The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP)--disproportionately impacting students of color--involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers to such outcomes as incarceration or college. Educators can, through their interactions with and expectations for…

Merit pay is now in the midst of a renaissance. Hundreds of school districts are experimenting with some type of performance-based pay system. At least six states have statewide or pilot programs, and the federal government has spent close to $100 million on the Teacher Incentive Fund. Whether such programs will last, encourage the start of…

The road to finding a career path as a Trade and Industrial (T&I) or Healthcare Science (HSTE) (formerly Heath Occupations) teacher is winding at best. Job incumbents in this profession are hired after years of employment in an occupational field, and subsequently obtain the necessary credentials for their new teaching career. Various models…

Our nation is squandering one of its most important resources--our best teachers--and children are paying the price. We asked a simple question: "Will our nation's bold efforts to recruit more top teachers and remove the least effective teachers put a great teacher in every classroom?" We ran the numbers and discovered a disappointing…

This article examines the effectiveness of a 1-year full-time credential program in recruiting, preparing, and retaining elementary, secondary, and special education teachers for urban schools. The program was designed to restructure teacher education as a shared school-university responsibility and to reflect best teacher preparation practices…

Research on the relationship between teachers' characteristics and teacher effectiveness has been underway for over a century, yet little progress has been made in linking teacher quality with factors observable at the time of hire. However, most research has examined a relatively small set of characteristics that are collected by school…

With 1 in 10 children in US schools having limited English proficiency, school districts across the country face challenges in meeting the students' educational needs and finding enough qualified bilingual and English as a Second Language educators. This report identifies international teacher exchanges as an innovative, near-term strategy for…

A generational transition is occurring in U.S. public school classrooms. Baby Boom teachers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are approaching retirement age, and many of their colleagues from Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1976) are entering their mid-career stage. The newest generation in the teaching workforce is Generation Y (those…

State laws and regulations can either help or hinder the ability of school districts to hire effective teachers for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. State officials wanting to tackle this critical problem need to begin with a thorough review of relevant policies, asking themselves: "Are we part of the problem, and…

Education authorities continue to experience difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers in rural and remote schools. In Western Australia (WA), a state noted for its vastness and number of schools located in rural and remote settings, a scheme developed by the Western Australian Department of Education and Training (DET) and the WA Chamber of…

This study examines teacher diversity in a federally-funded mathematics and science partnership program. Each of the partnerships in the program provided preservice and/or inservice education for teachers in mathematics, science, or both. Researchers used qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the effect of strategies implemented by the…

In the State of California, an additional 100,000 teachers will be needed during the next 10 years to teach in K-12 schools (School Services of California, Inc., 2006), due both to population growth and the retirement of "Baby Boomers." This critical need to develop teachers in California will be mirrored in other states as well, and…

The relationship between the professional formation of beginning teachers, education reforms and Hong Kong's free-market economy is explored. An overview of educational change and then beginning teachers' professional formation within the context of economic cycles provides a contextual background against which two research projects are…

This report--based on an exploratory empirical study of state certification and licensure policies, 10 states' employment databases, a survey of teachers with interstate mobility experience, and focus groups of American Association for Employment in Education members and Troops-to-Teachers state directors--focuses on the certification and…

California's budget crisis jeopardizes the progress made in strengthening the teaching workforce. The threat of impending teacher layoffs will weaken the teacher preparation pipeline and affect the state's ability to attract and retain thousands of teachers it can't afford to lose. If California is to remain committed to strengthening student…