Urban Teacher Education Collaborative:

UTEC | TEP | UTEN | UFS | UEN | Research

Contact Info:
Karen Hunter Quartz
quartz@ucla.edu

UTEC Researcher Bios

TEP Surveys

(Click image for PDF's)

Links to Papers in Publications section:

Urban Teacher Retention Policy: A Research Brief

Retaining Teachers in High-Poverty Schools: A Policy Framework

Courses of Action: A Report on Urban Teacher Career Development

Aligning Potential and Opportunity: Recruiting Non-Traditional Teacher Candidates Through Specialized Urban Teacher Education

The Fragility of Urban Teaching: A Longitudinal Study of Career Development and Activism

Too angry to leave: Supporting New Teachers’ Commitment to Transform Urban Schools, Journal of Teacher Education

UTEC Research & Evaluation

Studying the graduates of urban teacher education programs (like Center X) is one way of gauging the success or social benefits of what Marilyn Cochran-Smith calls the new multicultural teacher education—a culturally relevant, community sensitive, social justice-based approach to preparing teachers for work in urban schools. With this in mind, IDEA formed a research group in 2000 to track the career development and retention of Center X graduates. The goal was to understand whether these teachers were staying in urban schools at higher rates than their colleagues who didn’t receive specialized training and why they were staying, switching schools, or leaving teaching altogether.

The preliminary phase of research (2000-2002) provided an initial window into these complex questions. Center X graduates were staying in education at higher than average rates. As expected, retention decreased over time, yet even after five years, 70% of Center X graduates remained in the classroom compared to 61% of teachers nationally. Moreover, in stark contrast to the national three-year attrition rate of 29%, only 10% of Center X graduates had left the classroom. These data and related analyses are reported in “Too angry to leave: Supporting New Teachers’ Commitment to Transform Urban Schools, Journal of Teacher Education" (2003), recipient of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) 2004 Outstanding Writing Award.

In 2002, our research group developed a more comprehensive longitudinal design to extend the work across eleven cohorts of Center X graduates. We adapted the survey protocols developed in 2000 and 2001 to form a full complement of three annual surveys :

• (1) An intake survey for novice teachers entering Center X (fall survey administration);
• (2) An exit survey of teachers in their first full year of teaching when they graduate from Center X (spring administration); and
• (3) A graduate survey (administered across cohorts each spring.) This design is illustrated below, with each color representing an annual data collection cycle.

The three surveys serve two purposes. First, they provide longitudinal data—information about teachers at different stages of their development. Second, they are formative tools used by the Center X/TEP clinical faculty to understand their students as a whole and assess their practice. see for instance Specialized Recruitment: An Examination of the Motivations and Expectations of Pre-Service Urban Educators.

Our research, however, extends beyond these survey data to include three complementary databases:

Together, these four databases guide our program of research on the career pathways of urban educators. We situate this research program within a policy framework for understanding and addressing the teacher shortage crisis as a crisis of retention—not inadequate supply—that is felt most acutely in high-poverty schools. Focusing on three policy arenas—teacher preparation, induction, and career advancement—this framework attempts to capture efforts to professionalize teaching in high-poverty schools, efforts that will set the stage for a more stable, qualified workforce. This policy framework is reported in Retaining teachers in High Poverty Schools: A policy Framework. Methodologically, our quantitative analysis is based on discrete time survival analysis using latent variables to capture what predicts being at risk for three event outcomes: (1) leaving classroom teaching; (2) moving away from high-poverty schools; and (3) leaving education altogether. Essential to our model, we track a variety of ways Center X graduates stay in the education profession, including—but extending beyond—full-time classroom teaching. Our qualitative study uses case-study methodology to follow and examine the multiple career roles and pathways of Center X graduates. See Courses of Action: A Report on Urban Teacher Career Development and Retaining Teachers in High-Poverty Schools: A Policy Framework. Additionally, we use social network analysis to study effects of formal and informal professional learning communities on retention. Each of these complementary research strands is embedded within the following longitudinal research model:

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Our comparative retention study of Center X graduates against a national sample of well-prepared teachers will conclude in 2006. The following figure provides a preliminary comparison of the retention of Center X graduates and teachers nationally. For more interim findings, please see Urban Teacher Retention Policy: A Research Brief.

Additional interim data and analysis will be included on this website as it becomes available. We are excited about the promise of these interdependent studies and look forward to generating rich findings, meaningful implications, and rewarding conversations. We hope you will visit this website occasionally, contact us with your input, and join the conversation.

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