CAREER: Exploring Beginning Mathematics Teachers' Career Patterns

招聘和留住有效的数学教师已在国家报告中被强调为教育政策举措的最高优先事项。研究表明，初任教师的平均离职率接近23%（而资深教师的平均离职率为15%）；初任数学教师的流动率甚至更高。许多数学教师只有三年或更少的经验，从高需求的学校开始他们的职业生涯，并经常在第一次机会时转到低需求的学校。随着优秀教师从高需求学校转移到低需求学校，这种重新洗牌加剧了教师素质分配的不平等，对学生成绩的差异产生了重要影响。越来越多的研究提供了对数学教师流动率的见解，但只确定了影响教师职业决策的有限因素，而且往往未能捕捉到教师劳动力市场的复杂性。因此，了解与初任教师职业决策相关的特征、实践和当地背景是至关重要的，以便确定相关的留住策略。该项目将解决这些问题，建立以证据为基础的理论，以提高数学教学队伍的质量和分配的公平性。这种对早期职业学者在数学政策方面的支持将增强他们解决未来问题的能力。本研究将以三个研究目标为指导：(1)探索数学教师的职业发展模式，比较小学和中学教师、高需要学校和低需要学校教师的职业发展模式；(2)比较教师在不同职业道路上的资历和成效（例如，进出学校、地区、领域）；(3)检验政策可塑因素对初任数学教师绩效提升和职业变动影响的概念模型。PI将使用大规模的联邦和州纵向数据，调查一组教师，这些教师在2007-08学年担任一年级教师，教3-8年级的数学。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全国代表性样本（约870名教师，代表全国近85,970名人口）；佛罗里达州约有4220名教师；以及大约2410名北卡罗来纳州的教师。此外，PI将与北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的卡罗莱纳教育政策倡议（EPIC）合作，从北卡罗来纳大学2015-16届一年级教师（约800名教师）中收集新数据，并对他们进行为期2年的跟踪调查。新的数据收集将提供关于职前和在职教师支持质量的详细和可靠的衡量标准，以便了解它们如何与教师的职业变动和绩效联系起来。

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.