A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

Teacher shortages in some regions, schools and content areas have caused states to consider fast-tracking teachers into the classroom through avenues that include little or no clinical preparation. Teachers who enter the profession through these pathways are less likely to be prepared, less effective and less likely to remain in the profession…

Employers increasingly reach job seekers through online job postings, particularly for jobs requiring a higher education qualification. Job postings available online provide a rich source of real-time and detailed data on the qualifications and skills sought by employers across industries, occupations and locations. Using a sample of over 9…

Nationally, more than 75% of individuals who are credentialed to teach are prepared in traditional college- or university-based teacher education programs (TEPs). But the college and employment pathways that prospective teachers take to TEP enrollment and completion have not been comprehensively examined. A better understanding of how credentialed…

Lumina Foundation seeks to increase the proportion of Americans who hold a postsecondary credential to 60 percent by 2025, across all racial, ethnic, immigration, and income groups. Recognizing that this goal cannot be achieved through a focus on traditional-age college students alone, Lumina launched the Adult Promise initiative in 2017. Between…

In the 2017-2019 operating budget, the Legislature appropriated $5,000 to create a child care workforce development technical workgroup (Workgroup) and directed the Department of Early Learning (now the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, or DCYF) to convene a group consisting of 13 stakeholders to develop recommendations for the…

English learners (ELs) make up 10% of the U.S. student population and are increasingly enrolling in school districts that have little experience with educating these students. A majority of states report shortages in teachers prepared to work with ELs, particularly in the area of bilingual education. Grow Your Own (GYO) programs that recruit and…

Since the enactment of Public Law 94-142, school districts have struggled to hire and retain required special education personnel (i.e., special education teachers, school psychologists, and related service providers). Data show that shortages of these qualified personnel are even more magnified in rural school districts. Distance education can…

The variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives that an ethnically diverse faculty provides a community college give it the capacity to support the complex work that community colleges undertake. The challenges in having a diverse faculty require recruiting diverse applicants and in retaining those applicants once hired. Achieving these…

R. Stanton-Salazar (1997) suggested that minority students who successfully navigate the contexts of higher education are able to do so by "decoding" the system. Rather than obligating students to decode the system, we contend that institutions should "recode" the information they provide to prospective students from minority…

Despite focused efforts by many colleges and universities, the racial and ethnic composition of college faculty has not increased significantly in more than twenty years. To provide an educational environment that promotes the success of students of color, it is imperative to develop structures that promote the retention and success of faculty of…

This paper reports results from a resume-based field experiment designed to examine employer preferences for job applicants who attended for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges have seen sharp increases in enrollment in recent years despite alternatives such as public community colleges being much cheaper. We sent almost 9,000 fictitious resumes…

Now, more than ever, more adults must earn college credentials in order to earn family sustaining wages and to help fuel and sustain a robust national economy. That means that institutions of higher education must do all they can to help adult students enroll in college and complete a postsecondary credential. Achieving the Dream emphasizes a…

Across the country, districts and schools are struggling to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Indeed, there are some subjects--such as mathematics, science, and special education--in which nearly every state is experiencing a teacher shortage. As a result, states often turn to underqualified teachers to fill the vacuum, a problematic…