Problems associated with school violence include higher than average teacher turnover, increased student dropout rates, students changing schools, and principals/teachers retiring early. There are 19 strategies offered that might reduce school violence.

This policy brief summarizes findings presented at a February 2009 research conference on teacher retirement systems hosted by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. The 2009 conference was the second in a series of NCPI events focusing on findings from recent research on issues related to…

In April 2009, a high school principal in a large Arizona school district met individually with 18 of his most senior teachers to inform them that they would not have a job the following year. Why didn't tenure protect them from wholesale dismissal? The answer is they all had one thing in common: they were retirees who had been leased or hired…

Too many students are struggling to succeed, and too many new teachers are quitting the profession, leaving administrators desperately looking for new ways to stop both from happening. At the same time, a growing number of veteran teachers are retiring or approaching retirement, taking with them the very experience that could help students and new…

The year 2011 was no ordinary year for teacher policy. In fact, it was a year like no other chronicled by the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ) "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". This fifth annual edition of the Yearbook documents more changes in state teacher policy than NCTQ has seen in any of its previous top-to-bottom reviews of the…

Like most other state and local government employees, teachers participate primarily in defined benefit pension plans whose benefits are based on final average salaries and length of service. Such pensions have been replaced in many private sector firms by defined contribution pensions. A number of questions have arisen about the feasibility and…

Teacher attrition is a costly and persistent problem in urban schools. The objective of this study was to evaluate senior volunteers' potential impact for improving teacher retention. We conducted interviews with six principals, 20 teachers, and six retired educators participating in the Experience Corps Baltimore program. Findings indicate that…

This analysis on the age distribution of public school teachers have been prepared by Dr. Richard Ingersoll for the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF), using data gathered through the U.S. Department of Education's Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), which is administered every four years. The data for this analysis are…

The tension at the heart of pension politics is the incentive to address today's claimants and focus on the here-and-now at the expense of long-term concerns and more dispersed constituencies. In the private sector, rules and regulations seek to tame corner-cutting and short-sighted behavior. In the public sector, the primary safeguard is the…

As districts face another year of budget gaps, hundreds of thousands of teachers have been warned that, come the end of the school year, their jobs may be gone. In a policy now termed "LIFO" or "last in, first out," most districts make layoff decisions based on seniority and not on job performance or effectiveness. Using…

Analyzing long-term demographic data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, Ingersoll and Merrill found a number of intriguing trends in the teaching force that they say "appear to have been little noticed by researchers, policymakers, and the public." The number of teachers, they write, is growing at a rate that far outpaces increases in student…

Background/Context: By the year 2030, when the baby boom generation born between 1946 and 1964 will be in the retirement ages, 72% of the elderly will be non-Hispanic Whites, compared with 56% for working-age adults, and 50% for children. As the predominantly White baby boomers reach retirement, they will increasingly depend for economic support…

This paper presents the key findings from a national Internet survey of 400 teachers and 95 principals. This survey was conducted November 12-21, 2008. The sample was based on a list provided by EMI Surveys, a custom online research sample provider with an extensive portfolio of projects. The margin of error for a sample of 495 interviews is [plus…

The main driving force of all transformations in general education is the schoolteacher. It is not by chance that one of the key areas in the initiative "Our New School" has to do with the development of the teacher potential. What is involved are the tasks of raising the qualifications of teachers and school management, strengthening…

The teaching profession has long been thought of as recession proof. Indeed, that may have been one of the reasons why teachers took far lower starting salaries right out of college. Perhaps the greatest common feature of teachers, besides their desire to serve society in a humanitarian way, may be the lack of risk-taking the occupation previously…