Over the past decade, as their work has grown increasingly complex, teachers have come under increasing scrutiny. Most are coping with more students, smaller raises, and fewer resources. Educators are expected to meet higher standards and demonstrate their impact on student learning, often with an increasingly diverse and challenging student…

For the National Center to Improve Policy and Practice in Special Education Professional Development, a group of district administrators recently completed an analysis of state policy on induction and mentoring. State policy is important because it helps districts design and deliver induction programs and supplements local resources that are made…

In this paper, the authors review and analyze state policy regarding beginning teacher mentoring with a focus on special education. Mentoring policies guide the selection, assignment, and training of mentors and the process with which novice teachers are matched with veteran mentors. Mentoring is a component of induction; but induction also…

Governor Easley of North Carolina has made a sustained commitment to listening to educators and reforming schools to create the working conditions necessary for student and teacher success. With three iterations of the working conditions survey and about 150,000 responses to critical questions about their workplace, analyses have been consistent…

Although states have maintained a focus on recruiting and retaining teachers, many schools and districts still face daunting challenges in ensuring a qualified and competent teaching corps. It is particularly difficult for schools considered hard to staff-those with high concentrations of low-performing, low-income students; high teacher turnover;…

Since 2002, North Carolina, under the leadership of Governor Mike Easley and the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards Commission, has worked to improve understanding of a critical factor in student learning and teacher retention: the conditions under which teachers work. In 2006, 66 percent (more than 75,000) school-based licensed…

Under the leadership of State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, with the support of the South Carolina Department of Education's Division of Teaching Quality (DTQ) and the South Carolina Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement (CERRA), South Carolina became only the second state in the nation to study teacher…

This working paper provides background for the U.S. Department of Education's first report to the nation on teacher quality, informing the ongoing work on state policy contexts for the improvement of teaching undertaken by the Center for the Study of Teacher Policy. The main goal is to illustrate the range of state-initiated actions aimed at…