California Bay Area school districts are experiencing a teacher shortage that threatens to further widen the opportunity gap for schools with the neediest student populations. Financial incentives, administrator support levels, appropriate and consistent professional development, and mentoring are often cited as areas that cause teachers to leave…

This report profiles five public PreK-12 learning education agencies across the U.S. that participated in the Digital Promise Center for Inclusive Innovation Teacher of Color Recruitment and Retention cohort and utilized the Inclusive Innovation model to create and launch locally contextualized programs designed by teachers of color.

For years, parents and policymakers have raised concerns about teacher shortages. These concerns escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic, amid reports of teachers leaving the profession, fewer new teachers entering, and schools struggling to hire teachers. The Explanatory Statement accompanying the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020…

The K-12 health and physical education professions are largely guided and supported by three entities. They include state departments of education, national and state professional associations, and teacher education programs (i.e., health education teacher education [HETE] and physical education teacher education [PETE]). From the outside looking…

Colorado has a significant shortage of special education teachers, particularly within rural areas. This article will compare two grant-funded recruitment and training projects drawing connections from the current research base in training and retention. High-Leverage Practices were infused into these projects to support authentic assistive…

For the first time in the history of the State of the States, all 50 states will be represented with entries this year. A number of state legislatures are working to provide public education the necessary fiscal support to provide students with a high quality 21st century education, or restore funding levels for public education to pre-Great…

Teacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red,…

Over the last decade, there has been increased attention on early education, but real progress for children and families has remained out of reach. We want America's children to become lifelong learners who are able to think critically and inventively, manage their emotions and impulses, and make smart decisions by drawing upon a rich knowledge…

The need to address teacher pipeline challenges has never been more urgent--and doing so will require bold, systemic changes to how teachers are recruited, prepared, compensated, supported, and respected. Teacher Preparation Partnerships are one promising strategy to help address the state's significant teacher pipeline challenges through…

Research shows that teachers of color can benefit all students, particularly students of color, yet only one in five teachers are individuals of color, compared to more than half of K-12 public school students. Increasing the diversity of educators can not only benefit students, but recruiting, preparing, and retaining more teachers of color who…

Effective K-12 leaders remain a central concern for schools and communities of all types. The purpose of this research is to examine critically the literature on issues facing leaders in rural and urban settings and present a synthesis of cross-cutting themes. The authors reviewed the theoretical and empirical literature on K-12 leadership issues…

Build for Equity supports proficiency of educational leaders to recruit, hire, develop and retain quality teaching candidates, building and system leaders from historically marginalized populations. National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) conducted a months-long study on how to diversify the teacher workforce. This study, sponsored…

This occasional paper is the sixth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). It examines trends in quality improvement from the perspective of services rated Working Towards National Quality Standard (NQS) under the 2012 NQS. In this paper, a service is considered to have improved its quality at reassessment where it: (1) receives a…

School systems are currently faced with critical recovery needs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders must decide how to allocate nearly $200 billion of federal funding, which has the potential to significantly impact efforts to accelerate learning and provide student well-being supports, especially for students who have been…

This report includes two studies that describe the local context for teacher employment decisions. The first examines the local labor market, and the second examines employment for teachers who left Austin Independent School District (AISD). A separate executive summary and a technical report also were published. [For the executive summary, see…