A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

COVID-19 profoundly affected teacher preparation during the 2019-20 school year. Based on survey responses from nearly all Washington state teacher education programs (TEPs), Kathryn Choate, Dan Goldhaber, and Roddy Theobald find that the pandemic had predictable but concerning effects on teacher preparation. Most notably, student-teaching…

Washington State struggles to retain qualified and diverse teachers. This teacher shortage is particularly acute in rural areas. To address this issue, the 2019 State Legislature directed the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) to produce a report with policy recommendations for increasing student teachers' field placement in rural areas…

Purpose: A burgeoning literature investigates the importance of student teaching placements for teacher candidate development, but an important perspective that is largely missing from the existing literature is that of the school districts that host student teachers. In this paper, we describe the student teaching process from the perspective of…

We use comprehensive data on student teaching placements from 14 teacher education programs (TEPs) in Washington State to explore the sorting of teacher candidates to the teachers who supervise their student teaching ("cooperating teachers" or CTs) and the schools in which student teaching occurs. All else equal, teachers with more…

We use data from six Washington State teacher education programs to investigate the relationship between teacher candidates' student teaching experiences and their later teaching effectiveness. Our primary finding is that teachers are more effective when the student demographics of their current school are similar to the student demographics of…

We use a novel database of the preservice apprenticeships ("student teaching placements") of teachers in Washington State to investigate the relationship between mentor effectiveness (as measured by value added) and the future effectiveness of their mentees. We find a strong, positive relationship between the effectiveness of a teacher's…

We use data from Washington State to examine two stages of the teacher pipeline: the placement of prospective teachers into student teaching assignments and the hiring of prospective teachers into their first teaching positions. We find that prospective teachers are likely to complete their student teaching near their college and hometowns but…

We use data from Washington State to examine two stages of the teacher pipeline: the placement of prospective teachers in student teaching assignments; and the hiring of prospective teachers into their first teaching positions. We find that prospective teachers are likely to complete their student teaching near their college and hometowns, but…

This doctoral thesis explored mentoring in early learning teacher preparation programs. This study explored the reflective processes embedded in the work between student teachers and their mentors during early learning student teacher experiences at Washington State community and technical colleges. Schon's (1987a) concepts of…