CAREER: Exploring Beginning Mathematics Teachers' Career Patterns

国家报告强调，招聘和留住优秀的数学教师是教育政策举措的重中之重。研究表明，初任教师的平均流动率接近23%（而资深教师的流动率为15%）;初任数学教师的流动率甚至更高。许多有三年或更少经验的数学教师开始他们的职业生涯，在高需求的学校，往往转移到低需求的学校在他们的第一个机会。 随着有效的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质量的不平等分布，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的程度的见解，但只确定了有限数量的因素，影响教师的职业决策，往往无法捕捉教师劳动力市场的复杂性。因此，有必要了解的特点，做法，和当地的情况下，是相关的初任教师的职业决策，以确定相关的战略保留。该项目将解决这些问题，建立以证据为基础的理论，以提高数学教师队伍分布的质量和公平性。 本研究的目的是：（1）探索数学教师职业流动的模式，比较小学和中学教师、高需求学校和低需求学校之间的模式;（2）比较不同职业道路上的教师的资格和效率（例如，（3）检验政策可塑性因素如何影响初任数学教师的绩效改进和职业变动的概念模型。PI将使用大规模的联邦和州的纵向数据，这些数据是关于2007-08年一年级教师和3-8年级数学教师的。三个样本将分别进行分析，然后集体：一个全国代表性的样本从开始教师纵向研究（约870名教师谁代表全国人口近85,970），约4,220佛罗里达教师，约2,410北卡罗来纳州教师。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2015-16年北卡罗来纳州一年级教师（约800名教师）中收集新数据，并跟踪他们2年。新的数据收集将提供详细和可靠的措施，衡量教师职前和在职支助的质量，以了解这些支助如何与教师的职业变动和业绩联系起来。

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.