Currently, we are supporting 437 partners, which include state agencies, public school districts, charters, individual public schools, and educational cooperatives, across the U.S. to build the capacity of their educators across the system to help them provide equitable, high-quality instruction to all students. All partnerships have a deep focus on sustainability to ensure that partners are able to continue implementing the work beyond their partnership with NTC. Last year, NTC supported the development of 7,500 instructional leaders. These leaders accelerated the effectiveness of 18,800+ teachers who were able to positively impact the lives of 2.2 million students.
In today’s national teacher shortage crisis, we know that teacher retention is an important north star for this work. We also acknowledge that retention is a lagging indicator - meaning we can only calculate retention once teachers do or do not return. To ensure we can take action that supports retention before teachers make those decisions, NTC looks to leading indicators.
One leading indicator for retention is self-efficacy, a teacher’s confidence that they are effective at their jobs. A related indicator is “working conditions,” which include:
- supportive administration/capable leadership
- relational trust and respect among staff
- meaningful professional learning
- opportunities for collaboration as well as teacher autonomy
- opportunities for advancement
- having access to a mentor or coach
NTC’s methods have proven effective in improving the professional climate leading to increased teacher retention. After two years of implementing the NTC full-release mentoring model, one district achieved a 31% increase in the new teacher retention, boosting rates from 72% to 94% of new teachers retained. In addition, due to the cost of teacher turnover (https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/the-cost-of-teacher-turnover), a five-year investment in NTC can save districts at least $1M for reinvestment in other needed services, materials, and improvements.
With every partner, NTC engages in a co-creative approach to help remap and align ecosystems to sustain student and instructional success. This includes strengthening the quality of the teacher pipeline by bridging systems of support for educators during their earliest stages in the profession and providing clear leadership pathways as they grow in their careers.
Some examples of our teacher retention efforts are highlighted below.
- NTC has been working with Minnesota State University (MSU), Mankato for over a decade to ensure that every MSU Teacher Candidate in their pre-student teaching field experience and their student teaching field experience receives ongoing access to a highly-trained mentor (consisting of University Supervisors, MSU Faculty, and District Mentor Teachers) who supports them with the implementation of effective teaching practices through a racial and social justice lens. Most recently, NTC has been working with program leadership to better understand the experience of teacher candidates of color to identify barriers impacting recruitment and retention. One of the results of this work led to the creation of an Equity Institute to support mentors.
- NTC has been working with Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) since 2018. Currently, we are working with leaders at both KPS and Western Michigan University (WMU) to align supports so that KPS' Mentor Teachers are equipped with the skills and tools necessary to support Residents (paraprofessionals) in completing their coursework through WMU. In 2021, we were written into the WMU Urban Residency Grant through the federal Teacher Quality Partnership Program to support the professional development of a high-quality mentoring program for paraprofessionals (Resident Teachers) enrolled in the Urban Teacher Residency program and to support the design of the three-induction program for Resident Teachers as they transition into their own classrooms. We are in the beginning stages of the strategic planning process and designing our retention roadmap for the three year induction program specific to Urban Resident Teachers who are hired in the district.
- As part of the Supporting Effective Educator Development federal grant, NTC has been working with Chicago Public Schools and Miami-Dade County Public Schools since 2018 to provide a seamless experience from student teaching through teacher induction, by recruiting and providing cohesive and aligned professional development for the cooperating teachers and mentors who support pre-service teachers, resident teachers, and alternative certification teachers. Starting in 2022, NTC is scaling this partnership to provide professional learning for university supervisors in Chicago as well as “grow your own” paraprofessional-to-teacher and clerical-to-teacher programs in Miami. Although the randomized controlled trial study is not yet complete, from a preliminary analysis of one district’s employment data for Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs) in fall 2020, “treatment” PSTs supported by NTC-trained Cooperating Teachers were more likely to be hired into the district than “control” PSTs. A recent November-to-November analysis also found that the retention rate of treatment PSTs from SY19-20 who were hired into the district SY20-21 is 85%.
- Since 1999, NTC has supported San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) in a variety of capacities, building the capacity of mentors, instructional coaches, and school leaders. During the last two years, NTC has partnered with SFUSD’s Transformative Leadership for Equity and Excellence (TLEE) team and the Office of Professional Growth and Development to strengthen support for school leaders by providing consultation on the district’s coaching model as well as direct coaching to Assistant Principals. Most recently NTC and SFUSD TLEE participants co-created assessment and development tools to better prepare assistant principals for the transition to principalship and support increased retention in these positions. NTC also conducted empathy interviews with SFUSD assistant principals and principals to better understand the development needs of early career leaders, to surface the ways in which pre-existing processes and structures for recruitment and support may lead to disparate and inequitable experiences.
Want to learn more about NTC’s teacher retention work? Please contact Allison Aliaga at aaliaga@newteachercenter.org or visit us online at newteachercenter.org.
