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Securing Veteran Educators: Providing Essential Support to Ensure Their Continued Service

Seasoned educators are often misunderstood as stagnant in their roles, with the misconception that their skills don't improve past their early years. This misguided assumption has hindered attempts to retain these experienced professionals - however, this assertion is false.

Keeping Valuable Educators: Provide Necessary Support for Seasoned Educators
Keeping Valuable Educators: Provide Necessary Support for Seasoned Educators

Securing Veteran Educators: Providing Essential Support to Ensure Their Continued Service

In an effort to address the persistent issue of teacher turnover in high-need schools, a comprehensive review by the Learning Policy Institute and Thomas B. Fordham Institute has identified key factors that could help retain experienced educators and support their continuous professional growth.

The belief that teachers stop improving after their first few years on the job is a myth that has undercut efforts to retain seasoned educators. On the contrary, teachers can keep getting better well into their second decade in the classroom, given the right environments, collaborative colleagues, supportive administrators, and stable classroom assignments.

The review stresses that to retain experienced teachers and encourage their continuous professional growth, schools and policymakers must focus on ongoing, meaningful support and development that aligns with teachers’ real classroom challenges and professional aspirations.

Experienced teachers require support tailored to their experience level, which might include coaching beyond just new-teacher induction, helping them grow professionally and address classroom challenges effectively. Professional growth is strengthened by access to research-based training and opportunities to build both content knowledge and pedagogical skills, especially in critical areas like math, where teachers often feel underprepared.

Teacher retention improves when schools ensure that teachers feel valued as professionals and have a voice in schoolwide decisions, which contributes to job satisfaction and commitment. The review also emphasizes that investing in professional development using federal and state funds, such as ESSER III, for comprehensive teacher training and support is a promising approach to reduce turnover in high-need schools.

Policymakers should invest in high-quality teacher preparation and mentoring programs, particularly in high-need schools. Schools that have strong leadership, foster collaboration, and create a culture of professional trust see greater gains in teacher retention over time.

High-quality preparation and mentoring are crucial for beginning teachers to stay and improve in their roles. Teachers who work alongside more experienced peers improve faster, especially in the early years. The benefits of this improvement translate into measurable benefits for students, such as higher test scores, fewer disciplinary issues, reduced absenteeism, and increased postsecondary attainment.

Schools serving large populations of low-income Black and Hispanic students are more likely to be staffed primarily by early career teachers. Pay matters, especially in high-need schools, but incentives alone aren't enough to retain teachers in challenging work environments. Principals should be trained as instructional leaders capable of building strong school cultures.

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  1. To foster continuous professional growth and combat teacher turnover, especially in high-need schools, it's essential to leverage federal and state funds like ESSER III for comprehensive teacher training and support.
  2. The belief that teachers cease improving after a few years is debunked, as teachers can continue growing professionally, given stable classroom assignments, supportive administrators, and tailored development programs, such as coaching beyond new-teacher induction.
  3. In high-need schools with large populations of low-income students, both pay and effective instructional leadership play crucial roles in retaining teachers. However, incentives alone are not enough; principals should be trained to build strong school cultures, foster collaboration, and create a culture of professional trust.

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