CAREER: Exploring Beginning Mathematics Teachers' Career Patterns

国家报告强调，招聘和保留有效的数学教师是教育政策举措的最高优先事项。研究表明，初任教师的平均流失率接近23%(而资深教师的平均流失率为15%)；初任数学教师的离职率更高。许多有三年或三年以下工作经验的数学教师在高需求学校开始他们的职业生涯，并经常在第一次机会就转到低需求学校。随着有效教师从高需求学校转向低需求学校，这种重新洗牌加剧了教师质量的不平等分配，对学生成绩的差异产生了重要影响。研究越来越多地提供了对数学教师离职规模的洞察，但只发现了影响教师职业决定的有限几个因素，而且往往无法捕捉到教师劳动力市场的复杂性。因此，必须了解与初任教师职业生涯决策相关的特点、做法和当地背景，以便确定相关的留住策略。这个项目将解决这些问题，建立以证据为基础的理论，以改善数学教师队伍的质量和分配的公平性。这项工作将以三个研究目标为指导：(1)探索数学教师职业流动的模式，比较小学和中学教师之间以及高需求和低需求学校之间的模式；(2)比较不同职业路径上教师的资历和有效性(例如，进出学校、地区、领域)；以及(3)测试一个概念模型，说明政策可延展性因素如何影响初任数学教师的绩效改进和职业流动。PI将使用大规模的联邦和州纵向数据，对2007-08年间担任一年级教师并在3-8年级教授数学的教师队伍进行调查。三个样本将分别进行分析，然后进行集体分析：来自初级教师纵向研究的具有全国代表性的样本(约870名教师，代表全国近85,970人)；约4,220名佛罗里达州教师；以及约2,410名北卡罗来纳州教师。此外，PI将与北卡罗来纳州教堂山的卡罗莱纳教育政策倡议(EPIC)合作，从北卡罗来纳州2015-16年的一年级教师(约800名教师)中收集新数据，并跟踪他们两年。新的数据收集将提供关于职前和在职教师支助质量的详细和可靠的衡量标准，以便了解这些支助如何与教师的职业变动和业绩挂钩。

Recruiting and retaining effective mathematics teachers has been emphasized in national reports as a top priority in educational policy initiatives. Research indicates that the average turnover rate is nearly 23% for beginning teachers (compared to 15% for veteran instructors); turnover rates for beginning mathematics teachers are even higher. Many mathematics teachers with three or fewer years' experience begin their careers in high-needs schools and often transfer to low-need schools at their first opportunity. This reshuffling, as effective teachers move from high- to low-need schools, exacerbates the unequal distribution of teacher quality, with important implications for disparities in student achievement. Research increasingly provides insights into the magnitude of mathematics teacher turnover, but has identified only a limited number of factors that influence teachers' career decisions and often fails to capture the complexity of the teacher labor market. Thus, it is essential to understand the features, practices, and local contexts that are relevant to beginning teachers' career decisions in order to identify relevant strategies for retention. This project will address these issues, building evidence-based theories of ways to improve the quality and equity of the distribution of the mathematics teaching workforce. This support for an early CAREER scholar in mathematics policy will enhance capacity to address issues in the future.This work will be guided by three research objectives, to: (1) explore patterns in mathematics teachers' career movements, comparing patterns between elementary and middle school teachers, and between high- and low-need schools; (2) compare qualifications and effectiveness of teachers on different career paths (e.g., movement in/out of school, district, field); and (3) test a conceptual model of how policy-malleable factors influence beginning math teachers' performance improvement and career movements. The PI will use large-scale federal and state longitudinal data on a cohort of teachers who were first-year teachers in 2007-08 and taught mathematics in grades 3-8. Three samples will be analyzed separately and then collectively: a nationally representative sample from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (about 870 teachers who represent a national population of nearly 85,970); about 4,220 Florida teachers; and about 2,410 North Carolina teachers. In addition, the PI will collaborate with Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) at UNC-Chapel Hill to collect new data from the 2015-16 cohort of first-year teachers in NC (about 800 teachers) and follow them for 2 years. The new data collection will provide detailed and reliable measures on the quality of both pre- and in-service teacher supports in order to understand how they may be linked to teachers' career movements and performance.