We use a database of over 15,000 teacher candidates from 15 teacher education programs in Washington state to investigate the connections between specific teacher preparation experiences and the likelihood that these candidates enter and stay in the state's public teaching workforce. As has been found in prior research, candidates with…

Prior research has connected characteristics of cooperating teachers who supervise student teaching to performance measures of the teacher candidates they host, suggesting more effective teachers may also be better mentors. The specific measures of cooperating teacher effectiveness considered in this prior literature (value added and performance…

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

A growing literature documents the importance of student teaching placements for teacher development. Emerging evidence from this literature highlights the importance of the mentor teacher who supervises this placement, as teachers tend to be more effective when they student teach with a mentor who is a more effective teacher. But the efficacy of…

We use data on over 14,000 teacher candidates in Washington state, merged with employment data from the state's public schools and Unemployment Insurance system, to investigate the career paths of recently certified teacher candidates in the state. About two thirds of these candidates are observed as public school teachers at some point within 5…

Prior research has shown that about 15% of teachers are hired into the same school in which they student taught, about 40% are hired into their student teaching district, and the location of teachers' student teaching placements is more predictive of where they are hired than where they went to high school or college. While this suggests that…

Student teaching has long been considered the most important component of an effective teacher education program. Recently, new research is finding links between these experiences and teacher candidates' future effectiveness, yet relatively little is known about the student teacher placement process and, in particular, the processes that lead to…

We exploit within-teacher variation in the years that teachers host an apprentice ("student teacher") in Washington State to estimate the causal effect of these apprenticeships on student achievement, both during the apprenticeship and afterwards. The average causal effect of hosting a student teacher on student performance in the year…

We exploit within-teacher variation in the years that teachers host an apprentice ("student teacher") in Washington State to estimate the causal effect of these apprenticeships on student achievement, both during the apprenticeship and afterwards. The average causal effect of hosting a student teacher on student performance in the year…

We use comprehensive data on student teaching placements from 14 teacher education programs (TEPs) in Washington State to explore the sorting of teacher candidates to the teachers who supervise their student teaching ("cooperating teachers" or CTs) and the schools in which student teaching occurs. All else equal, teachers with more…

We use a novel database of the preservice apprenticeships ("student teaching placements") of teachers in Washington State to investigate the relationship between mentor effectiveness (as measured by value added) and the future effectiveness of their mentees. We find a strong, positive relationship between the effectiveness of a teacher's…