Problem: The high attrition rate among teachers poses significant challenges for schools (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2019; Covay Minor et al., 2019; Hammonds, 2017; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Kamrath & Bradford, 2020; Ryu & Jinnai, 2021), particularly in urban settings with diverse student populations (Carver-Thomas &…

Embodied pedagogy is a way of facilitating lessons which use the body as a locos of learning. Through a practice of storytelling, reflection, and imagination, embodied pedagogy evokes enactment and a release of emotions. This qualitative narrative study created multimodal portraits of embodied educators in the Newark Board of Education using the…

In this dissertation I seek to examine and expose the world of teaching, and particularly the world of teaching mathematics in public middle schools and high schools in New York City. These schools are administered by the New York City Department of Education which each year is responsible for the education of over one million students. In this…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of mentor teachers in an urban teacher residency program within a school-university partnership. The authors used a qualitative interview study design to add to the literature about the benefits and challenges of mentoring teacher residents placed in urban elementary and Special…

With support from the William Penn Foundation, RFA sought to further examine and understand Black teacher attrition and retention in Philadelphia, and promising strategies and initiatives that can promote the retention of Black teachers in the city and elsewhere. In totality, the project includes qualitative research that centers the perspectives…

Urban agricultural educators face a number of unique challenges in performing their job duties. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand the essence of urban agricultural educators' meaning in their work by exploring their lived experiences. In this study, the essence emerged in the form of a metaphor: A Black Swan. The black swan…

The purpose of this case study was to examine and describe the life experiences that influenced one music teacher's career choice to teach music in an urban school. The primary research question is: What experiences influenced the participant to pursue urban music education as a career? Calling upon research into urban music education and career…

This is UChicago Consortium's first comprehensive brief on student teachers and the student teaching experience in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). It synthesizes findings from research done in partnership with researchers from National Louis University, University of Michigan, and Stanford University, using CPS teacher data, along with surveys of…

Urban teacher residencies (UTRs) have emerged as an innovative alternative to recruiting and preparing high quality teachers for traditionally underserved, urban schools. UTRs offer opportunities for teacher candidates and mentors to use co-teaching models to differentiate instruction, particularly as schools adopt more inclusive practices…

This graphic memoir of teaching in urban America is a brilliant reimagining of the classic text by Gregory Michie, "Holler If You Hear Me: The Education of a Teacher and His Students." Michie is joined by illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner and 10 artists--most of them young people of color--to bring a fresh, vibrant energy to the original…

Alternative teacher credentialing programs (ATCPs) have grown over the last two decades to address persistent staffing shortages in high-need schools. Today, nearly a quarter of new teachers are prepared though these programs. Nonetheless, there are few studies that examine teacher candidates' learning as facilitated by these programs, or their…

Cochran-Smith (2003) argued that a major problem with efforts to reform both teaching and teacher preparation is a failure by many stakeholders to comprehend the "unforgiving complexity of teaching." Much of the discourse of educational policy and reform, both then and now, conceptualized teaching as a relatively simple process of…

In an era of increased attention to academic achievement gaps, expanding educational options has emerged as one approach to meeting the diverse learning needs of urban youth. This multiple-case study uses teacher interviews to investigate the role of extra-organizational factors (e.g., district- or state-level mandates) in shaping teachers' work…

This study examines the experiences of educators teaching in and through the arts as they participate in various arts-centered forms of professional development. In particular, the study asks how arts-centered practices promote educator confidence, competence and resilience for teaching in large urban districts. Drawing on the work of Ellsworth…

In this article, Nancy Barile, an urban high school teacher, questions whether "grit" can solve all students' problems. She states that when she first began teaching 20 years ago, she realized almost immediately that, as an urban school teacher, she needed to encourage grit in her students. She told "gritty" anecdotes of…