In 2004-2005, North Carolina's average teacher turnover rate was nearly 13 percent, ranging from a high of 29 percent to a low of 4 percent. Turnover among teachers in low-performing schools was substantially higher, with a low of 12 percent and a high of 57 percent. North Carolina has put strategies in place to address teacher retention but how…

The basics of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)--adequate yearly progress benchmarks, provision of supplemental services, and a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom--are known. The intense scrutiny of the "how to" of those basics has resulted in a mix of impassioned criticism and effusive praise. What has been left largely…

This study used an open-ended structured interview to investigate seven parents' of students with disabilities perceptions of charter schools and why they chose this type of school to educate their child. Findings showed a general theme of parents believing that the traditional area public school did not meet their child's needs in terms of size,…

This report presents findings from the second year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program and background information about the design and implementation of the District Awards for Teacher Excellence (DATE) program. The TEEG and DATE programs operating in Texas make up the largest state-funded performance…

During the past decade, there has been a simultaneous decline in the number of African American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American teachers and an increase in the number of students among these same groups of minorities (referenced in this text as people of color). An array of topics relative to this decline were explored as the subject of a…

This final report describes the activities and outcomes of a 3-year federally funded project that developed and evaluated interventions aimed at increasing retention of special education teachers. The interventions developed and evaluated consisted of: (1) a series of stress management workshops aimed at preventing or alleviating teacher burnout,…

Examination of factors that contribute to a sustained commitment to the teaching profession suggests that motivation is influenced by nationality, socioeconomic background, gender, and point in time. In general, minority teachers come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and have greater access to teaching than to some other professions. Rewards…

A comprehensive teacher demand, supply, and shortage (TDSS) model is proposed as a conceptual framework for analyzing and determining the teaching force in bilingual and English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education. Available data on the shortage of bilingual education teachers are reviewed, and new national data on their characteristics are…

The Public School Teachers Questionnaire from the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey was analyzed to produce a descriptive portrait of vocational and nonvocational teachers of grades 9-12 in public schools. The sample consisted of 3,863 vocational and 14,315 nonvocational teachers. Almost 90 percent of each group classified themselves as white.…

The California New Teacher Project (CNTP) has demonstrated that intensive support, continued training, and informative assessments of teachers in their first professional years result in better instruction for students and higher retention rates for teachers. The 37 projects of CNTP were funded on the basis of their plans to implement alternative…

Interviews with 74 Maori teachers in New Zealand who had resigned from teaching and with 23 other educators examined issues in the retention of Maori teachers. Former Maori teachers are described in terms of: (1) gender and geographical distribution; (2) type of teacher training; (3) colleges of education attended; (4) level of educational…

In 1991, a study was conducted to provide a demographic profile of Colorado's community college faculty; to determine their retirement intentions; to predict the percent of faculty retiring over the next 14 years; to ascertain those incentives most favorable for retaining the services of faculty beyond their retirement eligibility; and to…

Since l984, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has been operating the California Mentor Teacher Program (MTP), initiated and supported by the state, to give special help to new or inexperienced teachers and encourage competent teachers to continue teaching. The study reported in these two volumes evaluated program effectiveness and…

A small group of Boston Public School teachers met for a year to explore the question of what keeps teachers going, a question that bears asking because of the precarious situation of public education today. In this article, I describe the work of the What Keeps Teachers Going? inquiry group as a way to challenge current notions of what it means…

This paper explores the lack of vitality among community college mid-career faculty, arguing that this may be an even more severe problem at two-year colleges than at four-year institutions. Emphasis is placed on the role of community colleges and the institutional changes required to revitalize mid-career faculty. The problem of faculty vitality…