A Researcher Encounters The Policy Realm: A Personal Tale

The failure to ensure that all of our nation\u27s classrooms are staffed with qualified teachers is one of the most widely discussed, but least understood, problems facing our elementary and secondary schools. In recent years, dozens of reports and reform initiatives have sought to solve this problem. Unfortunately, the array of recent efforts do not address some of its key causes

Four Myths About America\u27s Teacher Quality Problem

Few educational issues have received more attention in recent times than the problem of ensuring that our nation\u27s elementary and secondary classrooms are all staffed with quality teachers. Concern with the quality of teachers is neither unique nor surprising. Elementary and secondary schooling are mandatory in the United States, and children are legally placed into the custody of teachers for a significant portion of their lives. The quality of teachers and teaching are undoubtedly among the most important factors shaping the learning and growth of students. Moreover, the largest single component of the cost of education is teacher compensation

Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?

Contemporary educational thought holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school performance is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. It is widely believed that schools are plagued by shortages of teachers, primarily due to recent increases in teacher retirements and student enrollments. This report summarizes a series of analyses that have investigated the possibility that there are other factors - tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools - that are behind school staffing problems. The data utilized in this investigation are from the Schools and Staffing Survey and its supplement, the Teacher Follow-up Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. These data indicate that school staffing problems are not primarily due to teacher shortages, in the sense of an insufficient supply of qualified teachers. Rather, the data indicate that school staffing problems are primarily due to a revolving door - where large numbers of qualified teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. The data show that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared to that associated with other factors, such as teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. This report concludes that teacher recruitment programs - traditionally dominant in the policy realm - will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention

Organizational Control in Secondary Schools

In educational research and policy, there are two viewpoints on organizational control in secondary schools: one, that schools are highly decentralized organizations in which teachers have workplace autonomy and discretion; two, that schools are top-down bureaucracies in which teachers have little influence over school operations. Both of these perspectives show substantial empirical support, but there has been little effort to explain the simultaneous presence of these contradictory images. Richard Ingersoll argues in this article that these two images derive from implicit differences in their emphases and in their assumptions concerning how to assess organizational control in schools. In order to empirically ground the debate and offer a more elabo­rated and refined view of the issues, Ingersoll presents an analysis of data from the 1987-1988 Schools and Staffing Survey conducted by the National Center for Edu­cation Statistics. He examines who controls key social, sorting, and behavioral ac­tivities and decisions occurring in schools, comparing the control reportedly exercised by faculties with that exercised by principals and central boards across different types of schools

A Different Approach to Solving the Teacher Shortage Problem

Few educational problems have received more attention in recent times than the failure to ensure that elementary and secondary classrooms are all staffed with qualified teachers. Over the past two decades, dozens of studies, commissions, and national reports have warned of a coming crisis resulting from widespread teacher shortages. This article briefly summarizes a recent study I undertook that used national data to examine the sources of school staffing problems and teacher short- ages. This research shows that although these issues are among the most important facing schools, they are also among the least understood. The data also reveal that many currently popular reforms will not solve the staffing problems of schools because they do not address some of their key causes

Out-of-Field Teaching, Educational Inequality, and the Organization of Schools: An Exploratory Analysis

Contemporary educational theory holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate student achievement, especially in disadvantaged schools, is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. Deficits in the quantity of teachers produced and in the quality of preparation prospective teachers receive have long been singled out as primary explanations for underqualified teaching. In this study, I hypothesize that the manner in which schools are organized and in which teachers are utilized can account for as much of the problem of underqualified teaching as do inadequacies in teacher training or the supply of teachers. This analysis specifically focuses on a little recognized source of underqualified teaching—the problem of out-of-field teaching—teachers being assigned by school administrators to teach subjects that do not match their training or education. I use data from the Schools and Staffing Survey—a large, comprehensive, nationally representative survey of teachers conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. The results show that while most teachers, even in disadvantaged schools, hold basic qualifications, a significant proportion of these qualified teachers, especially in disadvantaged schools, are assigned to teach classes out of their fields. Data also show that out-of-field teaching is not primarily due to school hiring difficulties resulting from teacher shortages. In contrast, the analysis shows that a number of aspects of the administration and organization of schools are significantly related to out-of-field teaching. For example, school district regulations concerning minimal education requirements for new hires, the quality of principal leadership, the strategies schools use to cope with teacher recruitment and hiring, and average school class sizes all have an independent association with the extent of out-of-field teaching in schools, after controlling for other factors

Teacher Turnover, Teacher Shortages, and the Organization of Schools

Contemporary educational theory holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school performance is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. Contemporary theory also holds that these staffing problems are primarily due to shortages of teachers, which, in turn, are primarily due to recent increases in teacher retirements and student enrollments. This analysis investigates the possibility that there are other factors that might have an impact on teacher turnover levels, and, in turn, the staffing problems of schools, factors rooted in the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools. The data utilized in this investigation are from the Schools and Staffing Survey and its supplement, the Teacher Followup Survey, a large, comprehensive, nationally representative survey of teachers and schools conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. The results of this analysis show that, net of teacher effects, there are significant effects of school characteristics and organizational conditions on teacher turnover which have largely been overlooked by previous research. For example, the data show that while high-poverty public schools have moderately higher rates, contrary to conventional wisdom, neither larger schools, nor public schools in large school districts, nor urban public schools have especially high rates of teacher turnover. In contrast, small private schools stand out for their high rates of turnover. Moreover, the data show, again contrary to popular wisdom, that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor, especially when compared to that resulting from two related causes – teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. The data show that, in particular, low salaries, inadequate support from the school administration, student discipline problems, and limited faculty input into school decision-making all contribute to higher rates of turnover, after controlling for the characteristics of both teachers and schools. The results of this investigation suggest that school staffing problems are neither synonymous with, nor primarily due to, teacher shortages in the conventional sense of a deficit in the supply of teachers. Rather, this study suggests that school staffing problems are primarily due to excess demand resulting from a revolving door – where large numbers of teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. This study also suggests that popular education initiatives, such as teacher recruitment programs, will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention

Holes in the Teacher Supply Bucket

Few educational issues receive more attention than the need to ensure that all elementary and secondary classrooms are staffed with qualified teachers. A rash of studies, commissions and national reports announce that we are on the precipice of a severe teacher shortage. These shortfalls, we are told, are due primarily to two demographic trends - increasing student enrollment and the retirement of a graying teaching force