IES announces a new National Research and Development (R&D) Center focusing on K-12 teacher recruitment and retention policy: the Center for Longitudinal Data in Education Research - Teacher Recruitment & Retention (CALDER-R&R). Shortages in the K-12 classroom teacher workforce are a longstanding problem and have worsened in recent years. The School Pulse Panel results indicate 44 percent of public schools reported having one or more vacant teaching positions during the fall of 2022, with greater rates in high-poverty communities (57 percent high-poverty versus 41 percent low-poverty) and in schools with higher minority populations (60 percent high-minority versus 32 percent low-minority). The overwhelming majority of schools attribute difficulties to filling vacancies to too few applicants. This Center will examine policies addressing teacher shortages and their impact on teachers, student learning, and equity. The policies address a range of shortage areas and operate at multiple stages of the teacher pipeline.
Specifically, the Center team will focus on the following policies:
- Grow-your-own initiatives designed to address teacher shortages and increase teacher diversity in high-needs districts
- Financial support to teacher candidates in exchange for work commitments
- Labor market information to teacher candidates intended to influence their decisions about specialization and job searching
- Licensure reforms that provide temporary licensure, change the cut scores required to pass licensure tests, or both
- Financial incentives, including salary floor policies, pay-for-performance policies, and financial incentives targeted to teachers in low-income schools and in specific shortage subject areas
- Teacher working conditions, including the 4-day school week, advanced teaching roles, and working conditions negotiated in collective bargaining agreements
To study these policies, the Center team will be using data from the following states: Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. In addition, the Center team will be using data from school districts in the Atlanta, GA metro area as well as Houston, TX.
Researchers will use state longitudinal data systems and analytic approaches to estimate causal impacts. The Center will evaluate fidelity of implementation, explore how intended policies were translated into practice, and identify key contextual factors that may influence the generalizability of the results. The Center will document the costs and cost effectiveness of these policies. Via a survey of a nationally representative sample of teachers, the Center will seek to understand how the interventions are viewed outside the study settings and to understand how teachers view trade-offs associated with different interventions. Through its leadership and outreach activities, the Center will build on existing stakeholder networks to disseminate findings and inform next steps to improve research, practice, and policy around K-12 teacher recruitment and retention.
This new R&D Center was awarded as a cooperative agreement with IES. IES is looking forward to working with the new Center to advance education research, policy, and practice in this key education issue that faces our nation.
Map of Center for Longitudinal Data in Education Research - Teacher Recruitment & Retention (CALDER-R&R) Partner States
This blog was written by Wai-Ying Chow (Wai-Ying.Chow@ed.gov), program officer, NCER.