This study focuses on three new teachers, Arnie, Andrea, and Frank, who are New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF), a program of alternative teacher recruitment and certification that is in its third year at an urban public college in New York City. This study focuses on just three of the Fellows in order to have a more intense look into the…

This book describes the experiences of 26 retired rural school teachers from western Wisconsin. The book was inspired by the community solidarity of the Cloverdale Community Club (Wisconsin) in maintaining the old Cloverdale School building. Cloverdale School was a typical one-room rural school, built in 1857 and closed by the consolidation…

This book examines case studies of eight public and eight private schools that investigated different identifiable and transferable private school practices that public schools could adopt to improve student outcomes. Data came from interviews with administrators, teachers, parents, and students from diverse schools. Chapter 1,…

Many volunteer literacy tutors in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, have not completed their 1-year tutoring commitment. Consequently, an action research project was undertaken to determine the causes of the high tutor turnover and to identify ways of improving the tutor retention rate. All tutors involved in the program from 1998 onward were asked…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether teachers' personal attributes and school characteristics predict differences in the career patterns of teachers and, if so, to explore the implications for teacher supply. The sample was composed of 786 current and former teachers identified in 1986 through the Teaching Supplement Questionnaire of…

A study explored the relationship between job satisfaction and teacher turnover of practicing and former vocational education teachers in Northwest Ohio. Factor analysis, discriminant analysis, and an instrument with 38 job satisfaction indicator statements were used to determine these relationships. A total of 745 of 1,025 practicing teachers and…

This paper describes an initial effort to provide a carefully reasoned, factually based, systematic analysis of teacher pay in comparison to pay in other occupations available to college-educated workers. It also reports on the sensitivity of these salary comparison estimates to differences in certain characteristics of the labor force, such as…

Teacher retention has been of interest to educational researchers for over three decades. Various reasons for teacher attrition have been cited, including student discipline and motivation problems, working conditions, low salary, and a lack of administrator support. This descriptive survey research sought to determine the present status of…

The high national attrition rate among vocational education teachers (50 percent within 6 years) prompted a study to determine trade and industrial teachers' reasons for leaving and to make recommendations to increase teacher retention. Following a literature review of teachers' motivation and reasons for attrition, interviews were conducted with…

This case study describes an effort to design and pilot an interactive, Web-based, district-wide "professional support portal" to support new teacher retention and professional growth in the Milwaukee Public Schools. The study reviews the overarching goals of this program and focuses, in particular, on an account of the nature and kinds…

This report summarizes results of a survey of special educators regarding first, their working conditions related to central office support and, second, the impact of administrative support on their job satisfaction, commitment, and intent to leave. Major findings regarding teacher attitudes toward central office administrators include a perceived…

This study addresses attrition in the teaching profession, a major problem in Florida's schools. The study's target population was a random sample of 10% of the teachers from a Florida metropolitan school district employing 5,500 teachers. Data were gathered through a mailed questionnaire--the Survey of Teacher Characteristics and Activities. The…

This study examined intern attrition within one urban secondary Professional Development School (PDS). The secondary school was 80 percent minority. Data were collected over 2 years using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, PDS questionnaires, intern personal journals, and document analysis of resignation letters. Informants…

Teachers in career and technical settings are often recruited directly from industry with little or no pedagogical training, which can result in job dissatisfaction and teachers leaving the profession. As a response to the lack of retention and success of new career and technical teachers, a statewide committee was formed in Oklahoma in 1996 to…

This paper reports and discusses some of the results of a comprehensive survey of approximately 3,000 1985-90 graduates of 11 teacher education programs in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and Southwest. Forty-nine percent graduated from 4-year programs, 36 percent from integrated 5-year programs, and 14 percent from fifth-year (graduate only)…