DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
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Hitting the Target?
A Multi-Level Case Study Analysis of Teacher Policy in Three States
Jennifer King Rice1
University of Maryland
Christopher Roellke
Vassar College
Dina Sparks
University of Maryland
1
The project is supported with funding from MetLife Foundation. The authors acknowledge the
contributions of Tammy Kolbe who helped with the literature review of teacher policies, and
Allison Clarke and Lauren Duff who assisted with data collection in New York and Connecticut.
We are also grateful to Clarissa Coughlin for secretarial support. All remaining errors are our
own.
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Hitting the Target?
A Multi-Level Case Study Analysis of Teacher Policy in Three States
Jennifer King Rice, Christopher Roellke & Dina Sparks
Executive Summary
Evidence suggests that teachers are a critical resource in realizing high quality educational
opportunities for all students. However, many school systems across the country continue to
employ large numbers of teachers who, by most indicators, do not fit into the category of “high
quality.” Shortages of qualified teachers in particular subjects and geographic areas, inconsistent
distributions of teachers across districts and schools, and high teacher turnover all contribute to
the staffing challenge. These problems are most pronounced in disadvantaged districts and
schools, where arguably high quality teachers are most needed. Education policymakers at every
level of the system have responded to the teacher staffing problem by putting in place policies,
practices and resources aimed at improving teacher quality and placing high quality teachers in
every classroom, but little is known about the range of strategies being used, how they are
“packaged” together, or the degree to which they are targeted to meet the needs of disadvantaged
schools and districts. Further, more information is needed on the costs associated with promising
teacher policy packages.
In this study, we utilize multi-level case study data collected from Maryland, New York and
Connecticut to address the following research questions:
1) What is the teacher policy landscape across levels of the education system?
2) What do educators, particularly teachers, think of these policies?
3) Do teacher policy packages across levels of the system “make sense” with respect to:
a) policy-problem alignment; b) policy interactions; and c) targeting of policies.
4) What is the level of investment being made in teacher policy? What level of
investment is needed to staff all schools with quality teachers?
The analysis is grounded in a conceptual framework that (1) recognizes the multi-dimensional
nature of the teacher staffing issue (ensuring an adequate supply of qualified teachers,
recruitment, distribution, and retention); and (2) views the various types of teacher policies
across the educational system as complex and interactive. We organized teacher policies into a
typology that categorizes them by type of policy and the dimension of the staffing problem it
addresses. Several key findings emerged from our analysis:

Comprehensive set of strategies. We found that education systems tend to use
comprehensive approaches to teacher policy, drawing on different types of strategies to
address multiple dimensions of the problem.
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
Common policy emphases. Across our sites, we found a shared policy emphasis on
strategies like expanding supply through alternative certification, targeting policies for
better distribution of teachers, providing professional development for recruitment and
retention, and forming partnerships with higher education.

Dominant policies at each level of the system. Shared state policies included economic
incentives and alternative avenues into the profession to address supply and distribution issues.
Shared district policies were alternative routes into the profession made available by the states
to increase their supply, innovative hiring strategies and attractive professional development
opportunities to recruit teachers, and a variety of policy strategies to promote better retention.
Shared school policies included hiring practices to enhance recruitment, professional
development to recruit and retain teachers, and a variety of working conditions to promote
retention.

Contextual factors. Contextual factors such as teacher supply, school performance, socioeconomic status of the school, safety, and collective bargaining agreements are associated with
the policies observed in districts and schools.

Policy-problem alignment. While we found evidence of policies that address the
articulated problems at each level of system, we also found lots more policies in play.
Greater attention is needed to study the degree to which those policies address secondary
problems, or if this finding reveals a “buckshot” scattered approach to teacher policy at
more central levels of the system.

Policy interactions. Our data uncovered numerous policy interactions, some positive
and some negative. Perhaps most striking is the degree to which NCLB and other highstakes accountability policies are currently driving teacher policy at the state, district, and
school-levels.

Policies addressing teacher quality vs. teacher qualifications. Our study shows that
states, districts, and schools with a surplus of qualified teachers have the luxury of
emphasizing policies related to the quality of teachers, while districts with an undersupply of qualified teachers are forced to focus on teacher qualifications. This important
distinction emerges from our data: policies that address teacher qualifications are those
that aim to staff schools with teachers that meet externally-imposed criteria for hiring
(e.g., federal and state definitions), while policies aimed at enhancing teacher quality are
attentive to internally-determined criteria deemed important to enhance school, teacher,
and student performance (i.e., these criteria take into consideration the strengths and
needs of the school community).

Targeting of policies. We expected to find that more heterogeneous levels of the system
are more likely to target policies to schools and districts with the greatest need; we did
not find this to be the case. We also found that targeted policies tended to be those aimed
at supply and recruitment (typically lower cost policies) rather than longer-term retention
(typically higher cost policies).
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
Teacher Policy Analysis
Cost of teacher policy. Our study found that, while little data are available on the level
of investment being made in teacher policy across levels of the education system in our
three states, it is clear that policies range in cost. More work is needed to understand the
level of investment currently being made in teacher policy across levels of the education
system, and to estimate the costs of promising teacher policy packages.
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I. Introduction
Evidence suggests that teachers are the most important educational resource required to
produce high quality educational opportunities for all students. While considerable debate
surrounds the identification of specific qualities and qualifications that make a good teacher (see
Rice, 2003b), researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and the public agree that teacher quality
affects the quality of education students receive (Darling-Hammond & Post, 2000; Ehrenberg &
Brewer, 1995; Ferguson, 1991 & 1998; Haycock, 2000; NCES, 2000; NCTAF, 1996; Phillips,
Crouse & Ralph, 1998; Sanders & Rivers, 1996). In fact, ensuring that all classrooms have a
qualified teacher is a fundamental requirement for realizing the high standards emphasized and
measured by federal and state standards-based reforms and high stakes accountability systems.
The link between teacher quality and student achievement implies that teacher policy is a
promising direction for realizing goals of productivity, equity and adequacy in public education.
Not surprisingly, the past two decades hold numerous examples of policies aimed at enhancing
teacher quality. Prominent examples include the National Commission on Excellence in
Education (1983); the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Boyer, 1983);
The Holmes Group (1986); and the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future
(1996). Most recently, educators at all levels have reacted to requirements imposed by the
federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2001), which
establishes standards for a “highly qualified teacher” and requires teachers (in core academic
subjects) in schools receiving Title I funding to meet these standards by the end of the 2005-06
school year.2 NCLB defines a “highly qualified teacher” as one who (1) has obtained full state
certification or licensure, (2) holds at least a bachelors degree, and (3) has demonstrated
proficiency in subject knowledge and teaching skills related to the teaching assignment, as
demonstrated by passing a rigorous state test. Requirements for middle and high school teachers
also include successful completion of an academic major, a graduate degree, coursework
equivalent to an undergraduate degree, or advanced certification or credentialing in each of the
academic subjects that the teachers teach. While NCLB provides clear guidelines regarding what
counts as a highly qualified teacher, states are granted much discretion in determining specific
requirements. NCLB also makes resources available to schools and districts to improve the
quality of their teaching workforce.
A quality teacher in every classroom is clearly a cornerstone for providing an adequate
education for all students. The issues of teacher supply, recruitment, distribution, and retention,
however, present significant challenges for many states, districts, and schools and pose
considerable risks for ensuring educational equity and adequacy for all students. In some areas
of the country there is a shortage or pending shortage of qualified teachers, particularly in
specific subject areas. Further, the distribution of qualified teachers to classrooms nationwide is
inconsistent and uneven. Many school systems across the country continue to employ large
numbers of teachers who, by most indicators do not fit into the category of “high quality”
(Carroll, Reichardt, & Guarino, 2000), and this problem is pronounced in urban, high-poverty
districts and schools where, arguably, high quality teachers are most needed (Ingersoll, 1999;
2
Core subjects include English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign
languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography).
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Choy, et al. 1993; Haycock, 2000). Moreover, many disadvantaged schools (i.e., high poverty;
low-performing) face significant challenges recruiting qualified teachers (Murphy & DeArmond,
2003) and retaining these teachers once they are hired (NCES, 2005; Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin,
2004; Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002; Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). Clearly, the nature of the
teacher staffing problem is both complex and multi-dimensional. Policymakers wrestle with the
concurrent challenges of how to expand the pool of qualified teacher candidates, recruit teachers
to the places they are most needed, distribute teachers in equitable and efficient ways, and retain
qualified teachers over time. The multiple aspects of the problem suggest that a multidimensional policy response is required to address teacher staffing concerns.
Education policymakers at every level have responded to the teacher staffing problem by
putting in place policies, practices and resources aimed at improving teacher quality and placing
high quality teachers in every classroom. In formulating their response, policymakers typically
use multiple strategies that draw on different pools of resources to simultaneously address
various dimensions of the problem (Rice, 2003a). At the national level, federal efforts to improve
teacher quality are evident in NCLB’s “highly qualified teacher” requirement and in
corresponding federal grants to states and districts that support teacher education and
professional development. States also have taken a more active role in teacher staffing policy as
replenishing and distributing the teacher workforce has become more difficult (Hirsch, Koppich,
& Knapp, 2001). Increasingly, state education agencies provide guidance and support for teacher
induction, professional development, and other strategies designed to advance teacher and,
ultimately, student success (Hirsch et al., 2001). Many states have become involved in
encouraging shifts in the teacher labor market by offering economic incentives and rewards to
teachers who work in low-performing schools and in subject-shortage areas such as math,
science and special education (Hirsch, et al., 2001; Meyer, 2002). The district role, traditionally
focused on teacher recruitment and hiring, also has expanded to attend to issues that surround
retention, professional development, and, in some cases, the distribution of teachers across
schools. Schools too have taken steps to address different aspects of the teacher staffing
problem. Increasingly schools offer programs focused on teacher mentoring and induction,
enhancing professional development opportunities, and improving working conditions. At any
one time, multiple policies, practices and resources are targeted at the teacher staffing problem
by different levels of government, forming unique combinations, or “packages,” of policies that
address the problem in different ways.
While policymakers at various levels of government have responded to the teacher
staffing problem, we know very little about the array of strategies being used, how these
strategies are packaged together, or the degree to which they are targeted at specific schools and
districts. More importantly, we know almost nothing about how effective these strategies are at
addressing the multiple dimensions of the teacher staffing problem (Guarino, Santibanez, Daley,
& Brewer, 2004). Implementing policies to improve the supply of qualified teachers as well as to
allocate and retain qualified teachers in districts and schools where they are most needed also is
not without costs. In an environment of fixed and, in some cases, declining fiscal resources,
there is a critical need to understand the relative costs of the various strategies and improve
system-wide efficiency by using the most cost-effective practices.
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This study examines teacher policy across levels of the education system in three states:
Maryland, New York, and Connecticut.3 The analysis is grounded in a conceptual framework
that (1) recognizes the multi-dimensional nature of the teacher staffing issue (ensuring an
adequate supply of qualified teachers, recruitment, distribution, and retention); and (2) views the
various types of teacher policies across the educational system as complex and interactive. With
these complexities in mind, we conducted multi-level case studies of teacher policy packages in
three states to explore the following questions:
1. What is the teacher policy landscape across levels of the education system? What kinds
of policies are most common? What levels of the system are most active?
2. What do teachers think of these policies? Do the policies influence their job decisions?
What do they see as the most pressing problem related to staffing?
3. Do teacher policy packages across levels of the system “make sense” with respect to
three considerations:
a) Policy-problem alignment – To what extent are the policies aligned with
the most salient dimensions of the staffing problem (e.g., supply,
recruitment, distribution, retention)?
b) Policy interactions – To what extent do teacher policies interact with
other policies in productive or unproductive ways?
c) Targeting of policies – To what extent are teacher policies appropriately
targeted to subject and geographic shortage areas?
4. What is the level of investment being made in teacher policy? What level of investment
is needed to staff all schools with quality teachers?
The next section of the paper presents our conceptual framework, followed by a
description of our data and methods. We then present our case study findings on teacher policy
across three states. The next section presents our analysis of these policies in terms of policyproblem alignment, policy interactions, targeting of policies, and resources. We conclude by
discussing the implications of our study.
II. Conceptual Framework
Our conceptual framework recognizes several important characteristics of the teacher
policy environment. (See Figure 1.) First, federal, state, district, and school resources are used
to support many types of policies across levels of education systems. These policies include
economic incentives, avenues into the profession, hiring strategies, professional development,
and working conditions. Second, multiple teacher policies are used simultaneously to address
multiple dimensions of the staffing problem, including ensuring an adequate supply of qualified
teachers, recruiting qualified teachers to schools and districts where they are needed most,
3
Another component of this research agenda uses nationally-representative data to analyze
questions related to the incidence and impact of teacher policy.
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distributing teachers in efficient and equitable ways, and retaining teachers once they have been
hired. Third, these policy “packages” can be analyzed in terms of the degree of alignment
between policies and dimensions of the problem, the interactions among multiple policies, and
the extent to which policies and resources are targeted to difficult-to-staff schools and school
systems. Further, our framework recognizes that considerable resources are devoted to teacher
policies with the ultimate aim of improving student achievement. The framework also
acknowledges that a set of contextual factors (some of which are noted in Figure 1) influence
teacher policy at different points in the model. We recognize these factors in the model, but do
not explicitly include them in our study’s analytic framework at this point in our research.
In the sections below, we describe the various components of the framework. The
starting point for the framework’s flowchart is a box recognizing the federal, state, district, and
school resources dedicated to teacher policies across levels of the education system. One
approach to studying teacher policy resources is to track expenditures devoted to teacher policies
at various levels of the system. However, since our focus in this study is on the array of policies
across education systems, we link our discussion of resources to the specific strategies used by
states, districts and schools; that is, our analysis aims to identify the amounts and types of
resources that are used to support specific policies and practices currently being used in the field.
State, District & School Teacher Policies
The next frame in our conceptual model displays five broad and sometimes overlapping
categories of strategies that states, districts and schools may use to address different aspects of
the teacher staffing problem: (1) economic incentives; (2) avenues into the profession; (3) hiring
strategies; (4) professional development; and (5) working conditions. (See Figure 1.) These
categories were identified through a comprehensive scan of policies currently being used by
policymakers and educational administrators to address teacher staffing issues.
The following sections provide an overview of each category. Our full report (Rice,
Roellke, & Sparks, 2005) describes each of the policy categories in more depth and provide an
overview of what existing research says about their potential role as tools for policymakers and
educational administrators to use in their efforts to address different aspects of the teacher
staffing problem. In general, despite growing interest by states, districts and schools in strategies
that might help alleviate ongoing challenges associated with recruiting and retaining qualified
teachers, policymakers and educational administrators have been presented with little empirical
evidence to guide them in their decision making (Guarino et al., 2004). The education policy
literature includes many articles and reports that describe and even advocate for a range of
policies, practices and resource allocations (e.g., The Teaching Commission, 2004). However,
very little rigorous policy evaluation research has been conducted that evaluates the extent to
which specific strategies or packages of strategies are effective at inducing teachers to enter and
remain in the workforce, particularly in difficult-to-staff schools and in subject-shortage areas,
and almost no empirical research evaluates the explicit relationship between different policies
and their relative effectiveness as a strategy to recruit and retain “qualified” teachers to the
teacher workforce (Guarino et al., 2004).
Economic Incentives
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Increasing teacher compensation and other types of economic rewards are frequently
cited policy options for enticing teachers to enter and remain in the teaching workforce. Most
often, these strategies take the form of increased entry- and base-level wages for new and
existing teachers; links between teacher performance in the classroom and compensation (e.g.,
“merit pay”); awards and bonuses for achieving National Board Certification; and financial
incentives for teachers who work in areas experiencing critical shortages (low-performing
schools, subject shortage areas) such as signing bonuses, housing assistance, tuition remission
for graduate coursework, loan forgiveness and other incentives (Guarino et al., 2004; Hirsch, et
al., 2001; Meyer, 2002).
The use of economic incentives as a tool for teacher recruitment and retention is
grounded in research evidence that suggests salaries and benefits play an important role in
attracting and retaining teachers. Empirical evidence indicates that salary and benefit levels can
be a key factor in teachers’ decisions to stay or leave teaching or to move between districts or
schools (Ingersoll, 2001a; Weiss, 1999; Ingersoll & Alsalam, 1997; Baugh & Stone, 1982;
Brewer, 1996; Gritz & Theobald, 1996; Hanushek et al., 2004; Lankford et al., 2002; Theobald,
1990; Beaudin, 1993; Kirby, Berends, & Naftel, 1999). Further, evidence suggests that annual
incentive payments, or bonuses, may be an effective tool for retaining teachers in subjectshortage areas who teach in disadvantaged schools (Clotfelter, et al., 2004).
Working Conditions
Along with wages and benefits, non-pecuniary features such as working conditions
(school characteristics and organizational environment) and aspects of preparation and skill that
influence teachers’ success and feelings of efficacy in the classroom are all likely to influence
teachers’ decisions to leave a school or leave the occupation. Wages are not the only
consideration and, in fact, are often not the top priority in teachers’ decisions about where to
work (Farkas, Johnson, & Foleno, 2000).4
A number of findings are worth noting. School characteristics, such as the proportion of
low-income and minority students, have been shown to influence teachers’ decisions to leave a
particular teaching position (Carroll, et al., 2000; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Shen, 1997) and
some research tracking teacher mobility patterns finds that teachers in low-performing schools
transfer to high performing schools at higher rates than teachers in other schools (Hanushek, et
al., 2004). In addition, teachers who felt supported in the workplace – psychologically,
instructionally, and administratively – also have been shown to be more likely to remain in
teaching. Specifically, teachers with mentors in the same subject area and who were engaged in
collaborative activities such as joint planning were less likely to leave their position for another
job or to leave teaching altogether (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004), and administrative support,
especially with respect to the principal’s role, has been shown to contribute to teachers’
workplace commitment and feelings of efficacy (Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1990; Shen, 1997;
Weiss, 1999).
4
Though, this could be a result of the narrow range of options most teachers face with respect to
wages.
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Substantial evidence suggests that school environment also influences teachers’
satisfaction with their job and the likelihood that they will stay in, leave, or move from a
particular teaching position. Particular working conditions including amount of planning time,
workload, problematic student behavior, influence over school policy, administrative support,
availability of necessary materials, participation in decision making, and collegial opportunities
have been found to be associated with (NCES, 2005; Weiss, 1999; Shen 1997). In addition, class
size (Mont & Rees, 1996; Theobald, 1990) and school resources (Kirby, Berends, & Naftel,
1999; Johnson & Birkeland 2003) have been shown to be related to teacher turnover.
Altogether, the existing body of knowledge suggests that districts and schools can
increase their attractiveness to current and prospective teachers relative to other opportunities
available to these individuals by creating more supportive and productive environments in which
teachers may work. Many approaches have been implemented to make schools more supportive
and pleasant places to work with the hope of attracting qualified teachers to and retaining them in
difficult-to-staff schools.
Professional Development Opportunities
Opportunities for personal and professional growth within the workplace are a key
dimension of teachers’ satisfaction with their professional environment. These opportunities
have been such a critical part of state, district, and school policy responses to the teacher staffing
problem that we have set-aside professional development strategies as a separate category of
policies, apart from the broader discussion of strategies focused on workplace conditions.
Examples of professional development initiatives organized and supported by different levels of
the education system include induction programs for new teachers, mentor teacher initiatives,
school-based professional development facilitators, workshops and summer institutes, study
groups, participation in professional networks, and support for continuing education such as
graduate coursework (Hirsch, et al., 2001).
Research provides some evidence that district- and school-based programs that provide
induction and mentoring support for new teachers (e.g., teachers in their first three years of
teaching) have positive effects on teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in difficult-tostaff schools (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). The types of induction support with the strongest
positive association included having a mentor in the same field, having common planning time
with other teachers in the same subject, having regularly scheduled collaboration with other
teachers, and being part of an external network of teachers (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004). What is
unavailable in the research literature, however, is a description of mentor and induction program
characteristics and a discussion of how these programs were designed and implemented, making
it difficult to point districts and schools toward models with a known level of effectiveness or
success.
Avenues into the Profession
Alternative routes into the teaching profession have emerged as a popular policy response
to persistent shortages of qualified teachers, particularly in localized areas such as urban schools
and in subject specialties (math, science, and special education). Alternative routes into the
profession, including alternative certification and alternative avenues to certification, differ in
purpose, context and program elements (Dill, 1996). As such, it is difficult to draw broad
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conclusions about their effectiveness as tools for improving teacher supply, retention, and quality
because the current body of research rarely distinguishes among different types of programs and
routes into the profession (Moore-Johnson, Birkeland, & Peske, 2005).
The most popular strategies used by states and districts can be categorized as alternative
certification programs and alternative routes into the profession. Alternative certification
programs are a mechanism for preparing teachers and recruiting individuals to teaching careers
who might not otherwise enter the profession, usually bypassing traditional teacher education
programs by offering other forms of training (Hirsch, et al., 2001). In contrast, alternative route
programs generally take two forms: (1) post-baccalaureate programs for mid-career entrants that
approximate university-based preparation programs, but put the candidate in the classroom
sooner; and (2) experiential programs (often lasting 9-18 months) that provide a minimum level
of training based on the assumption that participants will pick up the skills they need on the job.
Alternative route programs are generally accompanied by relatively short summer training
experiences (Hirsch, et al., 2001).
Research evidence suggests that alternative certification policies are a powerful
recruitment incentive for individuals who might not have previously considered a teaching
career, including mid-career entrants (Chin, Young, & Floyd, 2004; Feistritzer, 2005; Liu,
Johnson, & Peske, 2004; Ruenzel, 2002; Shen, 1997). Moreover, alternative certification
programs that target minority paraprofessionals and emergency-certified teachers in urban school
districts successfully recruit more minority, female, and older teachers with more work
experience (Clewell & Villegas, 2001; Darling-Hammond, Hudson, & Kirby, 1989); draw more
recruits from urban backgrounds (Natriello & Zumwalt, 1993); and attract more candidates
interested in teaching math and science (in comparison to existing math and science teachers
with similar characteristics) (Darling-Hammond, et al., 1989). Teachers graduating from
alternative certification programs also may have stronger preferences for teaching disadvantaged
students in urban schools (Natriello & Zumwalt, 1993).
Research has found mixed evidence on the success of alternative certification program on
program completion and retention rates. Some studies report that students entering into and
graduating from alternative certification programs are more likely to finish teacher training and
remain in the teacher workforce for longer periods of time than teachers who receive their
certification through university-based programs (Clewell & Villegas, 2001; Davis, et al., 2001;
Kirby, Darling-Hammond, & Hudson, 1989). However, others have found that teachers with
alternative certifications have lower academic qualifications than traditionally certified teachers,
are less likely to consider teaching as a “lifelong” career, and, in many cases, took advantage of
alternative certification avenues as a way of circumventing traditional teacher education (Shen,
1997). Moreover, there are conflicting findings on whether alternative certification programs
maintain or improve teacher quality.
Other types of alternative certification programs, such as “Grow Your Own” programs,
allow districts with critical teacher shortages to create their own pipeline of teacher candidates by
partnering with preparation programs that recruit, prepare, and retain teachers in the district
(Hirsch, et al., 2001). District administrators usually are allowed to tailor their program to match
their community and school’s resources. Another broad category of strategies that create
alternative routes to the profession are programs aimed at cultivating teachers, reclaiming
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experienced teacher retirees, and addressing the portability of teacher experience (Hirsch, et al.,
2001). Some states have begun to look at high schools and community colleges as sources of
candidates for the teaching profession. States with critical teacher shortages also have begun to
implement policies to encourage retired teachers to re-enter the workforce. Last, states have
begun to address issues related to the portability of teacher experience. For example, the amount
of credit offered by a given district for teaching experience in another district or state varies and,
as a result, can influence teachers’ decisions about working in particular districts or schools. In
some cases, states have stepped in and created complete portability for in-state teaching
experience (e.g., Nevada, Texas and Washington) (Hirsch, et al., 2001).
Teacher Hiring Process Reforms
In addition to altering the certification process, other efforts have been made to
streamline the hiring process for teachers. These include simplifying hiring procedures, offering
immediate contracts, and providing job banks (Rice, 2003a). For example, a 2000 Education
Week report documented a range of strategies currently being used by states to reform teacher
hiring practices, including: 27 states offer internet sites that list teacher vacancies across the
state; 9 states permit prospective teachers to submit job applications and related information
electronically for consideration by district administrators or school principals; and 3 states
reported having common application forms that their districts were required to use or had agreed
to accept (Jerald & Boser, 2000). Despite activity on the part of states and districts in this area of
policy innovation, very little research has been done on the range of strategies currently in use
and their effectiveness as tools for improving teacher supply and recruitment.
Teacher Policy Packages
The next frame in the conceptual model (Figure 1) depicts the complex sets of policy
“packages” that are formed by combining individual policies from the five categories of
strategies described in the previous section. Through our research, we have learned that the
policy problem has multiple dimensions including expanding the pool of teacher candidates,
recruiting and distributing teachers to the places they are needed the most, and retaining them in
those positions over time. This multi-dimensional nature of the problem has generated multidimensional policy responses on the part of states, districts, and schools. We have found that
policy makers do not necessarily adopt individual strategies so much as they simultaneously
draw on several different policies and pools of resources to address various dimensions of the
problem. This reality requires a research design that considers “packages” of policies rather than
individual strategies. Ideally, these policy “packages” are configured in ways that address the
most prominent problems for the particular state, district, or school and are constructed to
capitalize on positive policy interactions. Further, given our concern with difficult-to-staff
schools and districts, we are interested in the degree to which policies and resources are
appropriately targeted.
Our conceptual model includes three considerations policymakers and educational
administrators might take into account as they create and evaluate policy packages: (1) policyproblem alignment; (2) policy interactions; and (3) targeting of policies. The following sections
describe each of these considerations in more detail.
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Policy-Problem Alignment
A central consideration in our analysis of policy packages is the degree to which the set
of policies addresses the most salient dimensions of the problem within and across levels of the
system. We have learned that there is no grand solution to the teacher staffing puzzle. Policy
configurations should be designed to fit with the circumstances of local communities. For
example, if a district has a sufficient overall supply of qualified teachers but faces shortages in
particular schools within the district, targeted policies that distribute teachers to those difficultto-staff schools are necessary. If the problem is one of high teacher turnover in schools serving
large concentrations of disadvantaged students, then the policy configuration might invest
heavily in retention strategies targeted at those schools. We are particularly interested in the
degree to which different levels of the system address different dimensions of the problem.
Finally, we explore the degree to which policymakers tend to draw on low-cost policies even in
cases where the problem requires high-cost solutions (e.g., using salary bonuses – a recruitment
policy – in a context where retention is the most salient problem).
Policy Interactions
A second consideration relates to the interactive nature of teacher policies. As described
above, researchers and policymakers should think in terms of identifying “coherent packages” of
policies that are complementary and address the various dimensions of the problem. One key
finding from our work is that teacher policies may be highly interactive. Consider the “teacher
salary – class size” debate. While this has been framed as a resource optimization problem, the
reality is that class size reduction policies may require higher salaries to maintain current levels
of quality, and efforts to improve teacher quality may require reducing classes to attract and
retain teachers, particularly with respect to difficult-to-staff schools. While this multidimensional approach to teacher policy introduces a number of problems for evaluating specific
policies, it is reflective of how policy makers address the issue of teacher quality. Another
policy interaction consideration relates to how high-stakes accountability policies can be
expected to impact the effectiveness of teacher policies. For instance, systems that hold teachers
directly accountable for student performance may counter efforts to staff low-performing schools
with qualified teachers, particularly if these systems include incentives linked to performance.
Targeting of Policies
A third consideration in this study is the degree to which policies are appropriately
targeted. Targeted policies have the potential to dramatically reduce cost and may increase their
overall effectiveness. The 2003 Education Week Quality Counts report addressing teacher
quality in America’s schools documents the high level of activity around teacher policy, but
reveals a lack of evidence that these policies are targeted in meaningful ways. Policies
addressing teacher quality are far less expensive when they are targeted at attracting and
retaining teachers in high need schools, and research has shown that the positive effects
associated with teacher quality are most pronounced for more disadvantaged students (Rice,
2003b). Attention also should be paid to targeting policy to the grade levels and subject areas
where teacher shortages are most pronounced.
Dimensions of the Staffing Issue
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The next frame in our conceptual model includes the four dimensions of the staffing issue
that the teacher policy packages might address. The arrows connecting teacher policy packages
with the dimensions of the staffing issue point in both directions indicating that the policy
packages are aimed at various dimensions of the problem, and that the problem context
influences the construction of policy packages. Our conceptual model considers four dimensions
of the teacher staffing problem: (1) ensuring an adequate supply of qualified teachers, (2)
recruiting teachers to districts and schools where they are needed most, (3) distributing teachers
in efficient and equitable ways, and (4) retaining teachers in schools. (See Figure 1.) While
many researchers investigating teacher policy focus on the dual challenges of recruitment and
retention (e.g., Guarino, Santibanez, Daley, & Brewer, 2004), our framework distinguishes four
dimensions of the problem to provide the foundation for a detailed analysis of policy-problem
alignment. Each of these dimensions is described in more detail below.
Supply
A major challenge to state- and district-level administrators is ensuring an adequate
supply of qualified teachers to fill new and vacant positions. Teacher shortages occur in a labor
market where demand exceeds supply. Assuming fixed requirements for teacher quality,
demand is a function of factors like student enrollment, class size, teaching load, and budgetary
constraints. While evidence suggests there is an adequate supply of qualified teachers nationally,
localized shortages continue to persist in specific subject areas, grade levels, and types of
locations (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). In some cases, teacher shortages are a direct
result of the broader labor market. For instance, to the degree that mathematics majors can
secure higher paying jobs in other industries, teaching becomes a less attractive alternative. As a
result, policymakers at the federal, state, and district levels have implemented policies to expand
the supply of qualified teachers by decreasing the opportunity costs associated with becoming a
teacher (through alternative certification routes) or remaining a teacher (through increased
rewards).
Recruitment
Even in a context of adequate supply, schools and districts may struggle with recruiting
teachers. Recruitment policies are those that draw from the available supply of teachers to meet
specific staffing needs of a particular context. Ultimately, recruitment is centered on attracting
teachers with certain qualities and qualifications to the schools and districts where they are
needed most. A relevant distinction worth noting here is that between policies aimed at
recruiting highly qualified teachers as required by NCLB in contrast to those aimed at recruiting
high quality teachers. An emphasis on attracting highly qualified teachers focuses on
qualification requirements as externally defined (by national or state policymakers), whereas an
emphasis on high quality focuses on factors perceived to be linked with a teacher’s effectiveness
within the district or school context.
Distribution
Within any unit – whether states within the nation, districts within states, or schools
within districts – there is a sorting of teachers based on the opportunities available and the
preferences of teachers. This sorting often leaves poor, urban, and disadvantaged schools with a
less experienced and less qualified staff. For instance, teachers’ location preferences put poor
schools at a disadvantage in terms of their ability to hire well-qualified teachers (Lankford, Loeb
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& Wyckoff, 2002). This uneven distribution of teacher quality provides an opportunity for
national, state, and district leaders to construct policies to influence teachers’ decisions about
where to work. Most school systems, however, prioritize teachers’ years of experience as the
main criterion for voluntary transfers. Within this context, state- and district-level administrators
are limited to distributional policies that provide incentives for teachers to choose to work in a
particular setting. The ultimate goal of such policies is to encourage a more efficient and
equitable distribution of teachers to the places where they are needed most.
Retention
Research has documented that district and school leaders must be concerned with more
than just getting teachers in the door. High teacher turnover rates in low-performing schools
have resulted in a “churning” or “revolving door” that is associated with substantial
administrative costs to both the school and the district. Researchers interested in teacher attrition
have made the important distinction between “stayers” who remain in the same school over time,
“movers” who transfer to another school but remain in the teaching profession, and “leavers”
who leave the teaching profession altogether (Ingersoll, 2001; Theobald & Michael, 2002).
From a district’s perspective, movers are generally less problematic than leavers, since leavers
create vacancies that must be filled. From a school’s perspective, there is no difference between
movers and leavers – both require the need to hire a new teacher. It is important to note that
turnover is not always a bad thing; attrition of low quality teachers who are replaced by high
quality ones is arguably a good outcome. However, holding quality constant, high rates of
teacher turnover impose significant costs to districts and schools. Finally, it is important, once
again, to recognize the distinction between policies aimed at retaining highly qualified teachers
versus those aimed at retaining high quality teachers.
Student Achievement
Finally, to the extent that most salient staffing challenges are addressed, schools can be
expected to realize higher levels of student achievement. Research documents the powerful
impact of teachers on student performance (Ehrenberg & Brewer, 1995; Ferguson, 1991, 1998;
Phillips, Crouse & Ralph, 1998; Sanders & Rivers, 1996).
Summary
Taken together, our conceptual framework reveals how resources support an array of
teacher policies across levels of the system to address a complex multi-dimensional problem
with the goal of improving student achievement. The remainder of this report provides
descriptive profiles of teacher policy across the education systems in three states (Maryland,
New York, and Connecticut). This descriptive analysis uses a typology as the analytic
framework to categorize policies at each level of the system and link each policy to the
dimension of the problem it addresses. This descriptive report is the first in a series of analyses
that draw on the conceptual framework presented here. The report to follow is a policy analysis
that will analyze policies in terms of policy-problem alignment, policy interactions, and targeting
of policies. In addition, the policy analysis will consider the potential effectiveness of specific
policy packages and their corresponding costs.
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III. Data and Methods
In the sections below, we first provide an overview of our approach to this study,
including a discussion of the various phases of the study and the analytic framework we used to
sort our multi-level data, and then we describe our site selection and data collection processes.
Study Overview
Our work on this project involves three phases. The first was to conduct a broad-based
policy scan of state and district teacher policies. This process provided information needed to
develop the typology that we use in this descriptive report to organize and analyze data collected
on teacher policies across levels of the education system in selected states (Rice, 2003a). The
second phase involved conducting multi-level case studies of teacher policy in three states. The
third phase analyzed these policies in terms of key considerations we have identified as
important (policy-problem alignment, policy interactions, and targeting), and raises a number of
cost considerations. Below we describe the policy scan and the resulting typology that serves as
our primary analytic device for describing the multi-level policy terrain, and we overview the
site selection and data collection processes used in the study.
The first step in our work was to conduct a scan of teacher policies, which we have used
to develop a typology that categorizes teacher policies and links them with the various
dimensions of the teacher staffing problem. This policy scan was based on a broad review of
scholarly literature and state and district documents, as well as interviews with education leaders
at the national, state, and district levels. During this process, we were confronted with the
difficult questions of “what counts as teacher policy?” Some policies are aimed directly at
affecting issues related to teacher staffing, e.g., signing bonuses, salary incentives, and hiring
practices. Others are aimed at making teachers more effective, e.g., professional development
initiatives. Still others are intended to improve student achievement, but also have a direct effect
on teachers’ work, e.g., class size, and high-stakes accountability policies. Throughout our
study, we took our cues from the field. In other words, we included policies that our data
sources (document reviews and interviews in the policy scan, and administrators and teachers
who participated in the case studies) recognized as teacher policies.
Our analytic framework centers on the typology we developed from the policy scan,
which organizes our descriptive profiles of teacher policy across levels of the education system
in three states. The completed typologies for each of our sites are provided in the appendix. The
rows in the typology capture the various types of strategies we found to be in use across states
and districts. We identified five broad, and sometimes overlapping, categories: (1) economic
incentives, (2) avenues into the profession, (3) teacher hiring process, (4) teacher professional
development, and (5) working conditions (Rice, 2003a).
Through our policy scan we learned that the multi-dimensional nature of the teacher
staffing problem – including ensuring an adequate supply of teachers, recruiting and distributing
teachers to the places they are needed the most, and retaining them in those positions over time –
requires a multi-dimensional policy response. This is captured in the columns of the typology
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that link specific strategies with the multiple challenges associated with staffing all schools with
quality teachers. The columns of the typology represent four dimensions of the problem: (1)
ensuring an adequate supply of qualified teachers, (2) recruitment, (3) distribution, and (4)
retention. While these dimensions of the problem are not mutually exclusive, they are instructive
in sorting out the degree to which policies are aligned with the most pressing dimensions of the
problem at each level of the education system.
This typology was tested and refined through our multi-level case studies. While we rely
on the typology as our analytic framework to organize and present our data, it is important to
note that it is not always clear exactly where a particular policy fits in the typology and some
policies legitimately fit in several places. For instance, an induction program for new teachers
can be considered both a recruitment and a retention tool. Decisions about where to place
policies in the typology were made by the researchers in this study based on evidence from the
interviews and documents.
Site Selection and Data Collection Processes
This study uses a multi-level case study design to examine teacher policy across levels of
the education system. This paper presents findings from three states: Maryland, New York, and
Connecticut. We examined teachers within schools, schools within districts, and districts within
states. In each state, we identified two districts based on guidance provided by members of our
expert panel, recommendations from state officials, document review of policies, and analysis of
data on teacher staffing. In two of our states (Maryland and Connecticut), we chose neighboring
districts that compete for the same pool of teachers. Within each district, we selected up to three
difficult-to-staff schools based on district recommendations and extant data on teacher staffing
patterns.5 Our goal was to identify (1) districts and schools that face teacher staffing challenges,
but that are perceived by leaders in the system as employing interesting or promising strategies,
and (2) in a few cases, districts and schools that provide a “next-door” contrast to the more
difficult-to-staff sites (e.g., Montgomery County, MD; and Westport, CT are our “contrast”
sites).
Four sources of data inform the analysis: (1) documents providing information on
teacher recruitment and retention policies and investments in those policies at the state, district,
and school levels; (2) extant data on teacher staffing patterns in the selected schools and districts;
(3) interviews with state, district, and school administrators about their views of the teacher
quality challenge and the kinds of investments they are making in policies that directly or
indirectly affect the recruitment and retention of quality teachers in difficult-to-staff schools and
districts; and (4) focus groups with teachers in selected schools to understand the critical issues
related to their decisions about where to work, and to assess their perceptions of the impact of
policies and practices on teacher recruitment and retention.
In each state, we began data collection by interviewing state-level administrators. We
then moved to the district level and finished the data collection process at the school level. We
5
The New York context is a bit different from the others. We selected Region 9 of New York
City as our district, and four schools in four different sub-districts within Region 9.
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interviewed state, district, and school administrators (up to three individuals at each level) who
are knowledgeable about the policies to improve the quality of the teacher force and the
investments being made in those policies. In addition, we conducted focus groups with teachers
in schools to gauge their views on the problem and the degree to which state, district, and school
fiscal policy effectively addresses the problem. Our goal was to conduct up to two focus groups
of five teachers in each school. Figure 2 portrays our data collection activities in Maryland, New
York, and Connecticut, respectively. Collectively, we spoke with 111 educators across the three
states in our sample.16
FIGURE 2 HERE
We have made adequate provisions to protect the privacy of the subjects and to maintain
the confidentiality of identifiable information. Each participant in the study signed an informed
consent agreement that describes the study goals and methods, and their role in providing data
for the study. We assigned each participant an identification code so that the researchers could
attribute responses to specific individuals without using participant names. Individuals’ names
and other identifiable information were not used in written transcripts, coded data, or written
reports or papers describing the study or its findings. However, since we identify the states and
districts used in the study, it may be possible to identify participating district and state
administrators, given the public nature of their positions. While teachers and principals provided
personal information on their decisions about where to work and their perceptions of state,
district, and school policies, the information provided by district and state administrators is more
public in nature (i.e., describing public policies and investments in them).
In addition to taking field notes, we requested to audio record the interviews and focus
groups. In cases where interview respondents declined the request to be taped, we took careful
and extensive notes to document responses during the interviews. Willingness to be taped was a
requirement for participation in the focus groups. Immediately following the interviews and
focus groups, we transcribed the proceedings and coded the transcripts by theme (policy-problem
alignment, policy interactions, targeting of policies, resources, and effectiveness). We organized
all data into a typology for each site (state, district, school), and we used the typologies to create
a case profile for each state.7 These profiles consist of the key data elements described above to
include how respondents at various levels of the system construct the problem of teacher quality,
assess the priority of this issue, and understand the policies and level of investment in teacher
quality. In addition, case profiles include perceptions of respondents who work in difficult-tostaff schools with respect to the impact of teacher policies across levels of the system. We now
turn to an overview of our case study findings, followed by our analysis of teacher policy
packages, and we conclude with a discussion of policy implications.
6
For detailed data collection information, including demographic characteristics and student
performance indicators for districts and schools within our sample, see Rice, Roellke & Sparks
(2005).
7
All of our typologies are included in the appendices of this report. For a full discussion of each
typology, see Rice, Roellke & Sparks (2005).
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IV. Descriptions of the Case Study Sites
Below, we provide a brief overview of the state, district, and school sites that we included
in our study. For a more detailed description of our sites, as well as a full discussion of the
findings within districts and schools selected for our study, see Rice, Roellke & Sparks (2005).
Maryland
The Maryland public school system is comprised of 24 school districts. Twenty-three of
these are contiguous with counties and one is the city of Baltimore. Districts on the state’s
“Eastern Shore” and western mountain areas are primarily rural, and the remaining districts are
primarily urban, including the Baltimore City School System and other districts surrounding
Baltimore City and Washington D.C. Due to its county-based district structure, Maryland has
many large districts, with two listed in the top 20 largest school districts in the U.S..
While the demand for new teachers exceeds supply in the aggregate, shortages are most
pronounced in specific subject areas and grade levels. Consistent critical content shortages for
Maryland include teachers of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), mathematics,
chemistry, and various special education areas. Conversely, elementary education (including
grades 1-6 and middle school), history, and English/language arts all have teacher surpluses in
the state. In addition, Maryland annually identifies geographic shortages across the state. A
geographic shortage exists when a local school system has difficulty recruiting and retaining
teachers in a subject area that MSDE has declared a critical content shortage area for three
consecutive years. For academic 2004-05, MSDE declared all 24 school systems geographic
shortage areas (MSDE, 2004a).
As is the case in most states, MSDE is working to comply with NCLB’s highly qualified
teacher requirements. Some state level programs have adopted the NCLB guidelines to ensure
compliance with the federal mandate. For example, the state certification process has changed
since NCLB. Prior to NCLB, a highly qualified teacher might have been one with expert content
knowledge and several years of teaching experience who had a provisional or conditional
certificate. Post NCLB, Maryland adopted the federal definition as the state's definition of a
highly qualified teacher. In doing so, MSDE can monitor the degree to which all teachers meet
federal requirements. By 2006, all Maryland classroom teachers must secure certification before
beginning work in a classroom, unless eligible for a grandfather provision. Provisional or
conditional certifications are no longer a part of the MSDE highly qualified teacher definition,
regardless of level of teaching experience.
In Maryland, the two districts in our sample are the Montgomery County Public Schools
(MCPS) and the Prince Georges County Public Schools (PGCPS). As the 17th largest school
system in the United States, the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) system has the
largest and most diverse student population in Maryland. MCPS operates 192 schools with a
2004-05 academic year enrollment of 139,393 students. The district enrolls nearly half of
Maryland’s English language learners. Over one-fifth of all MCPS students receive federal meal
assistance (MCPS, 2004). Specific to Title I funding, MSDE reported that during the 2003-04
academic year, 9,321 students received a total of $14.6 million in funding across 18 schools in
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the district (MSDE, 2004). We sampled three Title I schools within MCPS; two elementary
schools and one middle school.
Located adjacent to Montgomery County, Prince George’s County is home to the 18th
largest school district in the U.S. The district’s 196 schools are located primarily in urban and
suburban settings and include 137 elementary schools, 26 middle schools, 22 high schools, and
11 special program schools. Over 60 of the 137 schools receive Title I funding. Enrollment
projections for the next ten years are expected to increase from 135,755 in 2003 to 143,800 by
2013 (grades pre-K to 12) due to increased population growth and migration in the Washington
D.C. area (PGCPS, 2004a). The district’s 2005 graduation rate was 86.83 percent, a slight
increase over the prior year (PGPCS, 2005). We sampled two schools in PGCPS, a Title I
elementary school and a middle school located in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area.
New York
The New York public school system serves nearly three million students in over 700
school districts, including almost 4,300 schools. Approximately 1.1 million students attend the
New York City Public Schools and an additional 130,000 pupils attend other large city school
systems (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers). Small city districts account for another
250,000 students with the remaining 1.5 million pupils attending school in suburban or rural
districts. Approximately 217,000 teachers are employed in the state and New York expends over
$32 billion annually on public education (NYSED, 2004). In 2002-03, New York State ranked
fourth in the nation in average starting salary for teachers ($35,259) and sixth in the nation in
average salary for all teachers ($53,017) (Education Week Research Center, 2005).
Estimates of "teacher quality" has played a central role in finance litigation within the
state as plaintiffs have depicted an unqualified, poorly prepared teaching workforce in New York
City. In defining a "sound basic education," the Court included teacher qualification as a key
ingredient--"Children are also entitled to minimally adequate teaching of reasonably up-to-date
basic curricula such as reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies, by sufficient
personnel adequately trained to teach those subjects" (Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. New York,
2003). Coupled with the challenge to the state's school finance system, is the Board of Regents'
ambitious plans to upgrade teaching quality, including phasing out temporary or emergency
licenses, mandating ongoing professional development for teachers, and requiring teacher
preparation programs to undergo one of three accreditation processes (NCATE, TEAC, or the
Board of Regents Option). Consistent with the expectations laid out in NCLB, plans to improve
teacher quality are a top priority of the New York State Board of Regents.
Based on recommendations from state officials, we chose to focus our inquiry on Region
Nine of the New York City Public Schools. Region 9 incorporates all of lower Manhattan north
to 59th Street, stretches through the Upper East Side and East Harlem, and crosses into the South
Bronx. The Region combines four administrative districts (1,2,4,7). Some demographic and
performance data for the Region is still reported under this administrative structure.2 We further
narrowed our inquiry to a specific network of schools located in Manhattan and the Bronx
(again, based on NYSDE’s recommendations).
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Region Nine focused its instructional efforts on implementing the new city-wide
curriculum (though 28 of the 179 schools in the region are exempt from the mandated
curriculum). The Region serves a diverse group of over 100,000 students, including a wide
range of high- and low-income students. Student performance within the region also is quite
varied; the area includes pockets of both the highest and lowest academic achievement in the
state. Teacher qualifications also vary considerably across the Region’s schools. Nearly 90
percent of teachers are certified in sub-districts 1 and 2, while 78 percent and 69 percent are
certified in sub-districts 4 and 7, respectively (NYSED, 2004). We sampled four schools within
Region 9: 1) a high school in East Harlem; 2) a middle/high school located in the Chelsea
section of Manhattan; 3) a high school on the Upper East Side; and 4) a high school in the Bronx.
Connecticut
The Connecticut Public School System enrolls 575,000 pupils in 166 local public school
districts and 1,073 schools. There are also 376 nonpublic schools in the state. In the past 10
years, enrollment has grown by 16.5 percent and is projected to peak in 2006 at 580,000 pupils.
Students of color account for approximately 31 percent of the state's pupils (14 percent African
American, 14 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian/Pacific Islander). NAEP scores in both reading
and mathematics place Connecticut well above the national average in both 4th and 8th grade
assessments.
Connecticut classifies its 166 school districts into 10 Education Reference Groups
(ERGs), which are used to compare groups of districts with similar characteristics, such as
median family income, level of parent's education and primary language spoken at home. For
example, ERG A and B are made up of some of the wealthiest districts in the state, including
Greenwich, Darien, Simsbury, Westport and West Hartford, while ERG H and I comprise the
poorest and most demographically diverse communities in the state such as Bridgeport, Hartford,
New Haven and Waterbury.8 While an achievement gap persists between the high poverty urban
districts (ERG I) and other reference groups in the state (ERG A through H), this gap has
narrowed over the last four years, particularly with regard to the achievement of ELL students
(CSDE, 2005).
The state employs over 42,000 teachers and an additional 8,000 administrators and
support staff (CSDE, 2004). Over one quarter of the state's students qualify for free or reduced
price lunch and 37 percent of students are enrolled in Title I schools. Connecticut expends over
$6 billion annually on public education and average teacher salaries in the state consistently rank
among the nation's highest (Education Week Research Center, 2005). According to the most
recent salary survey by the American Federation of Teachers, Connecticut ranked 1st in the
nation for its average teacher salary of $56,516 in the 2003-04 school year (AFT, 2005).
Connecticut has identified teacher quality as a critical element of student achievement
and the state’s teacher policies have been widely recognized as among the most ambitious and
comprehensive in the nation (Wilson, Darling-Hammond, and Berry, 2001; Education Week,
8
Both ERG A and ERG I are represented in our study sample (Westport in ERG A and New
Haven in ERG I).
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Quality Counts, 2003). In 1986, Connecticut adopted a comprehensive policy approach to
teacher quality with the statewide Educational Enhancement Act (EEA). Under the EEA, the
state devoted $300 million of surplus resources to a set of initiatives aimed at recruiting and
retaining qualified teachers across the state and promoting inter-district equity in teacher
compensation.
Over the past 20 years, the state has continued to evaluate and develop an interrelated set
of teacher quality initiatives, emphasizing the relationship between teacher qualifications and
student achievement. This early attention to teacher quality has put Connecticut largely ahead of
the wave of federal teacher quality policy and the mandates of NCLB. Since the passage of the
Educational Enhancement Act in 1986, Connecticut has been among the nation’s leaders in
developing a comprehensive policy approach to teacher quality. The first stage of teacher
quality enhancement under the EEA involved a significant increase in teacher salaries statewide.
The state prioritized offering teacher salaries comparable to those in fields requiring equal levels
of education and training. While the competitive teaching salaries in Connecticut have
contributed to the state's surplus of teachers at the elementary school level, the state still
experiences teacher shortages in certain subject areas (e.g., mathematics) and geographic areas
(e.g., ERG I districts).
We selected two neighboring and contrasting districts within Connecticut, the New
Haven Public Schools (NHPS) and the Westport Public Schools (WPS). The New Haven Public
Schools enroll a predominantly minority student population, with slightly more than half (55
percent) of the district’s 20,759 students of African-American and 31 percent of Hispanic
descent. New Haven accommodates its large student population with 49 schools including 29
elementary schools, 9 middle schools, 7 high schools, and 4 transitional schools. The district
employs a staff of over 1,600 teachers, 50 percent of whom have an average of 15 years’
experience. In keeping with the state’s rigorous standards for teacher quality, 80 percent of New
Haven’s teachers possess master’s degrees or higher. Additionally, 20 percent of teachers are
trained as mentors, assessors, or cooperating teachers with Connecticut’s Beginning Educator
Support and Training (BEST) program. We sampled two schools within the NHPS: one intradistrict magnet elementary/middle school; and one intra-district magnet high school.
The Westport Public School System enrolls 5,306 students with an annual operating
budget of $74,673,677. In the 2004-2005 school year, per pupil expenditures were $14,073. The
district employs 546 certified staff members with a pupil to staff ratio of 10:1. Westport, with its
relative wealth and competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining teachers, was selected as a
study site because of its close proximity to New Haven. This juxtaposition allows us to explore
how disparate fiscal capacities in neighboring districts might impact teacher policies. We
sampled two schools within WPS: the comprehensive high school within the district; and 2) one
of the two middle/junior high schools within the district.
V. Case Study Findings
While we observed unique challenges across various state, district, and school contexts,
our data reveal a remarkable degree of consistency in the types of policy responses used by
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educational agencies both across and within the states. In the following sections we synthesize
the study’s findings of the strategies used by educational agencies in each state to address
different dimensions of the teacher policy problem. We first present the general themes that
emerge from this research. We then examine the strategies used by the various levels of the
educational system within a state to address different aspects of the problem. The next section
discusses the extent to which contextual factors may account for differences in policy emphasis
across states and across different levels of the system within states. Finally, we describe
principal and teacher perceptions of the nature of the problem and the policy context.
General Themes Across the States
Two consistent themes emerged from the study’s cross-state comparisons.
Comprehensive Approaches to Teacher Policy
We found that education systems tend to use comprehensive approaches to teacher
policy, drawing on different types of strategies to address multiple dimensions of the problem.
Taken together, the multiple levels of the education system within each state appear to have a set
of policies that utilize all five types of strategies to deal with all four dimensions of the teacher
policy issue (see the typologies in the appendix for more detailed description of these strategies).
In other words, in each state, all cells in our teacher policy typology are addressed at some level
of the system. While this finding reflects some degree of comprehensiveness in the extent to
which education systems draw on various resources and policy approaches to tackle the various
dimensions of the teacher staffing issue, this observation does not account for the level of
investment, degree of utilization, or quality of the intervention. So, more work needs to be
conducted that looks at the nature of these policy packages and the degree to which they are
appropriately configured and adequately supported to address the most pressing dimensions of
the staffing problem faced at each level of the system.
Shared Policy Emphases Across and Within States
As we compared policies across states, we found that all three states shared several policy
emphases that could be observed across levels of the system. First, all three states have created
opportunities for districts to expand their supply of teachers by providing alternative routes into
the teacher profession. This option is exercised, to various degrees, by districts in all three states.
Further, variability characterizes the extent to which school principals recruit and hire teachers
from these alternative routes. Given that all three states struggle with localized teacher
shortages, a second common policy emphasis is the practice of targeting policies and resources
to promote a better distribution of teachers across districts and schools, including those that are
most difficult to staff. Third, in all three states we documented strong support for professional
development as a mechanism to recruit and retain teachers. While we found variability in the
degree of emphasis that states place on professional development for teachers, this set of policy
strategies is an important theme in all three states, and the state efforts to promote professional
development permeate all levels of the system. Finally, we found that all three states have
nurtured partnerships with institutions of higher education to promote better pre-service and inservice professional development opportunities for teachers.
Teacher Policies at Various Levels of the System
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The next step in our cross-state analysis involved looking across states for patterns in the
degree to which the various levels of the systems tend to draw on similar types of policy strategies to
address the same dimensions of the problem. In other words, do states draw on similar sets of policies
aimed at similar dimensions of the issue? Do districts in Maryland hone in on the same aspects of the
problem using the same sorts of policy strategies as districts in New York and Connecticut? How
about schools? Several interesting patterns emerged from this portion of the analysis.
State Policy Trends
Generally speaking, we found that states tend to use economic incentives and offer alternative
avenues into the profession to address supply and distribution issues. In other words, states draw on
these two types of policy strategies to generate a larger pool for the hardest-to-staff areas in the state.
There was some evidence that states also emphasize professional development with the goal of
improving teacher retention – both directly as well as indirectly by helping teachers to be more
effective with respect to student learning outcomes.
District Policy Trends
At the district level of the educational systems in these three states, we identified several policy
trends. First, the districts in our sample tend to tap the alternative routes into the profession made
available by the states to increase their supply of teachers. We found numerous partnerships between
district offices and higher education to expand the pool of qualified teachers. We also found that
districts tend to use a variety of aggressive and innovative hiring strategies and attractive professional
development opportunities to recruit teachers to their schools. Some district administrators
emphasized the importance of these strategies as a way to compete with higher paying neighboring
districts to attract prospective teachers. Finally, we found that districts use a variety of policy
strategies to promote better retention. The dominant policies here include professional development
opportunities, particularly efforts like mentoring and induction aimed at improving the effectiveness
of new teachers in these educational settings; working conditions that offer support for teachers in the
forms of time, collegiality, and expertise; and economic incentives for professional growth and
development such as tuition remission and rewards for National Board Certification.
School Policy Trends
Schools in our sample tended to address the issues of supply and recruitment in their hiring
practices and preferences. For instance, some school principals expressed a preference for
alternatively certified teachers coming from some programs over others. That is, a principal’s
experience with candidates from particular alternative route programs directly impacts her decision to
tap into this pool in the future. Principals from these schools were active in job fairs and internet
postings. Several schools also emphasized professional development opportunities and support as a
strategy both to recruit and to retain teachers. Most notably, schools employed a variety of working
conditions in an effort to enhance retention. These sorts of policies include release time for
professional development and a variety of supports to make their work both more pleasant and more
effective.
Summary
In sum, while we observed interaction among the levels of the education system in these
three states (e.g., states offered alternative avenues into the profession, districts form partnerships
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with higher education to provide those alternatives to prospective teachers, and schools hire
those teachers), we also noted distinct differences across levels in the dimensions of the problem
they addressed and the policy strategies they employed to do so.
The Role of Context
We identified several contextual factors that appeared to be related to the teacher policies
across and within the three states.
Teacher Supply
At the state level, teacher supply surfaced as an important factor. While all three states
face specific geographic and subject-area shortages, overall Connecticut and New York have a
surplus of teachers, and Maryland has a statewide teacher shortage. This variation translates into
observable differences in policy emphases across the states. Maryland is more aggressive in its
supply-side policies, such as alternative teacher certification. New York focuses not on overall
teacher supply, but rather on policies that expand the supply of teachers for and distribute them
to New York City schools. While Connecticut also offers supply-side policies, the more pressing
policy emphasis in that state is on teacher retention and professional development to affect
student achievement. Surplus or shortage aside, it should be reiterated that all three states face
geographic and subject-area shortages and target resources and policies to encourage a more
effective distribution of teachers.
Variability within States and Districts
A second contextual factor that affects teacher policy in the three states is the level of
variability in the socio-economic status of the community, the socio-economic status of the
students, student performance, and so on. We found that greater variability in these factors
across districts within a state, or across schools within a district, tends to be associated with more
aggressive distributional policies. Consider the two large districts we studied in Maryland.
Montgomery County faces a great deal of disparity in terms of wealth throughout the district.
The county has pockets of very wealthy communities and pockets of very poor communities. In
comparison, Prince George’s County is more homogenous in its socio-economic status. In this
case and others like it, we observed more policies and resources aimed at teacher distribution
(i.e., incentives to work in a particular type of school, hiring practices that direct qualified
candidates to Title I schools) in the districts where there is greater variability in the communitybased factors related to teacher recruitment and retention. The relatively large, county-based
districts in Maryland lend themselves to substantial within-district disparities and, consequently,
a need for district-level distributional policies.
Contextual Factors: Safety, School Performance, and Collective Bargaining
Similarly, we identified contextual factors that affect school-level efforts to attract and
retain teachers. For instance, many principals and teachers reported community safety as a
problem that makes the school unattractive to prospective teachers and that undermines the
retention of existing teachers. Schools in our study have adopted a range of policies and
practices to help combat such negative influences. For instance, one school in New York City
has considered offering all teachers free metro cards so that they can freely use public
transportation rather than risk vandalism of their cars in the school parking lot.
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Another example of a school contextual factor that affects recruitment and retention
efforts is performance in their state’s accountability system. Low performance can have multiple
implications for schools with respect to staffing. On one hand, chronic underperformance might
make these schools eligible for additional state resources (fiscal and otherwise) to support their
capacity to improve.9 These additional resources could have a positive effect on staffing to the
extent that they are used to make teaching more attractive in these schools. On the other hand,
persistent low performance could undermine teacher recruitment and retention efforts. Research
shows that teachers tend to leave schools serving low-achieving students in favor of schools
serving higher-achieving ones (Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002). One explanation for this is
that teachers, like any professional, want to be effective in their work and, when they perceive
that this is not possible, they find an environment where they can be more effective. Another
part of the explanation may be that high stakes accountability is accompanied by rewards and
sanctions that often focus on teachers as professionals, recognizing them for high student
achievement and indicting them for poor student achievement (Rice & Malen, 2003). Embedded
in such systems are implicit disincentives to work in under-performing schools.
A final contextual consideration is the role of unions and contractual agreements that
result from collective bargaining. While the union influence is beyond the scope of this study,
we would be remiss if we did not recognize the impact of the union on the freedom and
likelihood of states, districts, and schools to fully utilize various policy strategies, especially
economic incentives (including salaries) and routes into the profession. Further, states and
districts are limited by collective bargaining (most notably, agreements related to seniority
preference) in terms of their abilities to assign teachers to districts and schools, respectively, to
realize a more efficient and equitable distribution of teachers. For instance, personnel directors
in the New Haven, CT school district expressed concerns about a contract provision that allows
veteran teachers the first choice for vacant teaching positions in the district. This sort of limit on
distributional policies was a concern across many of our sites.
Principal and Teacher Perceptions of Teacher Policy
Principals and teachers in the schools we studied provided some interesting perspectives
on the nature of the problem and the policy context.
High-stakes accountability and NCLB
A shared sentiment among principals of Title I schools is that the accountability
movement and, specifically, the federal No Child Left Behind requirements make staffing highneed schools very difficult. They described the difficulty finding enough teachers who have the
qualifications associated with “highly qualified teachers.” In addition, they expressed a concern
that the accountability policies seem to be driving teachers away from low-performing schools.
Their argument is that highly qualified teachers don’t want to teach in schools that cannot
demonstrate adequate yearly progress, so principals have trouble both recruiting and retaining
teachers that meet these standards. Several principals also complained about the constraints that
the “highly qualified teacher” requirements impose on hiring decisions. They felt forced to hire
9
However, it is important to note that additional resources alone are sometimes insufficient to
increase capacity for improvement (Malen & Rice, 2004).
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teachers who had these qualifications over other preferred applicants who better fit the job or the
school.
The teachers who participated in our focus groups tended to agree. Most expressed
frustration with the prescriptive nature of No Child Left Behind in terms of what counts as a
highly qualified teacher. They also argued that No Child Left Behind limits their autonomy as
professionals, and has shifted control and decision making away from teachers in schools to
administrators at higher levels of the system. This tendency for greater centralization, they
contended, makes the profession less attractive, particularly in lower-performing schools that are
under the watch of the state.
Appreciation of Professional Development and Support
On a more positive note, teachers across districts in all three states expressed a great
appreciation for the kinds of professional development opportunities available to them. They
feel as though the difficulty of teaching in low-performing urban schools is recognized, and
newer teachers, in particular, are grateful for the support offered through the more coordinated
and comprehensive approaches to professional development. The mentoring and induction
programs offered to new teachers are particularly noteworthy given the sentiment of some that
new teachers are not adequately prepared to teach in challenging schools. In addition to the
support for professional development, teachers acknowledged supportive principals as a
powerful incentive to continue teaching in difficult schools.
Remaining Challenges
Although it was not a uniform response, some teachers complained about inadequate
school facilities and the lack of equipment to do their jobs. Interestingly, these sorts of resources
and issues were not recognized in discussions about teacher recruitment and retention at the
district and state levels. Likewise, issues of safety and workload were identified by teachers, but
rarely surfaced in policy documents or interviews with district and state administrators about
teacher policy. Finally, while many teachers we spoke with expressed a deep commitment to
educating high-need students in Title I schools, they also recognized the challenges of teaching
these students. Some teachers and school administrators noted that pre-service preparation
programs do not adequately prepare teachers for these particularly challenging contexts, and they
all emphasized the additional support that these teachers need to be successful.
VI. Analysis of Teacher Policy Packages
Our conceptual framework identifies four considerations that can be used to appraise the
teacher policy packages across levels of education systems: (1) policy-problem alignment, (2)
policy interactions, (3) targeting of policies, and (4) cost considerations. Below we analyze our
case study data along these four criteria.
Policy-Problem Alignment
In this section, we describe what administrators at various levels of the system identified
as the most salient dimensions of the problem, and the degree to which the policies at that level
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are aligned with problems, as articulated by the education leaders we interviewed.10 We also
discuss how staffing issues at any given level of the system can be addressed by policies at other
levels of the system, underscoring the importance of a multi-level analysis of policy packages.
Policy-Problem Alignment at the State Level
Interestingly, administrators in the three states varied in how they framed the key problem
(though their views were quite consistent within states). Maryland state officials recognized
supply and retention as the most pressing problems. One administrator described, “The need to
hire new teachers is always increasing and production is always flat.” As a result, the Maryland
Resident Teacher Certificate (RTC) provides a state framework for NCLB-compliant alternative
certification that can be developed by local school systems. State-level administrators noted that
the RTC is one example of the state’s role as a facilitator providing opportunity to local schools
to expand teacher supply. As one administrator put it, “What we don’t want is to have someone
say, ‘I’d like to teach in Maryland, but it’s so darn hard to get a certificate.’ And then they get up
and go somewhere else.” The state’s policy response to the supply issue is to provide
opportunities for districts to offer alternative certification. Maryland’s focus on retention is
evident in a number policies including economic incentives for teachers willing to commit to the
profession for multiple years, support for professional development initiatives such as
Professional Development Schools, and the Distinguished Principal Fellowship program which
provides large salary incentives for selected principals willing to move from high- to lowperforming schools. As one administrator recognized, “The teachers stay for the leader” – good
leadership arguably results in better teacher retention.
New York State administrators identified the supply of qualified teachers, and the
distribution of those teachers to high-need areas, particularly New York City, as their top
concerns. As a result, the state supports “multiple pathways to teaching," while simultaneously
developing higher standards for teacher preparation institutions. State officials recognized the
tension that can exist when concurrently increasing supply and pursuing high standards. One
New York state official recognized this tension, stating: “we have to bring the best talent
wherever we can get it, second career teachers, people who…can be highly qualified in a short
period of time, kids coming out of college…it’s not supposed to be the largest pathway, but over
time we hope it will dwindle down.” In addition, the state uses policies like stipends for
temporary certification holders to earn full certification, internships for teacher candidates
willing to work in urban school systems, certification reciprocity for teachers from other states,
and the Teacher Opportunity Corp that identifies and prepares minority teachers as mechanisms
to increase the supply of qualified teachers, particularly in difficult-to-staff schools and districts.
Connecticut presents a contrast to the other two states in how officials viewed the most
pressing issues related to teacher policy. These leaders did not articulate major challenges
related specifically to supply, recruitment, distribution, or retention. Rather, they emphasized the
importance of teacher quality and improving the effectiveness of teachers in the state, with some
attention to addressing subject and geographic shortage areas. Since the mid-1980s, Connecticut
10
We recognize that there is yet another consideration here: the degree to which the real
problem, as evidenced by data, match with the articulated problem and the policy responses.
This issue will be explored in future work.
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has been among the nation’s leaders in developing a comprehensive policy approach to teacher
quality, one that emphasizes the relationship between teacher qualifications and student
achievement. This early attention to teacher quality has put Connecticut largely ahead of the
wave of federal teacher quality policy and the mandates of NCLB.
An early step in its efforts to enhance teacher quality was a significant increase in teacher
salaries statewide. The state prioritized offering teacher salaries comparable to those in fields
requiring equal levels of education and training. While the competitive teaching salaries in
Connecticut have contributed to the state's surplus of teachers at the elementary school level, the
state still experiences teacher shortages in certain subject and geographic areas. To combat those
shortage areas, Connecticut offers an Alternative Route to Certification (ARC) that reportedly
produces desirable candidates. As one state official described it, “the retention rate is at least as
good as teachers coming through a traditional cohort preparation program and many districts
actually actively recruit alternate route certification teachers because of the expectations that they
have a high level of content knowledge.” The state also supports the Beginning Educator
Support and Training (BEST) program for new teachers shown to have positive effects on
teachers’ perceptions of their effectiveness. Finally, the state supports a number of economic
incentives and professional development opportunities to recruit and retain high quality teachers
across the state.
Policy-Problem Alignment at the District and School Levels
At the district level, we also observed variability across sites (but, again, remarkable
consistency within sites) in how administrators view the problem. In general, we found an
interesting pattern. School systems facing serious district-wide staffing problems – Prince
George’s County, MD; Region 9 of New York City; and New Haven, CT – tended to identify the
most pressing issues as related to the supply and retention of highly qualified teachers as defined
by NCLB. In contrast, districts whose staffing challenges were not as dramatic or as uniform
across the system – Montgomery County, MD and Westport, CT – were more concerned with
issues of teacher quality (i.e., effectiveness) and, to a lesser degree, the distribution of the
teachers across the school systems.
The high-need districts tended to rely heavily on policies like alternative certification
programs (often in collaboration with IHEs) to increase the supply of qualified teachers, and
professional development opportunities to enhance retention. While may other teacher policies
are at work in these districts, school system leaders highlighted the alternative certification and
professional development programs as critical tools for enhancing teacher supply and retention,
respectively. While the least disadvantaged district in our sample – Westport, CT – also
provided professional development opportunities, the administrators viewed these investments in
terms of improving teacher effectiveness rather than as a retention tool. Similarly, district
administrators in Montgomery County, MD identified several policies including relatively high
pay, open contracts for the best applicants, and ongoing professional development opportunities
as recruitment and retention tools to improve teacher quality in the district. Again, while we
identified many other teacher policies in this district aimed at multiple dimensions of the staffing
issue, district officials emphasized policies that promoted higher levels of teacher quality.
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At the school-level, we observed a similar pattern. Schools with more pressing needs –
all our schools in MD, NY, and New Haven, CT – identified recruitment and retention as the
most salient dimensions of the problem. These emphases are evident in the school-level policies
we identified. In the difficult-to-staff schools, the principals reported using multiple tools to
recruit teachers (e.g., open contracts, attending job fairs) and retain them over time (e.g., schoolbased staff development and mentors, collaborative planning time by team or grade, flexible
teacher leave, recognition and appreciation awards, efforts to minimize classroom disruptions).
At the other end of the continuum, principals of more affluent schools in Westport, CT did not
have to contend with teacher shortages and instead were able to focus their recruitment efforts on
finding the very best applicants available. These principals actively observe and recruit the most
promising student teachers, and look to neighboring districts as sources for more experienced
veteran recruits. They offer professional development funds to teacher and reduced teaching
loads for some teachers as recruitment tools. Further, they recognize their high levels of parental
involvement, professional development opportunities, and favorable working conditions as
retention strategies.
General Findings on Policy-Problem Alignment
Several key findings emerge from our analysis of policy-problem alignment. First, the
policy packages across levels of the education systems we studied addressed a wide range of
teacher staffing issues articulated by education administrators across the system. Our evidence
also suggests that policies at one level of the system often address problems at other levels of the
system, underscoring the importance of a multi-level analysis of policy packages. Consider an
example. State and district officials are best positioned to affect supply through alternative
avenues into the profession. Efforts to improve supply coupled with policies that influence a
better distribution of teachers across districts and school (particularly in more heterogeneous
systems) improves the ability of school leaders to recruit qualified teachers.
A second finding relates to the range of policies we identified in our data collection for
each level of the education systems we studied. Our evidence suggests that each level of the
system has adopted policies that address the most salient dimensions of the problem, as
expressed by school and system leaders. However, in addition to the policies that support the
articulated problems, we identified a myriad of additional policies in mast cases. This was more
common at state and district levels, perhaps because of the trickle down nature of those policies
– again, highlighting the importance of a multi-level analysis of policy packages. Based on our
data, it is impossible to gauge whether this finding is indicative of a problem in the sense that
policies extend beyond the key dimensions of the problem faced at any given level of a system,
or if the administrators we spoke with simply didn’t mention secondary dimensions of the
problem.
A third key finding relates to the patterns we observed at the district and school levels.
We found that more difficult-to-staff districts and schools tended to identify the most pressing
issues as related to the supply (or recruitment in the case of schools) and retention of highly
qualified teachers as required by NCLB. In other words, these districts and schools were
completed focused on policies that would result in staffing their schools with qualified teachers,
as externally defined by federal and state requirements. In contrast, districts whose staffing
challenges were not as dramatic or as uniform across the system were more concerned with
issues of promoting greater teacher quality and, to a lesser degree, the distribution of the teachers
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across the school systems. This suggests that districts and schools that can hire from a surplus of
teachers have a tremendous advantage over their difficult-to-staff counterparts since they have
the luxury to focus on effectiveness (the icing on the cake) rather than basic-level staffing issues
(the cake itself). In other words, these surplus districts can focus their efforts on policies that
will yield the highest quality teachers, while schools and districts that face shortages are limited
to policies that will help them staff schools with teachers that meet a set of externally-imposed
qualifications.
Of course, all of these findings are more suggestive than conclusive. This analysis
focuses on the relationship between available policies and staffing problems as articulated by
administrators. A next step in this portion of the study would be to analyze empirical evidence
on the most salient dimensions of the problem (i.e., do the administrators have an accurate
understanding of the problem in the first place?) and analyze the policy alignments. In addition,
this analysis tells us nothing about the design, quality or effectiveness of these policies and
programs in combating the staffing problems.
Policy Interactions
Analyses of teacher policies often consider a single type of policy at a time. For instance,
a study could examine alternative approaches to teacher compensation, another might examine
induction programs, and yet another could consider various professional development options.
While these sorts of analyses are critical to understanding the impact of various policy initiatives,
it is also critical to recognize that each type of policy is part of a larger web of policies, and the
multiple policies interact with one another in positive or negative ways. Our contention is that
policy makers should be aware of this broader policy context and look for opportunities to
realize synergies among the various policies such that the package of policies is more productive
than any single policy might be in the absence of the others. At the very least, policy makers
should avoid negative interactions where multiple policies work at cross-purposes, undermining
the effectiveness of one another. We explored policies interactions at two levels. First, we
examined how the teacher policies interacted with the broader policy context (not limited the
analysis to teacher policies alone). Second, we looked for interactions among the multiple
teacher policies operating in the districts in our study. Our findings are presented below.
Interactions Among Teacher Policies and the Broader Policy Context
Packages of teacher policies co-exist within a broader set of education policies. While
not explicitly teacher policies, these other kinds of policies may have an impact on teachers’
work and, consequently, their decisions about where to work and whether to remain in the field
of education. Our data uncovered several noteworthy interactions among teacher policies and
this broader policy context. A commonly recognized problem relates to the contradiction
between policies to hold schools accountable for performance and efforts to staff low-performing
schools with highly qualified teachers. In particular, the federal No Child Left Behind legislation
has increased the pressure on states and districts to hold schools accountable for performance,
and the response has been a range of high-stakes accountability policies. While these policies
take different forms, they generally try to strengthen the incentives for school improvement by
issuing salient rewards to high achieving schools and/or by imposing stiff sanctions on low
performing schools. Many teachers and principals noted that these sorts of high-stakes
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accountability policies have made it more difficult to attract highly qualified teachers to
chronically low-performing schools, the very places when the best teachers are most needed.
One of the tensions between teacher policies and the broader policy context is the NCLB
requirement regarding highly-qualified teachers. Several principals in our sample, particularly
those working in the most disadvantaged schools, expressed great frustration with the NCLB
highly-qualified teacher requirement. A local instructional superintendent in the New York City
Public Schools commented on this challenge, particularly within the most difficult to staff
districts and schools within New York:
So we are directed by the state and the city to hire only highly qualified teachers, in other
words they’re licensed, and it’s not a serious issue, that’s what it should be, you should
have highly qualified teachers. The problem is that in district 7, which is demographically
high poverty, lots of projects, poor working environment, it’s very hard to attract highly
qualified teachers who want to come from school and come to this area to work. So it’s
been very hard to attract personnel… Our principals go to job fairs at the Marriot in
Brooklyn, when we tell them we’re district 7, they don’t even drop an application off to
us. So we always have a hard time staffing. It’s improved somewhat, but not to where we
have a selection, we can’t be extremely selective about who we hire simply because we
don’t attract personnel here in District 7.
In some cases, school officials found themselves hiring teachers who had all the
credentials needed to be designated “highly-qualified,” but were less effective than others who
did not meet the qualifications as specified by the federal government and refined by the states.
As a result, these principals found themselves turning away some of the “best candidates” for
their open positions, in favor of less attractive teachers who met the highly-qualified
requirements. As described by an assistant principal in a Maryland Title I elementary school:
We were only allowed to interview HQ [highly qualified] teachers. We did get a lot of
calls from people who were already documented in personnel but they had not received a
HQ rating or they hadn’t gone through the process. We were very interested in some of
they but they were not eligible to come to our school because they did not meet the
requirements of highly qualified…Sometimes they seemed as if they would be good
matches for us but they didn’t have the rating. We ended up with teachers with lesser
experience a lot of teachers who were in their first year that were highly qualified and lost
out on those who were coming…I remember one we were particularly interested in
because of her skill set, but she was not going to be rated as highly qualified until she had
more paper requirements met.
A New Haven, Connecticut district administrator also addressed concerns over the highly
qualified teacher provisions of NCLB and was especially concerned about the demands placed
on localities to respond to federal guidelines in the absence of adequate additional support:
One of the big challenges now is that we're looking at the highly qualified teacher, which is
different than a certified teacher. There are just two of us working on this audit for over
1800 teachers, trying to determine, and remembering that this is just 10% of my job,
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working on 1800 teachers and auditing them, manually of course, to determine who is
highly qualified and who isn't. So, we're working on it now, we're not there and once we
identify who is not highly qualified then we have to put in place a HOUSSE plan. So the
resources for this whole highly qualified thing are unreal. So, if we find a group of
teachers is not highly qualified, what are you going to do as a district to get them highly
qualified? Which means sending them for professional development at our cost, or doing
observations and evaluations and constructing a process that deems them highly qualified.
So these are the resources we have to put into this. You know we have to notify the parents
[if their child's teacher is not highly qualified]. Can you imagine that? So the nightmares
that this brings to the parents are a whole other ballgame.
A second dimension of NCLB that undermines staffing low-performing schools with
qualified teachers is the practice of holding teachers accountable for matters over which they
have little control. Several teachers from urban schools described their frustration. A prekindergarten teacher in a Maryland Title I school commented,
You feel like you’ve done well and then someone tells you that you’ve not done enough…I
felt so thrilled with my kids’ progress and then someone told me it wasn’t good enough; I
was devastated. My kids will be able to write their name next year and they are telling me
that’s not good enough.
This situation often generates a frantic response by teachers in these schools. As
described by a middle school teacher in Maryland, “What’s in place now is a sense of urgency
and panic to learn. Because teachers are so panicked to meet the standards they very often feel
that they cannot stop to develop a broader view for this concept because this particular child
needs it. There is not time. There is a time crunch and a mastery level crunch we can’t meet.”
The ultimate effect of high-stakes accountability, according to many we spoke with, is high
attrition in low-performing schools. One Maryland middle school teacher captured this well:
The biggest factor in my mind for retaining teachers is NCLB and standardized testing
and its effect on each teacher and classroom. When the school doesn’t have the means to
increase the scores, then teachers’ jobs are in jeopardy and teachers are discouraged.
Teachers will go elsewhere or go to schools where meeting the tests are easier and don’t
have to worry about outside factors, whether it’s in other states or other districts because
the tests are less rigorous.
One of the most striking examples of the impact of high-stakes accountability policies on
staffing low-performing schools is the case of school reconstitution. While defined in many
ways, school reconstitution generally involves removing large numbers of incumbent
administrators and teachers and replacing them with educators who are thought to be more
capable of and committed to reform (Malen, et al., 1999). Empirical research has found that
these sorts of policies drive good teachers away from these schools and fail to attract high quality
teachers to replace them. In the end, school reconstitution, a policy intended to enhance the
human capital of low-performing schools, actually decreases the availability of high-quality
teachers in those settings (Rice & Croninger, 2005). While we did not have any reconstituted
schools in our sample, many schools faced the possibility of “take-over” by the state and several
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were identified as "schools in need of improvement." Comments like the ones below from
veteran school teachers in Maryland and Connecticut document the negative interaction between
high-stakes accountability policies and efforts to staff low-performing schools with highlyqualified teachers. The Maryland elementary school teacher commented:
Title I schools are under a lot more scrutiny than other schools. We are under a
microscope. We have to perform or they come in a take us over. These other schools,
they don’t have to think about it. The kids are just going to do it. We have to actually
work to get them there. It’s a tougher job to work in a Title I school. That makes them
[novice teachers] think, ‘well, maybe this isn’t the place for me.’
This concern was echoed by a high school mathematics teacher in Connecticut:
What makes people want to teach is going to get lost, and the whole concept of we have
to create end products and everybody has to be in the same box. They're trying to force
fit this and then when it doesn't work, the blame comes back on us.
A building principal in East Harlem, New York expressed considerable frustration over
what he called the lack of "reciprocal accountability" in efforts to improve student achievement:
I forgot who coined the phrase about reciprocal accountability. So a lot of the NCLB
legislation is about students and schools and principals needing to do stuff. But
accountability should be a two-way street. Historically, for example, our Title I money
comes late. This year we didn't get our Title I school improvement allocation until the
end of March and that's an allocation that I would have liked to have known about last
July so I could make a coherent plan in August to start giving students services in
September.
While NCLB and other high-stakes accountability policies can undermine the goal of
staffing low-performing schools with qualified teachers (not to mention high quality teachers),
the general standards and testing movement frustrated many teachers in our focus groups.
Several argued that the resulting standardization of school curricula has damaged the
professionalism of teaching. One school principal in Maryland described, “The teaching
profession in the Title I world is not the creative venture it used to be. There is still a little bit of
latitude but it is not nearly the latitude that was once allowed in previous years.” Putting aside
questions surrounding the impact of such policies on equity and efficiency of public education,
these sorts of threats to the autonomy and professionalism of teachers causes many to re-consider
their career choices. One Maryland Title I school principal commented on the impact of
standardizing curriculum:
Novice [teachers] don’t know enough except for their student teaching experience to have
a whole lot of reaction to it [the reduction in professional autonomy]. They kind of are
learning as they go. They have to adapt quickly. They veterans are the ones who react.
For example, when Reading First [NCLB funded program] came, it was veteran teachers
who left.
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In sum, the participants in our study document the negative interactions between high-stakes
accountability policies like NCLB and efforts to attract and retain high quality teachers to lowerperforming schools. These negative interactions stem from the restrictive definitions of teacher
qualifications, the emphasis on meeting certain standards, and the perception of a decline in the
professionalization of teaching that comes with standardization.
Interactions Among Teacher Policies
Several themes emerged as we analyzed our case study data to identify both positive and
negative interactions among various teacher policies. We found evidence of several negative
interactions in the teacher policy packages we identified. Perhaps the most striking relates to
alternative certification programs that offer quick and easy entry into the profession, relative to
more traditional teacher education programs. While state and district administrators who offered
such options recognized them as critical to staffing all schools with highly-qualified teachers (for
which they are held accountable), school principals and teachers criticized these routes into the
profession as inadequate, particularly in the schools serving large numbers of high-need students.
In contrast, principals and teachers were pleased with rigorous teacher preparation programs –
alternative or traditional – that equipped teachers to handle the unique challenges of urban
schools. However, the option of quick-and-easy alternative routes into the profession was
recognized by many as a disincentive for teachers to invest in longer and more rigorous
preparation.
In all three states in our sample, we revealed a consistent tension between the effort to
increase standards in teacher preparation with the need to create a large enough supply of
qualified teachers to staff classrooms. As one New York state official remarked:
We understood that while we were changing teacher preparation, we were faced with the
dilemma that we had a shortage. We absolutely had a shortage. So how do we marry
together the fact that kids are going to need more and that we are under-serving our rural
and urban communities because teachers may not have been adequately prepared to deal
with it? And that's why we have had to come up with alternative pathways.
A Maryland state official also recognized the tension this can create:
An alternative certification is one way to meet the [NCLB highly qualified teacher
requirement] because under the federal legislation the alternative certification does meet
the definition. It’s also caused no small measure of contention with groups like teachers
unions. Because you have someone with no background in education coming in with
nine credit hours but a lot of content knowledge and can begin teaching, who is next door
to someone with many years who may for some reason not be deemed highly qualified
under the law.
State administrators who authorized alternative routes were quick to emphasize the
certification as a minimum standard, and the need for districts to provide ongoing professional
development to new teachers. A Maryland official remarked:
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The certificate just says here is a set of minimum requirements and we have always had
two year and four year universities that have helped out with this. How that occurs is not
spelled out. If you hire somebody who is minimally prepared and supported, that person
is at risk. What you hope is that school systems will want more than or better than the
regulation. You find all kinds of variations going on in the same school system.
Another example of a negative interaction we found among teacher policies related to
aggressive recruitment efforts to bring teachers into difficult-to-staff schools. While we found
the recruitment efforts to be quite aggressive in some of these environments, the follow-up in
terms of assistance and supports to retain those teachers over time was less apparent. In the
schools we visited, we observed considerable variability in teachers' assessments of the level of
support they are receiving from building principals, staff developers and lead teachers. Not
surprisingly, teachers in wealthier schools reported a greater level of support than the teachers
working in Title I and lower income schools. Many novice teachers from lower income schools
noted the lack of administrative support needed to do their jobs. Consider the comments of
several novice elementary teachers in a Maryland Title I school:
I agree that the principal is supportive, but I have not been observed formally or
informally by the principal or AP at all this year.
I was observed once by the principal and never written up with results.
There is an empty threat at this school for discipline because the kids know that the
principal is never here.
A New Haven, CT literacy coach reiterated the importance of supporting beginning teachers:
We need to get and keep the best teachers. So we get them, but often times we don't
support them. We have brand new wonderful teachers who come in to a very difficult
situation. Even when their heart and soul is in it they come to the classroom and there are
behavior issues, or they hire you right after school starts…it's those annoyances that
really get in the way.
This finding was even more troubling when we examined data from neighboring school districts.
Consider the two school districts we studied in Connecticut. The wealthier Westport School
District actively recruited experienced teachers from less wealthy and less attractive school
districts like New Haven. It stands to reason that good teachers who feel unsupported will be
more likely to move to more attractive districts that provide the kinds of supports and
professional development opportunities offered by districts like Westport.
We also found evidence that many teachers, even those who met the “highly qualified”
requirements, felt they were inadequately prepared for their teaching assignments. A literacy
coach from Connecticut commented, "sometimes the universities, even though you might have
very good classes, new people will come in and they'll say ‘I didn't really learn anything.’ It's on
the job training." An elementary teacher in a Maryland Title I school expressed, “There is a
disconnect between the teacher prep program and the real world. They are naïve and come into,
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36
especially a Title I school, and don’t understand the societal issues that impact the classroom.”
Her colleague agreed, “The gap between teacher education and what is going on in the school
has increased over the years.” A novice teacher in Maryland commented on her specific teaching
assignment, “I wasn’t prepared to teach a group of kids who none of them can speak English.
That is the one thing I struggle with. These kids were not on a second grade level when they
came to school. I teach a second grade curriculum, but the kids are not on a second grade level.
They are very behind.” These individuals all agreed that teachers are often not prepared for their
teaching assignments, and do not receive appropriate on-the-job support to address their training
needs.
We also observed positive interactions among teacher policies. One noteworthy positive
interaction related to the interest of district leaders in forging relationships with well-regarded
teacher preparation programs in nearby colleges and universities. In some cases, these
relationships took the form of partnerships to provide alternative certification programs. Others
saw these relationships with institutions of higher education (IHEs) as a potentially powerful
recruitment tool. One district administrator in Maryland commented, “For recruitment the
district needs to go out and build relationships with universities so that they know who we are. I
want to make it a part of our practice to be visible to the universities.” Another district leader in
Maryland talked about the possibility of working with universities to influence the preparation of
more teachers for subject shortage areas:
In the spirit of continuous improvement I would want to work closer with the universities
and say counsel people who come to your school ahead of time so that they know what
the critical shortage areas are so that they know how to direct their efforts. If they want
to spend time becoming certified to teach social studies, be you black, white, purple or
green, I don’t need you. There are so many there now waiting.
Partnerships with IHE's are also prevalent in New York and Connecticut, particularly
among hard-to-staff schools and school districts. School administrators in these difficult-to-staff
settings encourage student teaching placements within their buildings. One building principal in
New York City also commented on the impact the higher education partnerships (and tuition
remission associated with them) had on short-term teacher retention. He indicated positive
results for initial retention, but recognized that once teachers obtained their master’s degrees,
many migrate to administrative and other leadership positions within the city’s system. He
stated, "hardly anybody leaves here to go teach in another school; people leave here to become
assistant principals, principals, or staff developers." We know very little about this type of
attrition and additional study of this phenomenon is needed, particularly given the number of
subsidized graduate programs that are a part of the overall teacher policy strategy within larger
urban areas.
In general, our data suggest that positive interactions among teacher policies result from
the use of multiple approaches to simultaneously address a complex problem. For instance, a
difficult-to-staff school district should enjoy a package of state and district policies that:

provide good job information early in the process, and offer jobs and placements to
the best candidates quickly and early;
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
develop relationships with teacher preparation programs at high quality IHEs to
encourage preparation of teacher candidates in certain subject shortage areas, to
provide a context for training, to establish a pipeline to staff low-performing schools,
and to provide ongoing professional development opportunities;

offer large, targeted, and sustained economic incentives to bring in master teachers,
good principals, and the brightest new teachers to disadvantaged schools and to retain
them over time;

offer site-specific training and high-quality induction programs to support new
teachers, based on evidence of what works in mentoring and induction of new
teachers;

require site-specific and content-specific professional development opportunities for
veteran teachers;

support collaborative planning time by subject, team, or grade by overstaffing schools
to provide release time for teachers;

offer competitive wages, particularly in shortage areas
This is not the only way to structure a package of teacher policies, and arguably, the
package should be more tailored to the specific staffing needs of the school community; this
package assumes the full range of issues are at play (supply, recruitment, distribution, retention).
This sort of policy package is illustrative because it involves strategies that work in
complementary ways to address a range of staffing problems, providing incentives to come to
and remain in difficult-to-staff schools. The package includes appropriate site-specific preservice and in-service professional development as well as ongoing support for teachers to work
together to foster student achievement. Finally, as will be discussed below, the package includes
a range of high-, medium-, and low-cost policies.
Targeting of Policies
Evidence suggests that teacher shortages are most evident in particular subject areas,
geographic areas, types of schools, and grade levels. Given the high cost of many teacher
policies and coupled with identifiable shortage areas, the practice of targeting teacher policies
and resources appears to make good sense. Appropriately targeted policies have the potential to
dramatically reduce cost and may increase their overall effectiveness. We examined the degree
to which policies in our cases were targeted to particular subject areas or types of schools that
suffer from teacher shortages. Table 1 presents policies supported by states (top panel) and
districts (bottom panel) that are targeted to address staffing issues for specific subject areas (lefthand columns) and types of schools and districts (right-hand columns). Several important
findings emerged from this portion of the analysis.
TABLE 1 HERE
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First, policies targeted to particular types of schools and districts (e.g., low performing,
high poverty, difficult-to-staff) were most commonly observed at the state level, compared to the
district level of the education system. Arguably, this finding reflects the fact that states are best
positioned to leverage resources to improve equity across districts and schools.11 Historically,
the responsibility for ensuring an equitable system of education has been at the state level of
government, and teacher policy has increasing been recognized by researchers, policy makers,
and the courts as a key to ensuring an adequate education. Further, the practice of targeting
policies at the state level could reflect an effort to realize cost savings; policies that apply
universally to all teachers could be very costly at the state level.
Interestingly, states placed less emphasis on policies targeted to subject shortage areas.
While all states had such policies, they were more limited in number than those addressing
shortages associated with the type of school. The state-level policies focused on subject area
shortages tended to use economic incentives to address the supply dimension of the problem,
while the state-level policies addressing shortages in hard-to-staff schools and districts ranged
across the different categories (economic incentives, avenues into the profession, working
conditions) to address multiple dimensions of the problem including supply, recruitment,
distribution, and retention.
The lower panel of Table 1 presents district-level policies that are targeted in various
ways. At the district level, there appears to be a more even balance between policies targeted at
subject shortage areas and those targeted at particular types of schools. In part, this reflects the
pressure that districts face to staff all schools with teachers who meet the NCLB highly qualified
teacher requirements. The least disadvantaged of our districts have the fewest policies targeted
to difficult-to-staff schools; Westport, CT offers no targeted polices at all and Montgomery
County, MD offers only one policy targeted to difficult-to-staff schools. (Montgomery County
has a number of alternative certification programs targeted to subject shortage areas). In the case
of Montgomery County, MD, this lack of targeting to difficult-to-staff schools is particularly
noteworthy given the large disparities within the district in school and teacher quality. All of the
administrators we spoke with in that district recognized that there are some schools in the district
that are particularly difficult to staff with qualified teachers, yet the only policy option targeted to
those schools are open contracts. Other districts in our sample have more concerted efforts to
target policies. Prince George’s County, MD and New Haven, CT both offer several alternative
avenues into the profession for teachers willing to work in geographic and/or subject shortage
areas. In both cases, these efforts are partnerships with post-secondary institutions in the areas.
New York City Region 9 has the most significant set of targeted policies in terms of both subject
and geographic shortage areas. The policies include a variety of strategies including economic
incentives, avenues into the profession, and professional development opportunities to address
supply, recruitment, and retention issues. Further, several of the targeted policies in this district
emphasize training that prepares teachers to work in this particular urban environment.
11
One could argue that the federal level is even better positioned to address these sorts of equity
issues, but our study focused on state systems of education, within the national policy context.
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In addition to reporting the kinds of policies that are targeted, we also took note of what
sorts of policies are not targeted. We found that targeted policies are most often those aimed at
problems of supply and recruitment. In other words, state and district policymakers tend to
target policies to bring qualified teachers into subject and geographic shortage areas. It appears
from our data that less emphasis is placed on targeted policies to retain those teachers over time,
with the exception of targeted economic incentives with multi-year components and some
policies emphasizing better leadership in low-performing schools. We found very little evidence
of targeted professional development opportunities across states and districts in our sample; the
only instances were identified in New York state and Region 9 of New York City. Perhaps most
striking is the absence of targeting with respect to high-paying states and districts. Both
Connecticut and Montgomery County, MD offer relatively high salaries to teachers. However,
we found no evidence that these systems offer substantial salary incentives for teachers to work
in difficult-to-staff schools or in subject shortage areas. We also noted that, while states and
districts in our sample offered incentives to teachers holding National Board Certification, these
were not targeted to difficult-to-staff schools or districts. However, both Maryland and New
York have policies that provide economic incentives for teachers holding advanced certification
or master teacher status to work in low-performing schools.
It is important to recognize that this analysis focuses on the number of different kinds of
targeted policies, but does not get at the quality, effectiveness, or level of investment associated
with the identified programs. Arguably, a single, very strong, targeted intervention is preferable
to multiple ineffective, under-funded programs. Next steps in our research agenda will use
national data to better understand the nature and the effectiveness of these sorts of targeted
policies.
Cost Considerations
One of the primary goals of this study was to reach a better understanding of what states,
districts, and schools are spending on efforts to staff all schools, even the most challenging, with
qualified teachers. This component of the study has been more than difficult. Our central
finding is that tracking expenditures on teacher policy is not easy. Many different departments
across all levels of the education system implement and fund policies that affect teacher decision
making. This arrangement gives rise to two difficulties. The first is the problem of identifying
the relevant set of policies. In this study, we have documented the array of policies recognized
by state, district, and school administrators as teacher policies, but we are well aware that there
are others that affect teachers’ job choices but were not considered by our interviewees as
teacher policies. So the first step – defining the set of policies – remains elusive and limits any
effort to estimate statewide expenditures on teacher policies.
The second difficulty is the problem of coordinating information on policies and
expenditures across the different levels of the system and different departments within each
level. As documented in the sections above, many policies flow from the state to the district to
the schools with resources being added and/or used at each level. The empirical challenge of
tracking these resource flows requires more sophisticated data than is currently available in any
of the states we studied. Further, while specific administrative offices may oversee major
components of teacher policy (e.g., Certification and Accreditation at the state level, and Human
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Resources at the district level), other peripheral units are also involved and traditional budget
categories typically used by school systems do not report spending in ways that can isolate
teacher-related policies.
Amidst these difficulties, we report several observations. First, the expenditures that are
most easily identified are those associated with economic incentives administered at the state and
district levels. In addition, some direct state spending on professional development initiatives is
reported. We also noted that most economic incentives range from $1,000 to $5,000 per teacher.
Several exceptions exist. For instance, tuition reimbursement for higher education credits and
courses, which could be more substantial.12 Another exception to the range of awards noted
above is the Master Teacher Bonus in New York State, which involves annual awards of $10,000
per teacher for up to three years of working in a low-performing school. Of course, the total cost
of these strategies depends on the number of teachers who elect to do what is required to earn the
incentive (e.g., taking additional college courses, earning National Board Certification, working
in particular types of schools or subject areas).
In the absence of comprehensive data on the costs or expenditures of teacher policies, a
preliminary way to examine the level of investments being made is to categorize individual
policies as low cost, medium cost, and high cost. While certainly not highly scientific, this
approach allows us to consider some basic questions like the kinds of investments being made at
different levels of the system, the kinds of policies that are more or less costly, the kinds of
problems that are associated with more or less costly policies, and so forth. Our determination of
where policies fit into this cost categorization depends on three factors: size of investment,
number served, and duration of the investment. As shown in Table 2, we define low cost
policies as those that involve a relatively small investment for small number over a short term.
At the other extreme, high cost policies are those that involve a large investment for a large
number over a long term. Medium cost policies involve a combination of high and low cost
components.
TABLE 2 HERE
Table 3 applies this categorization to the policies we identified across our case study
sites. Of course, this process involved some assumptions about the specific design of the
policies and programs we found (i.e., some policies are placed in two columns), but our data
were sufficient in most cases to make these kinds of determinations.
TABLE 3 HERE
The states, districts, and schools in our study used policies in all three cost categories.
Most of the state economic incentives we observed are low or medium cost programs, either
because the amounts are so small or because they apply to so few people. States and districts
also offered a number of medium and high cost alternative avenues into the profession. Districts
12
This amount is quite substantial is the additional salary obligations that result from additional
credits earned are counted, though there is considerable debate about whether future salary
obligations should be counted as a cost of professional development (Rice, 2001).
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and schools employed some low cost hiring strategies that included starting the process earlier,
utilizing more efficient information systems, and offering open contracts to enlist the best
candidates. A variety of medium and high cost professional development programs were
employed across levels of the education systems we studied. Variations in the design and reach
of the programs affect the associated cost (and presumably the effectiveness). We also observed
a number of working conditions identified by school and system leaders. These tend to be low
and medium cost policies. Some of the most interesting medium cost policies in this category
are those that invest heavily in high quality leadership, and that “buy” more in-school release
time for teachers with more demanding assignments.
Clearly more research is needed on the cost of teacher policy. At the most basic level, we
need to gain a better sense of how much is being spent on teacher policy, and how the level of
investment has changed over time. In addition, we need to explore the degree to which states,
districts, and schools utilize low cost policies to address dimensions of the staffing problem that
require high cost solutions. Finally, we need to learn how to construct policy packages (like the
one proposed above) that draw on policies representing a range of costs to address the most
salient dimensions of the problem in the most cost-effective way. This suggests we need to have
more information on the effectiveness of the various policy options. A high cost policy that is
effective may be a better investment that a low cost policy that is not effective.
VII. Conclusions: Moving Toward Policy Packages that “Make Sense”
While our the cost component of our study is still in progress, we conclude with
an illustration of how various pieces of our analysis can be employed to help analyze current
teacher policy packages and to guide decision-making about better ways to invest in teacher
policy. Consider a typical urban school system that faces multiple challenges associated with
staffing all schools with highly qualified teachers. Our extensive review of the literature, policy
scan, administrator interviews, and teacher focus groups a number of policies that, packaged
together, may be an effective way to address staffing problem in difficult-to-staff schools and
districts.
Table 4 outlines the package of policies that represent the various categories in our
typology, address multiple dimensions of the problem, and range from low to high cost.
TABLE 4 HERE
Future work will use national data to explore the kinds of policy packages across levels of the
system, and to estimate the impact of these policy configurations on teacher staffing in urban,
low-performing schools. Our case studies provide a starting point for this analysis.
As noted throughout, the design of this study limits our ability to make broad
generalizations, or to draw specific conclusions about the cost or effectiveness of specific types
of teacher policy. However, our analysis makes important conceptual and empirical
contributions. Our conceptual model provides a comprehensive framework for thinking about
teacher policy and packages of teacher policies across levels of the education system. Our
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typology provides a tool for researchers and policy makers to consider the various types of
policies and how these policies address the multi-dimensional nature of the staffing problem.
Our analytic structure encourages researchers and policy makers to consider packages of teacher
policies in terms of policy-problem alignment, policy interactions, and targeting. Finally, our
cost framework is a first step in understanding the range of costs associated with teacher policies
so that we can better understand the level of investment that must be made to staff all schools
with quality teachers.
Empirically, our analysis offers some interesting insights into the teacher policy landscape across
levels of the system in the three states we studied. The study is one piece of our broader research
agenda focused on teacher policy, and it provides a set of key considerations for policy makers
across levels of the system. These are described below.
1) Policymakers and the public should recognize teacher policy as comprehensive set of
strategies that traverse levels of the education.
2) Policymakers should recognize the staffing issue as a multi-dimensional problem, and
pay close attention to the degree of alignment between policies and the most salient
dimensions of the problem. While we found evidence of policies that address the
articulated problems at each level of system, we also found lots more policies in play.
Greater attention is needed to study the degree to which those policies address secondary
problems, or if this finding reveals a “buckshot” scattered approach to teacher policy at
more central levels of the system.
3) Policymakers should consider how various policies interact with one another across
levels of the system. Our data uncovered numerous policy interactions, some positive
and some negative. Perhaps most striking is the degree to which NCLB and other highstakes accountability policies are currently driving teacher policy at the state, district, and
school-levels.
4) Policymakers and the public should recognize the distinction between teacher quality and
teacher qualifications. NCLB and state policy focus on teacher qualifications, i.e., what
credentials are needed to be teacher. Teacher quality is more related to their
effectiveness. Our study shows that states, districts, and schools with a surplus of
qualified teachers have the luxury of emphasizing policies related to the quality of
teachers.
5) Policymakers should look for opportunities to target teacher policies in ways that address
subject and geographic shortage areas. We expected to find that more heterogeneous
levels of the system are more likely to target policies to schools and districts with the
greatest need; we did not find this to be the case. We also found that targeted policies
tended to be those aimed at supply and recruitment (typically lower cost policies) rather
than longer-term retention (typically higher cost policies).
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6) Teacher policies range in their cost. More work is needed to understand the level of
investment currently being made in teacher policy across levels of the education system,
and to estimate the costs of promising teacher policy packages.
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49
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Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
Resources
(federal, state, district, school)
Contextual factors:
 Labor market
 Cost differentials
 Demographics
 Others
State, District, and School Teacher Policies
Avenues
into the
profession
Economic
incentives
Professional
development
Hiring
strategies
Working
conditions
Teacher Policy “Packages”



Supply
Policy-problem alignment
Policy interactions
Targeting of policies
Recruitment
Distribution
Dimensions of the Staffing Issue
Student Achievement
Retention
50
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
FIGURE 2: DATA SUMMARY
STATE LEVEL INTERVIEWS
MARYLAND=3
NEW YORK=3
CONNECTICUT=2

DISTRICT LEVEL INTERVIEWS
MARYLAND=6
NEW YORK=4
CONNECTICUT=5

BUILDING ADMINISTRATOR INTERVIEWS
MARYLAND=5
NEW YORK=6
CONNECTICUT=5

TEACHER FOCUS GROUPS
MARYLAND=5 (n=23) NEW YORK=5 (n=33) CONNECTICUT=4 (n=16)
TOTAL PARTICIPANTS=111
51
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
Table 1: Targeting of Policies to Subject Areas and Types of Schools
Subject areas
Type of schools/district
Targeted area
Policies
Targeted area
State-level Policies
New teacher awards
Shortage areas
Federal loan programs
Low-income st.
HUD – Housing assist
Poor
neighborhoods
Bonus for advanced cert
Low-perf schools
Troops to Teachers
Difficult-to-staff
Distinguished principal
Low-perf schools
fellowship
Tuition assistance for Shortage areas
Summer urban internship
Urban difficult-toteachers
staff
Incentives for certified
Low-perf schools
teachers
Bonus for Master/NBC
Low-perf schools
teachers
Tuition assistance for
Low-perf schools
teachers
Alternative cert programs (2) Urban schools
Summer training program
Urban schools
PD partnerships with IHEs
Low-perf schools
State/federal grants
Shortage areas
State and federal grants
Shortage areas
Housing assistance
Shortage areas
Housing assistance
High-poverty
Tuition reduction for
Urban districts
alternative cert program
Emergency/temporary cert
Shortage areas
options
District-level Policies
Alternative cert
Shortage areas: District open contracts
Poor (Title I)
programs (6)
- math, science,
schools
foreign lang,
special ed, ESL
Alternative cert
Science/math
Alternative cert program (1)
Low-perf schools
programs (2)
Poor (Title I)
schools
Tuition remission and Special ed
Summer teaching experience Difficult-to-staff
stipend
– training and teaching
placement
Stipends, PD, and
Math, science,
Incentives for teachers to
Difficult-to-staff
grad degrees
literacy, special return to teaching
(TOP program)
ed
Loan forgiveness
Bilingual ed
Alternative cert programs (2) Difficult-to-staff
Masters degree
Speech
tuition
pathology
Partnership with IHE Math
Partnership with IHE (Yale)
Three year
for grad tuition and stipend
commitment
PD and tuition
Shortage areas
assistance for cert
No targeted policies
Policies
Maryland
State
New York
State
Connecticut
Montgomery
County, MD
Pr. Georges
County, MD
New York
City Region 9,
NY
New Haven,
CT
Westport, CT
52
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
Table 2: Categorizing Policies as High, Medium, and Low Cost
Low Cost Policies
Medium Cost Policies
High Cost Policies
Size of Investment
Small
Large
Small
Small
Large
Number of Recipients
Small
Small
Larger
Small
Large
Term
Short
Short
Short
Longer
Long
Table 3: High Cost vs. Low Cost Policies from Case Study Sites
Economic
Incentives
Avenues into
the Profession
Hiring
Strategies
Low cost
Signing bonus
Moving expenses for hires
Certification reciprocity
Job banks/databases
Job fairs – state, multi-state
On-line applications
Early contracts
Centralizing initial review of
candidates
Relationships with IHEs
Professional
Development
Working
Conditions
Shared planning time for
teachers by grade, subject, or
team
Minimize classroom disruptions
Appreciation events/awards
Parent involvement
Medium cost
Large signing bonus
NBPTS salary increase
Loan forgiveness
Housing assistance
High salary for low-perf school
High salary for subject shortages
Tuition reimbursement
Alternative certification
programs
International recruitment
TV/radio advertisements
High cost
High salary for all
Mentor programs
Induction programs
Mentor programs
Induction programs
NBPTS certification
Portfolio assessments
PD funds for teachers
Whole school reform PD
On-site family center
Good leadership; targeted salary
incentives for principals.
Reduced load for teachers with
high-need students
Over staffing schools to provide
release time for teachers during
the school day
Tuition reimbursement
Alternative routes to
certification
53
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
Table 4: Policy Packages
Policy Package
Provide high-quality alternative
routes into the professional for
geographic/subject shortage areas
through partnerships with IHEs
develop relationships with teacher
preparation programs at high quality
IHEs to encourage preparation of
teacher candidates in certain subject
shortage areas, to provide a context
for training, and to establish a
pipeline to staff low-performing
schools
provide good job information early in
the process, and offer jobs and
placements to the best candidates
quickly and early;
offer large, targeted, and sustained
economic incentives to bring in
master/NBC teachers, good
principals, and the brightest new
teachers to disadvantaged schools;
offer site-specific training and highquality induction programs to support
new teachers, based on evidence of
what works in mentoring and
induction of new teachers;
require site-specific and contentspecific professional development
opportunities for veteran teachers;
support collaborative planning time
by subject, team, or grade by
overstaffing schools to provide
release time for teachers;
Type
Avenue into
the
Profession
Problem
Supply
Level
State
District
Cost
Medium
Avenue into
the
Profession
Supply
Recruitment
Retention
District
School
Low
Hiring
Strategy
Recruitment
Distribution
State
District
Low
Economic
Incentive
Distribution
Recruitment
Retention
State
District
High
State
District
School
High
State
District
School
District
School
Medium
Hiring
Strategy
Working
Conditions
Professional Recruitment
Development Retention
Professional Recruitment
Development Retention
Working
Conditions
Recruitment
Retention
Medium
54
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
55
Appendix: Typologies of Teacher Policies
Table A-1: Typology of Teacher Policies - Maryland State
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
McAuliffe Teacher Education Award
$15,900

Distinguished Scholar Education Award
Signing bonus for 3.5 GPA or higher for
those who commit to three years
Stafford Loan deferment
$6,000

$1,000

Stafford Loan forgiveness
Perkins Loan forgiveness
National Board Certification (matching)
Maryland Candidate Subsidy Program
(partner with local system)
Stipend for APC in designated lowperforming schools
Tax credit to offset graduate tuition
Employer paid payroll tax increases
caused by stipends or other fringe benefits
Teacher Next Door program (HUD)
Varies
Up to
$5,000
Varies
Up to
$2,000













$1,534

$2,000


$1,500

Varies

50% of cost
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
Resident Teacher Certificate (RTC)

Up to
$10,000
Troops to Teachers


HIRING STRATEGIES
Online links to LEA websites from
MSDE for job vacancy listings

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional Development Schools (PDS)
Extended new teacher probationary
program – two to three years
WORKING CONDITIONS

Maryland’s Initiative for New Teachers
Distinguished Principal Fellowship
Program – increased salary for 3 years

Varies



DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
56
Table A-2: Typology of Teacher Policies - Montgomery County Public School System
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT

Tuition reimbursement up to 9 credits
50% UMD

National Board Certification stipend
$2,000
(matching)
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION

Professional Immersion, MA in teaching


Professional Immersion, MA in Spec Ed
GW Millennium Teachers and Teacher
Corps Fellows
Maryland Master’s Certification Program






Special Ed Teacher Immersion Training


Creative Initiatives in Teacher Education


English for Speakers of Other Languages


HIRING STRATEGIES

Recruitment calendar – Nov to Nov
Online vacancy database

Online resume submittal

District review of candidate resumes
Two year contract for non-tenured new
hires
Open contracts




PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT


Professional development schools

New Teacher Induction Program

Professional Growth System

Professional staff development

Mentor Program

WORKING CONDITIONS
Staff development teacher in every school

Staff development substitutes

Mentor Program

DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
57
Table A-3: Typology of Teacher Policies - Schools in Montgomery County Public School
System
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
None Found
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
None Found
HIRING STRATEGIES
Open contracts

MCPS Job Fair


MCPS online vacancy database
Principal pre-service teacher training

preferences
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Staff development teachers


Consulting teacher
WORKING CONDITIONS
Minimize classroom interruptions

Teams by grade

Planning time by grade

Structured planning time by subject

Flexible approach to teacher leave

DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
58
Table A-4: Typology of Teacher Policies - Prince George’s County Public School System
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
National Board Certification stipend
(matching)
Tuition reimbursement
(up to 9 credit hours)

$2,000
Apartment rental security deposit waivers
Transition to Teaching with
Howard University
Up to
$1,080

Varies

Up to 18
credits




AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
Resident Teacher Certificate Programs
MARCO - UMUC (online)

MARCO – UMBC

MARCO – PGCPS

Howard University Partnership - Science and
Mathematics for All (SMA)
Transition to Teaching with
Howard University
$10,000


Up to 18
credits



HIRING STRATEGIES
Recruitment calendar – begins in Oct

Online vacancy database

Online application submittal

Two year contract for non-tenured new hires

Letters of intent

International recruitment
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Teacher Development Program

Faculty Support Team

Job-Alike Mentoring Services
Up to
$1,000

Professional Educator Induction Program


Professional development schools


WORKING CONDITIONS

Staff development substitutes
Varying school curricula (performing arts,
French immersion, etc…)
Job-Alike Mentoring Services

Up to
$1,000


DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
59
Table A-5: Typology of Teacher Policies
Schools in Prince George’s County Public School System
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
None Found.
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
None Found.
HIRING STRATEGIES

Recruitment event attendance
TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional Educator Induction Program

Mentor teachers

Professional staff development

WORKING CONDITIONS
Staff appreciation awards

Hospitality Committee

Administrative support

Collaborative planning time

DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
60
Table A-6: Typology of Teacher Policies – New York State
POLICY
AMOUNT
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
Stipends for temporarily certified teachers to
obtain initial/provisional certification
$2,000
Summer in the City internships to encourage
urban teaching
$2,000
Recruitment incentives for certified teachers
in hard-to-staff subjects and schools
$3,400 annually
(4 yrs. max.)
Better Beginnings award for outstanding
childhood educators
$1,000
Albert Shanker National Board Cert Grants
$2,500
Master teacher bonus to teach in low performing school
$10,000/year
(3 yrs. max.)


Tuition Incentive Program for initially
certified teachers to obtain permanent
certification and teach in hard-to-staff schools
$2,100 annually
(2 yrs. max.)












AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION




Transcript Analysis
Transitional B and C
Troops to Teachers
Strong TFA in NYC



NYC Teaching Fellows
NCATE, TEAC or RATE accreditation
required for all teacher education programs




HIRING STRATEGIES

Conditional Provisional Certificates for
teachers with licenses in other states
Online links for job applications/procedures



State-wide clearinghouse for teacher
recruitment
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Summer Training Program for first time NYC
certified teachers

Teacher Opportunity Corps (TOC) to identify
and prepare and support minority teachers
$750K annually
Teacher/Leader Quality Partnership (TLQP)
grants to teacher education institutions and
high-need schools
Subsidized masters degrees for NYC
Teaching Fellows
$42K to $270K
per project
(n=35)






WORKING CONDITIONS
Mentored experiences for beginning teachers


DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
61
Table A-7: Typology of Teacher Policies - Region Nine of the New York City Public
Schools
POLICY
AMOUNT
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
Senior Initiative Program--tuition remission and
stipends for prospective special education teachers



Teaching Opportunity Program (TOP)--stipends,
professional dev., graduate degrees in high demand
areas
Summer Teaching Experience Program--for
certified teachers--stipends, summer housing,
guaranteed teaching position
Loan forgiveness for certified bilingual teachers




















$4,000 (6 yrs.
max.)

Expanded Capacity Program--free tuition for
certified speech pathologists to earn masters degree
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION




Call Back to Teaching Program
Strong TFA in NYC
NYC Teaching Fellows
Paraprofessional Accelerated Transition to
Teaching (PATT)/Bilingual Public Services
Initiative


HIRING STRATEGIES
School-based option for hiring
Online Links for Job Applications/Procedures
Television/Radio/Print Advertisements
Multi-state career fairs







PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Partnerships with higher education institutions in
the City
Student teaching initiative (encouraging field work
and other practicum experiences in the City)
Bilingual pupil services (tuition for paraprofessionals to earn certification)
Paraprofessional career training (release time,
tuition remission, some stipends) to earn
certification in hard-to-staff areas.
Local Instructional Superintendents and Regional
Instructional Specialists











WORKING CONDITIONS
Mentored Experiences for Beginning Teachers
School Based Staff Developer
Teacher/Directors for Instructional Support
Reduced School Size (Gates Foundation Support)








DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
62
Table A-8: Typology of Teacher Policies - Schools within Region Nine (NYC)
POLICY
AMOUNT
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES

Full or partial tuition remission for
graduate degrees

AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION



Strong TFA in NYC
Selective use of NYC Teaching Fellows
Encourage strong paraprofessionals to
pursue certification




HIRING STRATEGIES

"Word of mouth" strategies for
identifying and recruiting "right fit"
candidates
Selective advertisements



School-based option for hiring
City and regional Job Fairs

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Encourage student teaching placements at
school site.
Utilize higher education partners for
professional development assistance
Peer Leadership Program to encourage
teaching careers among students
School-based staff developer



















Close working relationships with local
instructional superintendents
WORKING CONDITIONS
Emphasis on safety
Exemptions from mandated curriculum
School-based Staff Developer
"Culture of Support"
Teacher/Directors as supportive
colleagues "in the trenches"
DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
63
Table A-9: Typology of Teacher Policies - State of Connecticut
POLICY
AMOUNT
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
1986 Educational Enhancement Act
$300 million
 


$3,000-$17,000
less


Among highest teaching salaries in the
country (#1 in 2004-05)
Tuition subsidies for ARC (Alternative Route
Certification) candidates
Grants for individual teachers in shortage
areas provided through Title II funding
Loan forgiveness program funded by Title II
Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Program
State aid provided to maintain target minimum
salary in all districts on an equalizing basis
ARC participants in selected urban sites
receive a tuition reduction by committing to
teach for 2 years
Low-interest mortgages and down-payment
assistance to teachers in high-poverty
neighborhoods and shortage area subjects








$1,000






AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
 
 
Alternative Route to Certification (ARC)
Temporary/Emergency Certifications
(Durational Shortage Area Permits (DSAP);
90-day certificate; temporary authorization for
minor assignment; limited extended
authorization for early childhood)
Troops to Teachers
 

Performance-Based licensure system
incorporating INTASC standards
Pathways into teaching created for
paraprofessionals with Title II TQ
Enhancement Grants.



 
HIRING STRATEGIES


Online Links for Job Applications/Procedures
State web-site for recruitment
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Beginning Educator Support and Training
(BEST) Program
Goals 2000 Funds are made available to urban
districts in the from of grants for mentoring
and induction
Portfolio Assessments completed by all
teachers in the 2nd year
$50,000 grants





WORKING CONDITIONS
BEST Program Mentorship


DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
64
Table A-10: Typology of Teacher Policies – New Haven Public Schools (NHPS)
POLICY
AMOUNT
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply
Recruitment
Distribution
Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
None found.
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
Yale New Haven Public School Partnership
$18,000
stipend & free
masters degree

Durational Shortage Area Permits (DSAP)

ACE Program (Southern Connecticut
State/NHPS partnership)







HIRING STRATEGIES

Online Links for Job
Applications/Procedures
Twice-Yearly Job Fairs Including School
Visits
Open Contracts


PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Beginning Educator Support and Training
(BEST) Program
Portfolio Assessments completed by all
teachers in the 2nd year


WORKING CONDITIONS
BEST Program Mentorship for All
Beginning Teachers


DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
65
Table A-11
Typology of Teacher Policies: Schools in the New Haven Public Schools
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
None Found.
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
None Found.
HIRING STRATEGIES
Twice Yearly Job Fairs

Observe and Recruit Student Teachers

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Comer's School Development Program
Professional Development Funds for
Teachers
Literacy Coaches in Math and Reading
On-site Professional Development
(Cornerstone Program)
Varies




WORKING CONDITIONS
Minimize classroom disruptions

Administrator presence throughout school

Planning time by grade or by team

Structured planning time by subject

On-site family center

DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
66
Table A-12
Typology of Teacher Policies: Westport Public Schools
POLICY
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
AMOUNT
40K
starting

90K top
Up to
Moving Expenses for New Hires

$2,500
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
Highly Competitive Salaries within CT

None Found.
HIRING STRATEGIES
Full-time Administrator for Recruitment

Ongoing Communication and Visits with

Top Schools of Education
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional Development Funds for
varies

Teachers
Support for BEST portfolio development


WORKING CONDITIONS
District Administrative Support
Faculty/Staff Appreciation Events and
Awards


DRAFT
Teacher Policy Analysis
67
Table A-13
Typology of Teacher Policies: Schools in the Westport Public School System
DIMENSIONS OF THE PROBLEM
Supply Recruitment Distribution Retention
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES
POLICY
AMOUNT
None Found.
AVENUES INTO THE PROFESSION
None Found.
HIRING STRATEGIES
Observe and Recruit Student Teachers

Recruit Experienced Teachers from

Surrounding Districts
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Professional development funds for

teachers
Mentor Teacher


WORKING CONDITIONS
Parental Involvement

Teams by grade

Planning time by grade and subject
Reduced Load for English and Science
Teachers

2

Particularly relevant for our study is some of the reporting on teacher characteristics, including certification and
experience levels.
