This report presents research from seven Midwestern states on teacher shortages, using data from teams of state, higher education, and teacher union officials who selected the highest priority indicators of teacher supply and demand. Researchers conducted a data gap analysis to identify data being collected nationally and statewide regarding the…

A study was conducted to identify why secondary career and technical education (CTE) teachers, especially in Minnesota, remain in or leave the teaching profession. Research recently reported that nearly 22 percent of all teachers leave the teaching profession within the first three years of teaching. The population for this study was the 258…

This paper examines research on teacher shortages, attrition, recruitment, and retention. Teacher attrition is the largest single factor determining demand for additional teachers in the United States. Teachers leave for such reasons as: low salaries; unprepared for the realities of teaching; rigorous certification examinations; lack of career…

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) sponsored the 1988-89 Teacher Followup Survey (TFS), conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, to update data on teacher career patterns and plans. This survey is a followup of the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) teacher sample. Data from previous surveys have been used by Congress,…

Teacher supply and recruitment, teacher pay and working conditions, institutional structures, and policy contexts are compared for England and Scotland. In Scotland, the fundamental approach to teacher employment and retention is based on rewarding teachers and improving conditions. The exaggerated centralization of English education policy, with…

Ten secondary teachers, enrolled in an induction program, participated in a year-long study to identify characteristics that can be viewed as important predictors of those teachers who will succeed and those who will not. Findings suggest that intellectual/academic achievement alone is not a sufficient primary predictor of teacher success. (IAH)

Reports on characteristics significantly related to teacher retention in a large urban school district using a Cox regression model to model teacher turnover for a sample of 2,327 white, black, and Hispanic-American first-year teachers. Sex, ethnicity, education, and certification route are significantly related to teacher retention. (SLD)

This article considers links between instructional group size and student engagement, caseload and academic achievement, and caseload and special educator attrition. Findings indicate larger caseload and group sizes negatively affect math and reading achievement, student engagement increases when group sizes decrease, and high teacher attrition…

A teacher of adjudicated students wonders: why teach? The money is not good. The call for accountability is based on the misperception that teachers perform poorly. The work is stressful and complicated by imposition of standards that don't address all aspects of a good education. He reasons that he can't find anything more rewarding than working…

In this age of heightened concern about teacher quality, calls for new policies and practices concerning recruitment, induction, and retention are familiar to many. The current enthusiasm for policies to recruit, support, and retain new teachers runs the risk of adding more clash and clang to an already cacophonous policy environment. In this…

While many studies have reported the predictors of teacher attrition, we know little about what predicts the attrition of school leaders. Using the Colorado state data on elementary school principals' and assistant principals' career paths from 1999 to 2001 and school achievement-level data, we addressed two research questions: 1) How do the…

A total of 204 K- 12 teachers were surveyed for the purpose of investigating the effect of pre-service student teaching on teachers' career goals, affective measures and classroom teaching. The study also explored whether different levels of supervision of student teaching may have had different effects on teachers' personal and professional…

In school finance lawsuits plaintiffs often claim that pay levels are not sufficient to recruit teachers who can deliver constitutionally-mandated levels of educational services. In this paper I consider several ways in which one might bring economic theory and data to bear on that question. I conclude that at present, and at least for the near…

There is significant evidence demonstrating the inability of the teaching profession to keep pace with other occupations in the retention of talent. While minority teachers have been found to be especially at risk, many teachers, both minority and nonminority, leave the profession within a few years of entering. The purpose of this study was to…

Until the beginning of 1994, federal law permitted mandatory retirement of tenured faculty at age 70. The Committee on Mandatory Retirement in Higher Education, formed by the National Research Council, was charged by Congress to examine potential effects on colleges, universities, and faculty members of ending the exemption for tenured faculty…