Teacher quality is one of the most important predictors of a child's academic achievement, but schools in Indiana and across the nation are struggling to employ a full cadre of teachers who are qualified to instruct the subjects they are teaching. This policy brief explores the factors and circumstances behind the national struggle to meet the…

Teachers may be the most important element of an effective school, but does that mean that K-12 improvement must wait on the ability of schools or systems to recruit, nurture, and retain outstanding teachers? Such a strategy implies that widespread excellence hinges on the ability of publicly funded school systems to attract more than 3.3 million…

This report presents findings about teacher quality from two longitudinal studies, the National Longitudinal Study of "No Child Left Behind" (NLS-"NCLB"), and the Study of State Implementation of Accountability and Teacher Quality Under "No Child Left Behind" (SSI-"NCLB"). The research teams for these two…

The nation's culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) classrooms face a critical shortage of high-quality teachers. Representatives from dozens of major national educational associations and institutions convened September 24-26, 2003, at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, to grapple with this issue. The conference marked…

Recent teacher shortages have led teacher preparation programs to more actively recruit postbaccalaureate students into teaching. The purpose of this exploratory study was to gain useful recruitment information by investigating why postbaccalaureate students are interested in teaching as a new career. A survey was constructed based on interview…

In his career in education, the author has spent much time working on behalf of independent schools and non-profit organizations both in the U.S. and abroad. He believes that his work in the world of tuition-driven institutions has given him some insights into the care and feeding of successful schools. He further believes that many of the things…

This policy brief summarizes the full report [ED468840], which describes a study that evaluated whether smaller school districts, as a result of their higher costs per pupil, experienced greater hardship in the areas of infrastructure, resources, and staffing. The policy brief reports on the results of a survey that was administered to the…

In 1987, the State Board of Education cited a shortage of minority teachers in Tennessee. In 1988, The Tennessee Task Force on the Supply of Minority Teachers issued recommendations to increase the number of minority teachers. In 1989, House Joint Resolution 36 also requested an annual report on the status of minority teachers be submitted to the…

One of the most critical responsibilities to educational leaders and administrators is the task of planning the staffing of schools and school districts with the qualified professionals required to deliver high quality educational programs. This study addressed recruiting qualified school counselors to staff schools in the 27th largest school…

Educational reform over the past two decades has focused primarily on schools as the critical units of change, often ignoring the role of districts and their effect on schools' performance. Although national reform efforts such as the recently reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the No Child Left Behind Act), are directed…

This article presents an interview with Jonathan Kozol. Topics discussed include: (1) On the root causes of school resegregation; (2) On strategies for solving the problem; (3) On guaranteeing education for all; (4) On forcing opponents of integration into the open; (5) On mechanisms for promoting integration; (6) On scripted curricula in…

This article investigates the recruitment and selection strategies of one large Canadian school district in Ontario, called here the "Northwestern School District." Data collection included interviews, document analyses and observations, and were gathered in 2001. Findings indicated that designated structured teams, financial and…

Across the educational systems of the world, few issues have received more attention in recent years than the problem of ensuring that elementary and secondary-school classrooms are all staffed with adequately qualified teachers. The objective of this report is to present the results from a collaborative, comparative study, that examined the…

Across the educational systems of the world, few issues receive more attention than the problem of ensuring that elementary- and secondary-school classrooms are staffed with adequately qualified teachers. Even in nations where students routinely score high on international exams, the issue of teacher quality is the subject of concern. It is widely…

This article addresses several key ongoing issues in a large urban school district. Literature focuses on what make a large urban school district effective in Human Resource Management. The effectiveness is addressed through recruitment and retention practices. A comparison of the school district with current research is the main approach to the…