidates has expanded beyond historical high-need content areas such as special education and mathematics to include…

Expanding accountability systems that impose policies across all schools have amplified assertions that rural teacher labor markets differ from non-rural labor markets in meaningful ways that complicate rural schools' efforts to comply with the policy directives. The analysis presented here examines this claim by exploring teacher labor market…

Teacher shortages are essentially a problem of distribution (Darling-Hammond, 2001; Ingersoll, 2001; National Association of State Boards of Education, 1998; Olson, 2000; Reeves, 2003; Voke, 2002). According to recent studies, hardest to find are teachers who are both qualified and willing to teach in hard-to-staff schools, which included those in…

Presents an analysis of various compensation and incentive options for staffing educational programs with high-quality teachers, particularly at racially isolated schools. Questions the efficacy of merit pay policies and suggests that non-pecuniary benefits such as improved working conditions and more opportunity for advancement are as important…

Richard Murnane and Jennifer Steele argue that if the United States is to equip its young people with the skills essential in the new economy, high-quality teachers are more important than ever. In recent years, the demand for effective teachers has increased as enrollments have risen, class sizes have fallen, and a large share of the teacher…

Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin examine how salary and working conditions affect the quality of instruction in the classroom. The wages of teachers relative to those of other college graduates have fallen steadily since 1940. Today, average wages differ little, however, between urban and suburban districts. In some metropolitan areas urban…

A report is given of a survey of 170 sophomores enrolled in advanced English classes and 205 sophomores enrolled in regular English classes. The students were questioned about their career expectations, their perceptions of teaching as a career, and current incentives for entry into the teaching profession. Findings indicated that only a small…

This twelfth edition of "The Condition of K-12 Public Education in Maine" is designed to provide Maine citizens, legislators, and educators a yearly report on the state of Maine public schools and education. This new edition updates educational information which appeared in earlier editions, and also provides information on several new…

Emiliana Vegas surveys strategies used by the world's developing countries to fill their classrooms with qualified teachers. With their low quality of education and wide gaps in student outcomes, schools in developing countries strongly resemble hard-to-staff urban U.S. schools. Their experience with reform may thus provide insights for U.S.…

Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world's industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries--an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly,…

With No Child Left Behind's call for highly qualified teachers, the stakes for recruiting and retaining teachers have never been more important. Alabama, like other states, has struggled to develop policies and programs that effectively staff all classrooms with quality educators. The Center for Teaching Quality, with the support of SERVE, has…