Research & Insights

How can we fix well-documented disparities in the education experiences of children living in poverty?

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…

Not all teacher turnover is created equal. Some turnover is a good thing. Too much of it is a bad thing. The timing of turnover also matters…

The newest scare about teacher shortages focuses on the question of teacher retention…

Teacher evaluation systems, when implemented well, are coinciding with real and measurable benefits for students and teachers alike.

The right incentives can motivate a student to do homework, an employee to hit a quota, and even a child to finish her vegetables.

In most job sectors, employers use their compensation dollars to purchase what they most value.

Six Places Where Teacher Evaluation Systems are Getting Results

Coverage of teacher shortages tells of real struggles faced by districts, but it only tells part of the story.

Student teaching is intended to serve as the opportunity for aspiring teachers to apply what they have learned from their preparation programs in real classroom settings.

In light of new research regarding performance pay, this month’s Trendline takes a look at how a teacher’s evaluation rating affects salary in some of the largest districts in each state and across the country.

Even today, high-needs schools struggle to attract and, more critically, retain effective and experienced teachers. We think teacher prep programs are missing a huge opportunity to tackle this issue, through student teaching placements.

A new study suggests that offering performance bonuses to a smaller segment of high performing teachers than is typical in schools using performance pay may be a smart move.

Local context matters. It’s true when it comes to teacher shortages, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it would be true when it comes to teacher retention, too.

Pension systems, which are under the purview of state legislatures, are one roadblock to retention. These pension systems often incentivize teachers to make early retirements – and districts are powerless to change that.

If there’s one thing that research has shown us time and again, it’s that being a brand new teacher is hard—and being one of their first students is not all that ideal either. But what happens when an experienced teacher switches to a new grade level or subject?

For a long time, we’ve heard about the damage done by teacher turnover. Often, the thinking is that schools struggle to replace the teachers who leave with replacements who perform at least as well or better.

This month’s Trendline takes a look at the length of probationary periods across districts in the Teacher Contract Database and how much flexibility districts have in the decision to award tenure.

What happens in DC has the potential to impact districts across the entire nation.

To round out our research recap, everything you know about teacher turnover is wrong. For years, we’ve heard that half of all new teachers leave teaching in the first five years.

Results are in for the first full year of implementation of a new teacher evaluation system in Dallas, a system that the district claims to be “the most rigorous teacher evaluation system in the nation.” Given the initial results, perhaps it is.

Here’s a question which (as far as we know) no one has asked before: are new teachers who graduate from more elite colleges more likely to quit?