Questions related to motivation of trainee teachers who have changed careers and become trainee teachers are examined. Perceptions held by recruits that led them to choose teaching are then analysed and factors that may deter trainee teachers from remaining in the profession are considered. (Contains 2 notes.)

As the search to increase the quality of individuals entering and remaining in the teaching profession, people are simultaneously faced with a teacher shortage, often leading to fast track certification and lateral entry programs circumventing teacher preparation. This article points out that the major predictor of teacher retention is job…

Scholarship may decrease the quality of dental education when gifted and enthusiastic clinical faculty members do not meet scholarly requirements for tenure or promotion and leave full-time teaching for private practice. The loss of outstanding clinical faculty is a consequence of dental schools' affiliation with universities. (MLW)

Teacher supply and recruitment, teacher pay and working conditions, institutional structures, and policy contexts are compared for England and Scotland. In Scotland, the fundamental approach to teacher employment and retention is based on rewarding teachers and improving conditions. The exaggerated centralization of English education policy, with…

Ten secondary teachers, enrolled in an induction program, participated in a year-long study to identify characteristics that can be viewed as important predictors of those teachers who will succeed and those who will not. Findings suggest that intellectual/academic achievement alone is not a sufficient primary predictor of teacher success. (IAH)

Reports on characteristics significantly related to teacher retention in a large urban school district using a Cox regression model to model teacher turnover for a sample of 2,327 white, black, and Hispanic-American first-year teachers. Sex, ethnicity, education, and certification route are significantly related to teacher retention. (SLD)

This article considers links between instructional group size and student engagement, caseload and academic achievement, and caseload and special educator attrition. Findings indicate larger caseload and group sizes negatively affect math and reading achievement, student engagement increases when group sizes decrease, and high teacher attrition…

A teacher of adjudicated students wonders: why teach? The money is not good. The call for accountability is based on the misperception that teachers perform poorly. The work is stressful and complicated by imposition of standards that don't address all aspects of a good education. He reasons that he can't find anything more rewarding than working…

In this age of heightened concern about teacher quality, calls for new policies and practices concerning recruitment, induction, and retention are familiar to many. The current enthusiasm for policies to recruit, support, and retain new teachers runs the risk of adding more clash and clang to an already cacophonous policy environment. In this…

While many studies have reported the predictors of teacher attrition, we know little about what predicts the attrition of school leaders. Using the Colorado state data on elementary school principals' and assistant principals' career paths from 1999 to 2001 and school achievement-level data, we addressed two research questions: 1) How do the…

A total of 204 K- 12 teachers were surveyed for the purpose of investigating the effect of pre-service student teaching on teachers' career goals, affective measures and classroom teaching. The study also explored whether different levels of supervision of student teaching may have had different effects on teachers' personal and professional…

This paper considers the case of the Michigan Migrant Head Start program to describe and analyze the labor market conditions and teaching staff characteristics to identify the challenges faced by Migrant Head Start grantees in attracting, hiring, retaining, and training degreed teachers. The emphasis is on describing and analyzing the child care…

A survey of students earning special education degrees in 1985 addressed job satisfaction, teacher-training program evaluation, and job stress factors. Of the 54 respondents, 88 percent found special education to be a personally satisfying career, but 48 percent said they would select another profession if given the opportunity to begin again.…

The U.S. is facing a serious shortage of math and science teachers. Worse news is that we are not now training enough new teachers to remedy the problem. Solutions may include differential pay, inservice staff development, school-industry cooperation, improved work environments, and computer-assisted instruction. (Author/JM)

The authors focus on the need for administrators to deal with the problem of teacher burnout as it relates to the implementation of Public Law 94-142 (the Education for All Handicapped Children Act). (Author)