Big Problems in How Schools Hire Teachers and What Research Says About How to Solve Them. Every year, 1. 5 percent of teachers quit, either switching schools or leaving the profession entirely, often to retire. That, in turn, means that each year, schools get a new slate of teachers to replace those who leave. Get Real Math in Everyday Life How many times have your students asked When are we ever going to use this in real life Youll find the answer hereOften, though, the subsequent hiring process represents a missed opportunity for increasing the quality and diversity of the teaching staff. Several recent studies suggest that many principals, schools and districts have considerable room to improve the outcomes of this annual cycle. In particular, some principals dont seem to leverage available data to select the most effective teachers many districts dont even require applicants to teach sample lessons districts often fail to actively recruit potential teachers of color and teachers are frequently hired after the school year has begun, which has been shown to harm student achievement. Teachers often arent required to conduct sample lessons, and principals arent always supported in using data. According to a December report from the Center for American Progress a left of center think tank that backed the Obama administrations teacher accountability policies fewer than 2. One third of those districts didnt ensure that candidates met with a schools hiring principal. Another study, published last month in the peer reviewed research journal Education Administration Quarterly, examined hiring practices in six large districts and two charter school networks. Use of data varied from district to district and from principal to principal. Notably, when hiring teachers within the same district, about one in three principals didnt consider teachers evaluation scores. Even fewer central offices provided such data directly to principals, even though the information was likely readily available. June 30, 2009 2 Proper Names Challenge. Word problems sometimes include proper names that are unfamiliar or unknown to young readers. The 2007 MCAS for fourth graders. Cheat Sheets Tables Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus cheat sheets and a variety of tables. Class Notes Each class has notes available. Most of the classes have. The researchers, who conducted extensive interviews with school principals, also found that many school leaders said they wished for information that was, in fact, available to them though often not in a user friendly format. Even when principals were aware of the data available to them, they did not necessarily know how to access the data, the study says. Providing principals with more data, and conducting more thorough interviews, will, of course, help only if the data and interview process are useful. Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this. This article offers a concise overview of strategies for helping ELLs master written word problems. The author is a middle school math teacher in a building with a. A digital library containing Java applets and activities for K12 mathematics. Provides a complete web based educational environment for K12 and HigherEducation mathematics, accounting, statistics, and chemistry. Research shows this is possible. A study of the Spokane, Wash., school district showed that its structured interview process was a decent predictor of teachers likelihood of remaining in the classroom and their ability to improve student test scores. Similarly, separate research done in Washington, D. C., showed that the districts applicant rating system based, in part, on a model lesson was correlated with teacher effectiveness among those who were subsequently hired. A paper examining New York City teachers found that though no single trait was strongly predictive of teacher quality, a combination of measures was. Teacher evaluation measures, though sometimes biased against teachers with lower achieving students, have a significant degree of year to year reliability. Research has shown that certification status is a strong predictor of a teachers likelihood of remaining in the profession. A North Carolina study found that teachers certified in state had higher retention rates and were slightly more effective. A key problem is not being able to ensure that principals have access to such information and, when appropriate, use it. The D. C. research showed that principals often did not make hiring decisions based on interview ratings. This may be appropriate in some cases. For instance, evidence and common sense suggest that some teachers are better matches with certain schools. However, districts should consider providing both support and accountability to make sure principals are making wise hiring decisions. Many districts arent doing a good job recruiting or hiring teachers of color. The CAP study also found that only one in three surveyed districts actively recruited from institutions and organizations that serve primarily minority populations. This, despite the fact that the teaching force is predominantly white, and black students in particular benefit from having black teachers. Meanwhile, a recent Brookings Institution report finds that white education majors are hired at higher rates than those who are black or Hispanic. This may be be due in part to lower pass rates on licensure exams among prospective teachers of color even though such exams are less predictive of effectiveness for minority teachers. Last year, Chicago Public Schools admitted that its screening process for teachers discriminated against black and Latino applicants. As the Brookings paper points out, improving hiring processes would, even in the best case scenario, make a relatively small dent in the teacher diversity gap. Still, districts should at the very least ensure that hiring processes are not discriminatory and ideally try to expand the hiring pool through targeted outreach. Teachers are often hired after the school year starts and that harms student achievement. According to one recent study of a large urban school district, a remarkable 1. Keep in mind that this is the share of newly hired teachers, not all teachers. Predictably, those teachers were less effective, both because of the disruptive impacts of entering a class midyear and because the late hired teachers, at least in math, were simply less skilled. Teachers hired late were also more likely to quit teaching in the district some studies have linked higher teacher turnover to lower student test scores. Its not entirely clear why so many teachers are brought on late, though the paper offers a number of explanations, including timelines for budget approvals, timing of when teachers are encouraged to make retirement decisions, and collective bargaining agreements that prioritize the hiring of certain teachers, such as those who are in an excess pool or looking to transfer schools. In this study, though, the district examined does not collectively bargain with teachers. In the Education Administration Quarterlystudy, however, principals in some districts cited such provisions often codified in teachers contractsas a significant constraint Centralized rules that restrict which candidates principals can consider, or force them to hire particular teachers, were criticized for reducing principal autonomy. In an older paper focusing on Florida, the vast majority of contracts had some restriction on the hiring of new teachers, though in many ways principals still had significant autonomy. Another explanation for late hires is that high poverty schools are simply less appealing to many teachers in part, perhaps, because of poor working conditions making it difficult to attract talent. Teachers may turn to poorer schools only as a last resort if they cant find work in more affluent areas. Such schools also have higher teacher attrition, on average, meaning there will usually be more vacancies to fill, which may make hiring more burdensome in a given school. One potential way to address this problem is through signing bonuses or salary increases, which have been shown to help with teacher retention and recruitment. Theres still a lot to learn about the best ways to hire teachers. All the studies cited in the piece have significant limitations. The CAP paper examined 1.