In North Carolina and across the nation, districts and schools struggle to recruit and retain effective teachers, especially teachers of color. For more than a decade, declining enrollments in educator preparation programs and rises in teacher vacancies and attrition rates, coupled with population growth and increasing demand for teachers, have…

This mixed-methods study addressed the generational differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among elementary teachers in North Carolina. Intrinsic motivation to persist in the profession was examined through the lens of Pink's theory that autonomy, mastery, and purpose determine a person's degree of intrinsic motivation. Information…

Researchers have long recognized that instructors face distinctive challenges at different career stages. While much work has been done on developing best practices around early career faculty, the literature only pays scant attention to later-career or senior faculty (Sorcinelli, 1999; Zeig and Baldwin, 2013). The most common challenges cited by…

Retaining qualified teachers in America's schools is one of the nation's challenges in education. Current research revealed teacher turnover had risen to 16.9% nationally, which equates to 2.7 million teachers, including 2.1 million who left the profession before retirement. In order to make a positive change in teacher retention, teacher…

Business leaders in North Carolina cannot find the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent they need to stay competitive. Students' lagging performance in K-12 is a critical reason why. The good news is that the nation's most effective STEM education programs can help turn the tide. North Carolina students have made some…

Is a popular innovation for increasing human capital in the teaching profession--competitive college scholarships for teachers--effective? The authors show that one large and long-standing merit-based scholarship program (a) attracts teacher candidates who have high academic qualifications; (b) yields graduates who teach lower performing students,…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand and "make sense" of how beginning teachers experience and define lack of principal/administrative support during their beginning years of teaching. Utilizing grounded theory as a conceptual framework, I sought to deconstruct the stories and lived experiences of nine beginning…

Research has consistently shown that teacher quality is distributed very unevenly among schools to the clear disadvantage of minority students and those from low-income families. Using information on teaching spells in North Carolina, the authors examine the potential for using salary differentials to overcome this pattern. They conclude that…

This mixed-method study explores the variables that teachers consider when deciding to remain at or leave their schools, with a specific focus on how teachers consider an incentive program. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that schools serving high concentrations of low-performing, non-White, and low socioeconomically situated students have…

This paper studies the variables that may be related to the length of time that black teachers stay in teaching and, if they do leave, to whether or not they return. Specifically studied are the career paths of 2,535 black teachers who began their careers in North Carolina between 1974 and 1982. Used to predict the timing of both an exit from…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The 2011 State Teacher…

Three surveys conducted during the summer of 1996 examined why North Carolina teachers leave the profession. Two of the surveys, conducted by the Division of Human Resource Management, went to the personnel office of each school system and to teachers who left the profession in 1995-96. The third survey was an independent telephone survey,…

For many "hard-to-staff" schools, the negative consequences of teacher shortages are compounded by characteristics that make these schools less attractive to teachers. Most often located in troubled inner cities or isolated rural areas, these schools are frequently plagued by high poverty in the community, higher teacher turnover rates,…