More than 60 years after the ruling in "Brown v. Board of Education" was handed down, its promise remains unfulfilled. In many respects, America's public schools continue to be "separate and unequal." Indeed, the growing re-segregation of American schools by race and ethnicity, compounded by economic class segregation, has…

High teacher turnover in large U.S. cities is a critical issue for schools and districts, and the students they serve; but surprisingly little work has been done to develop methodologies and standards that districts and schools can use to make reliable estimates of turnover costs. Even less is known about how to detect variations in turnover costs…

William Taylor, 29, a third generation Washington, D.C. resident stands out for a number of reasons. For one, he is an African American man who taught math at an elementary school for many years. Taylor excelled in the role, so much so that he now coaches his fellow math teachers at Aiton Elementary School, which is located in a high-poverty…

Finding, keeping and supporting great educators presents the single biggest challenge to successful school turnarounds. Without teachers and administrators who bring the needed combination of skills and passion, nothing else will achieve the desired effect. The turnaround model supported by the U.S. Department of Education School Improvement Grant…

Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) is an innovative practice-based preparation program in which candidates work alongside a mentor teacher for a year before becoming a teacher of record in the Boston Public Schools (BPS). The authors found that BTR graduates are more racially diverse than other BPS novices, more likely to teach math and science, and…

Teacher residency programs are a relatively new method for building stronger teacher pipelines. Research assessing the impact of these programs is still limited, but some early reports suggest that residency programs hold promise for improving teacher effectiveness and retention rates (Barrett, Hovde, Hahn, & Rosqueta, 2011; Papay, West,…

It's hard to imagine two schools superficially more different from each other than Blackstone Elementary, with its labyrinthine 1970s layout, and Orchard Gardens K-8 School, which opened in 2003, with its modern skylights and cheery primary-color accents. But they were similar in the way that matters most in young lives: Both Boston schools were…

Background: Teacher quality plays a key role in student learning outcomes. Yet, data suggest that elite college graduates who enter teaching are less likely to stay in schools serving low income and minority students compared to other teachers. Thus, many educators and policy makers agree that in order to equalize the playing field, recruitment,…

This article analyzes the career commitments and retention patterns among graduates of the DeLeT program (Day School Leadership Through Teaching) who were prepared for day-school teaching at Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Employing t-tests to analyze survey responses, we identify factors that shape and…

This study describes the characteristics and experiences of beginning public school teachers in the Northeast and Islands Region states and compares them with the characteristics and experiences of beginning teachers nationally using data from the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing Survey. This study uses data from the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing…

This summary describes a study that examines characteristics and experiences of beginning public school teachers in the Northeast and Islands Region states and compares them with the characteristics and experiences of beginning teachers nationally using data from the 2007/08 Schools and Staffing Survey. This study uses data from the 2007/08…

The Boston Teacher Residency is an innovative practice-based preparation program in which candidates work alongside a mentor teacher for a year before becoming a teacher of record in Boston Public Schools. We find that BTR graduates are more racially diverse than other BPS novices, more likely to teach math and science, and more likely to remain…

The problem of beginning teacher attrition is costly to school districts and to the teaching profession in many ways. Teacher preparation programs, such as the elementary education program at Worcester State University (WSU), can potentially contribute to lessening the number of beginning teachers who leave the profession. Therefore, the purpose…

Improving teaching effectiveness is a hot topic for policymakers around the country these days. The gathering movement marks an important step forward in the ongoing effort to strengthen our nation's schools. In many cases, however, these efforts start and stop with improving outdated, inadequate teacher evaluation systems. Such approaches fail to…

Public school constituencies continue to face a teacher shortage as the number of teachers leaving the profession outnumbers the number of teachers entering or remaining. There are many factors that contributed to the teacher retention problem including teacher attrition. In a southwestern U.S. state, local policymakers and school board members…