Math skills are critical for students’ success in other subjects and later in life, yet far too many teacher prep programs fail to give aspiring teachers the essential knowledge they need to be effective math teachers—undermining student learning before the first lesson even begins.
What can California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. teach us about how to diversify the teacher workforce?
Nationally, the diversification of the teacher workforce is slowing compared to the diversification of college-educated adults, but California, Texas, and Washington, D.C. are bucking that trend. Explore what factors contribute to their relatively high rates of teacher diversity and how their policies and practices will likely affect teacher quality.
Districts are facing hard choices: How can teacher evaluation help?
Teacher evaluation systems—if implemented well—can help districts make better workforce decisions. We examine whether large districts’ policies align with the research on what will likely make for effective and impactful evaluation systems.
Inequities in the classroom: When the only thing missing is the will to act
In spite of a federal law requiring states to take action to ameliorate the inequitable distribution of teacher talent, many states (and consequently their districts) aren’t doing much.
“This should work!” Reading between the lines of a new study looking at how to make the most of effective elementary teachers, it seemed pretty clear that even its dispassionate authors, Kevin Bastian and C Kevin Fortner (of UNC Chapel Hill and Georgia State University, respectively) were taken aback by their results.
As district leaders and union representatives sit down to negotiate teacher contracts, an invisible hand has already decided many of the potential issues for them. That’s because states’ collective bargaining laws set the ground rules for what can be negotiated.
Tennessee is at it again! The Volunteer State, known for its strong policies around teacher prep and teacher evaluation, is once again offering up its data.
We all know that new teachers are more apt to get handed the toughest classrooms, a double whammy on student growth (where it’s most needed) and teacher attrition rates. What’s not as clear is what we mean by toughest assignments.
It’s safe to say that recessions are bad – people lose jobs, investments lose value, politicians lose elections. However, it turns out there’s one group that benefits from an economic downturn: students.
This month, the District Trendline highlights the role of collective bargaining in teacher strikes, takes a look at what teachers have won in recent strikes in Denver, Los Angeles, and Oakland, and makes a prediction of where teachers might strike next.
Steps to help create a stronger, more diverse elementary teacher workforce
School districts currently hire about 70,000 new elementary teachers each year, with the expectation that these teachers are ready to teach the standard elementary curriculum of English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.
Some noteworthy findings from Richard Ingersoll and his colleagues in the recent examination of how the teaching workforce has changed in the last thirty years…
