Recruiting schools to participate in research projects has become increasingly challenging in the past several years. Research in schools was next-to-impossible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of the pandemic has made research a lower priority for schools trying to regain COVID-related academic losses. The School Recruitment…

The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) provides grants to support performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals in high-need schools. The study measures the impact of pay-for-performance bonuses as part of a comprehensive compensation system within a large, multisite random assignment study design. The treatment schools were to…

Teach For America (TFA) and the Teaching Fellows programs are an important and growing source of teachers of hard-to-staff subjects in high-poverty schools, but comprehensive evidence of their effectiveness has been limited. This report presents findings from the first large-scale random assignment study of secondary math teachers from these…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

Middle and high school math and science teachers provide the foundation for education in the growing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. They are crucial to California's efforts to remain competitive in a global economy. This policy brief looks at the shortage and challenges involved in recruiting and retaining fully prepared…

The factors responsible for the shortage of middle and secondary mathematics teachers in the U.S. are discussed. Seven strategies are suggested to reach out and recruit more mathematics teachers in the future.

This report presents challenges of and strategies for implementing reform in middle-grades schools, highlighting the perspectives of district administrators who participated in the Urban Middle-Grades Reform Network. The first section reviews literature on district support of school reform, including research on limitations of district-led reform,…

The Summerbridge program at San Francisco's University High School brings college and high school students in to tutor underprepared middle-school students for seventh and eighth grades. Most new students are from minority groups. Over half the college students serving as tutors in the program have chosen careers in education. (MSE)

Describes an early awareness program by Alvernia College (Pennsylvania) aimed at fifth to seventh graders from low-income school districts. The students' day-long visit to campus uses a "boot camp" analogy and involves small-group visits to campus facilities, games, and a talk on careers, higher education, and financial aid. A list of suggested…

Profiles Mary Ellen Darling, an exceptional teacher at Clark Middle School in Anchorage (Alaska). Addresses the difficulties in recruiting qualified teachers for the Anchorage School District, where 20 percent of students speak 85 different languages. Describes successful efforts to recruit teachers and professional staff from states with similar…

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform is committed to making high-performing middle-grades schools the norm rather than the exception. The Forum believes that specialized preparation of middle-grades educators will produce competent and caring teachers who are well-qualified to teach young adolescents. Therefore, the Forum strongly…

This document presents the activities that received Future Farmers of America's (FFA's) Model of Innovation awards in 2001. The booklet begins with an overview of the FFA National Chapter Award program and a list of the 2001 Models of Innovation Winners. The next three sections profile award-winning activities in the following areas of the three…

The purpose of the South Carolina Center for Teacher Recruitment (SCCTR) is to provide leadership in identifying, attracting, placing, and retaining well-qualified individuals for the teaching profession in South Carolina. In doing so, SCCTR strives to respond to changing needs for teachers from underrepresented populations, in critical subject…

Describes the University of Texas Systems schools' Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program, which successfully addresses complex issues related to low educational achievement of Hispanic females. This statewide community and university collaboration supports girls from eighth grade to matriculation into college, with mother-daughter dyads participating…