This report describes a problem based learning project focusing on superintendents' knowledge of the characteristics of high quality teachers. Current research findings offer evidence teacher quality is an important school variable related to student achievement. School district leaders are faced with the problem of identifying the characteristics…

School districts that offer bilingual education often find it difficult to hire enough teachers for their growing Latino populations. To expand the pool of bilingual teachers, some districts recruit teachers from Spanish-speaking countries. Yet there has been little research on how these teachers fare or what supports they need to succeed. This…

Recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers has been a challenge for many rural school districts. Lower salaries, working conditions, and geographic location are some of the challenges rural districts face when staffing their schools. The challenges of recruiting teachers in rural areas are compounded by competition from larger districts…

Although teacher recruitment and retention have been policy concerns for many years, the strategic alignment of educator talent management initiatives has only recently begun to gain momentum. The adoption of a more comprehensive and strategic approach to securing a sufficient number of effective teachers is evidenced by the creation of human…

Research shows low-income students suffer disproportionate learning loss over the summer and because those losses accumulate over time, they contribute substantially to the achievement gap between low- and higher-income children. The Wallace Foundation is funding a five-year demonstration project to examine whether summer learning programs can…

The present study sought to uncover relationships between the personal characteristics of teachers and their preferences for models of teaching. A purposeful sample included 12 elementary instructors of heterogeneous classes with a cluster of gifted students in urban school districts within Southern California, all of who were participants in a…

A new report by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center) highlights efforts across the nation to address a key point in the No Child Left Behind law and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)--the equitable distribution of high-quality teachers across all schools. Research consistently has pointed to effective…

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures"™ in Education program in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). As described in the CPRE proposal and research design, the purpose was to closely…

No one stakeholder group can realize lasting change on their own; nor can any reform initiative focusing on just one type of strategy create the workplace conditions needed to truly build capacity within the education profession. Rather, stakeholders must focus on collaborating, reaching common understanding, and prioritizing for ultimate impact…

About 80 percent of education spending is devoted to personnel, yet the capacity of schools and districts to recruit, develop, and retain top talent is stunningly low compared with other knowledge sectors. This problem is most profoundly felt in urban school systems, which creates tremendous inequity for the students who most need a high-quality…

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…

National and state-level policies recognize the critical role that talented teachers play in ensuring that all students learn and in building capacity for instructional excellence in schools. Teachers influence student learning more than any other factor in the school, and the dividends of effective teaching are cumulative (see "Defining the…

In this article, the authors explore how school-based hiring reforms play out among schools serving different students in different locations within a single district. In particular, they consider how the intersection of school-based capacity and local school context affect teacher selection practice and outcomes. The analysis is based on a…

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…

Research in effective programming for English language learners has demonstrated the efficacy of dual language education as a model for closing persistent achievement gaps for this growing population of students. With goals of high academic achievement, linguistic proficiency in two languages, and cross-cultural proficiency, dual language…