Understanding Teacher Workforce Dynamics: Insights from North Carolina School Districts

One of the most pressing issues facing rural school districts is the shortage of teachers, tied in part to higher levels of turnover as compared to urban and suburban districts (Ingersoll & Tran, 2023). A key strategy for addressing nationwide teacher workforce needs, including rural teacher workforce needs, is teacher residencies. This article presents the case of a sustainably-funded residency program co-designed as part of a partnership between a university-based teacher preparation program based at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and a rural school district, Fabens ISD. The university is a large, public Hispanic Serving Institution with a student population that is more than 80% Hispanic/Latinx, more than 70% Pell-eligible, and approximately 50% first-generation college-going. The rural school district partner is made up of nearly 2,000 PK-12 students, more than 95% of whom are Hispanic/Latinx and 92% of whom are categorized as economically-disadvantaged. In the paper, we present the key design features of this residency model, with a particular focus on asset-based recruitment strategies, faculty coaching support in the district, and district-based innovations aimed at sustaining paid pathways for residents across undergraduate and graduate levels. We also situate our partnership-based residency and induction efforts within larger region-wide collective impact efforts focused on strengthening and diversifying the teacher pipeline. Finally, we present emerging impact findings of the residency on teacher candidates and on the district employment outlook. This multivocal piece represents a burgeoning research-practice partnership (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), and we as co-authors outline our findings from the perspectives of the university preparation program, on-the-ground faculty support, and school district leadership.

The need to recruit minority candidates to teaching is too often overlooked amidst growing concern over a looming shortage of qualified teachers for U.S. public schools. This article offers evidence for making teacher diversity a central component of teacher quality and examines elements of teacher quality agenda that discount or limit diversity. It also outlines what National Education Association, largest teacher association in United States, is doing to promote teacher diversity and provides recommendations for programs and polices to recruit a more qualified and diverse teaching force. For well over a decade, several prominent educators have warned of teacher diversity/ teacher quality challenge facing public in United States (Dilworth, 1990, 1992; Garibaldi, 1989; Holmes, 1988; Irvine, 1988; Witty, 1982). Finally, nation is starting to pay attention. Today, with a few exceptions (Feistritzer, 1998), teacher educators, school personnel, administrators, and policymakers acknowledge both pending teacher shortage and current minority teacher recruitment crisis. Too often, however, response to these issues is inadequate, ineffective, or even counterproductive. Those who are most attentive to teacher shortage agenda continue to push alternative pathways that often open floodgates for underqualified, unprepared individuals to enter teaching. Those who attend to teacher quality agenda continue to push for high standards, which is often interpreted to mean support for high-stakes testing and artificial barriers that block access to qualified minority candidates. The true challenge for 21st century and beyond is to develop a teacher recruitment and retention agenda that recognizes absolute inseparability of quality and diversity. This article attempts to define terms of that challenge and provide recommendations for recruiting a qualified and diverse teacher workforce. AMERICA's DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE The face of nation is changing. Though African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans currently represent only 25% of U.S. population, they were responsible for 70% of nation's population growth from 1980 to 1990-a trend that is projected to continue well into 21st century (Melting Pot, 1996). Nowhere is this population shift more evident than in U.S. public schools. Each year for past decade, public school student population has grown and become more diverse (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 1998). About one-third of public school students are members of racial/ethnic minority groups; by year 2035, that number will climb to over 50% (LJ.S. Department of Commerce, 1996). Instead of embracing this diversity, however, public seem headed in opposite direction. According to a recent report published by Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 1990s was the decade of resegregation in our schools (Orfield & Yun, 1999, p. 2). Apparently, school districts in South and major cities throughout nation have been abandoning their desegregation efforts while growing numbers of impoverished African American and Hispanic American students attended segregated, under-resourced schools. Against this backdrop looms a growing challenge, bordering on crisis proportions, surrounding quality, diversity, and availability of U.S. teacher workforce. Are there enough teachers in pipeline to fill nation's classrooms? At least 2.2 million teachers need to be hired over next 10 years (NCES, 1997b). Will these teachers have skill and ability to meet academic challenges of next century? Over 27% of newly hired teachers have a temporary license, an emergency license, or no license at all (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996). Will these teachers reflect changing demographic population-or should they? Only 13. …

School system organization has been described as the skeleton that outlines the structure anddetermines the form of a school district. (Grove, 2002). Organizational charts are the manifestations ofthese skeletons. Some are simple; others are more complex – more like nervous systems thanskeletons. Whatever metaphor is chosen, understanding the underlying organization of the complexmultiple functions of a social group such as a school district is important. Our schools are being askedto educate our children in an ever-increasingly complex and global society. Surely the organization of aschool district has an impact on how students are educated and how well they achieve curricular goals.With today’s emphasis on accountability, the ability of the school district organization to help studentsachieve and meet testing goals is critical. But what is the best way to organize a school district? Howdo superintendents make the decisions needed to organize a district? This study is a necessary firststep in determining this. In this study, we analyzed the organization of public school districts in the stateof North Carolina. We were interested in the similarities and differences in the administrative structuresdriving these organizations serving children in a diverse geographical state. We addressed twoquestions:(1) What organizational patterns are found in public school districts in North Carolina?(2) How do organizational patterns differ in districts serving different numbers of students?

This Action Research project addressed the critical shortage of teachers of color in urban public schools by examining and implementing targeted support systems to improve job satisfaction and retention. Research consistently demonstrates that while teacher diversity benefits all students, teachers of color face unique challenges that contribute to higher turnover rates and lower job satisfaction. In response, this study designed and implemented a Safe Space Affinity series, creating structured professional communities specifically for teachers of color to address their distinct professional and personal needs. The research was conducted in two cycles of action research. During the first cycle, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted, which informed the creation of the Safe Space Affinity series. In the second cycle, mixed methods were employed, including pre- and post-intervention surveys, focus groups, and participant reflections to evaluate the efficacy of the affinity spaces. Results indicated that participants experienced enhanced feelings of belonging, professional validation, and increased job satisfaction. Teachers reported that the affinity spaces provided crucial emotional support, culturally responsive mentorship, and strategies for navigating institutional challenges. Although the sample size was relatively small, the findings align with existing research, highlighting the essential need to strengthen support for teachers of color in urban public school settings. The findings suggest that intentionally designed affinity groups can serve as an effective retention strategy for teachers of color in urban school settings, with implications for school leaders and districts seeking to diversify and sustain their teaching workforce.--Author's abstract

ABSTRACTObjectiveA representative public education workforce has substantive benefits for underserved groups. While research finds considerable differences in ethnic/racial representation among public bureaucrats, little research examines representation within the public education workforce.MethodsWe use US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEO‐5 data to measure the levels of representation in public school district jobs among Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites (non‐Hispanic).ResultsBased on the analysis of 4253 US districts for 2002 through 2014, we find Hispanic and Black underrepresentation among administrators, principals, assistant principals, and classroom teachers. Based on new‐hire employees, we observe improvement in Black and Hispanic representation. District size is related to representation for all racial/ethnic groups for all occupations, with larger districts employing higher proportions of Blacks and Hispanics, on average, than small districts.ConclusionOverall, Black and Hispanic employees are underrepresented in the public education workforce. We discuss the implications and persistence of underrepresentation.

In this commentary, we discuss common barriers districts face in implementing and using talent analytics (personnel data systems) to build a more effective, diverse pool of school leaders. Our discussion draws upon insights from a large national sample of school districts implementing principal pipelines. We find that district leaders and administrators expressed a need for up-to-date, informative data systems to realize their principal workforce goals but that these aspirations were hampered by the limitations of time, funding, expertise, and their own misgivings. We share possibilities for the improved use of talent analytics to increase transparency and equity in districts’ principal and educator workforce development.

The public school superintendency in the United States is overwhelmingly socially constructed as masculine even though the educator workforce from which superintendents are drawn is 75% female. Predictably, those who teach, research and write about the superintendency in the US, again overwhelmingly male, have largely reinforced the sexist gendering of this critical leadership position. In contrast, this study explores how three women superintendents engaged, in a complex fashion, the gendered social construction of the super intendency as they conducted the daily work of leading school districts in the state of Texas. This study also verifies for feminists in other national contexts the critical need for feminist research to be conducted in a wide variety of national contexts, especially because the feminist work of one specific context may be very different than that of another. The study ends with recommendations that fit Texas and the US at the beginning of the 21st century.

Unlike private sector employers, public school districts generally offer more than one type of supplemental retirement savings plan and allow multiple vendors to offer products. Using individual-level payroll data from over half of the public school districts in North Carolina coupled with data from an employer survey, this study examines how inter-district differences in supplemental plan administration are related to participation in these savings vehicles. We find wide variation in total participation rates and in 403(b) plan participation rates in particular, even among this population of public-sector workers with the same defined benefit pension plan, health plan, and retiree health coverage. Individual and district characteristics explain some, but not all, of the variation observed.

Advocates of education privatization often take two general approaches to denigrating commonplace public school monopoly service provision assignments. One general argument is that public school administrators are self‐interested rent‐seekers, which is evidenced by the ever‐enlarging bureaucracies they operate. This argument has been roundly criticized by Kevin Smith and Kenneth Meier (1994, 1995) in two methodologically rigorous analyses. The second general argument is grounded in the assumption that public school student performance will improve if public schools are forced to compete for enrollment with private school alternatives. The evidence regarding this claim of privatization advocates has been contested in a systematic study of North Carolina school districts, but requires further analysis to determine if these findings can be generalized to school districts writ large. Such a replication study is presented here, with findings reported that are in agreement with those of Newmark (1995).

We evaluated the impact of distancing practices on secondary transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and the degree of sports-associated secondary transmission across a large diverse cohort of schools during spring 2021. Participating districts in North Carolina and Wisconsin and North Carolina charter schools offering in-person instruction between March 15, 2021 and June 25, 2021 reported on distancing policies, community- and school-acquired infections, quarantines, and infections associated with school-sponsored sports. We calculated the ratio of school-acquired to community-acquired infection, secondary attack rates, and the proportion of secondary transmission events associated with sports. To estimate the effect of distancing and bus practices on student secondary transmission, we used a quasi-Poisson regression model with the number of primary student cases as the denominator. During the study period, 1 102 039 students and staff attended in-person instruction in 100 North Carolina school districts, 13 Wisconsin school districts, and 14 North Carolina charter schools. Students and staff had 7865 primary infections, 386 secondary infections, and 48 313 quarantines. For every 20 community-acquired infections, there was 1 within-school transmission event. Secondary transmissions associated with school sports composed 46% of secondary transmission events in middle and high schools. Relaxed distancing practices (<3 ft, 3 ft) and increased children per bus seat were not associated with increased relative risk of secondary transmission. With universal masking, in-person education was associated with low rates of secondary transmission, even with less stringent distancing and bus practices. Given the rates of sports-associated secondary transmission, additional mitigation may be warranted.

Background/Context With a growing body of evidence to support the assertion that teacher quality is vital to producing better student outcomes, policymakers continue to seek solutions to attract and retain the best educators. Performance-based pay is a reform that has become popular in K–12 education over the last decade. This strategy potentially produces positive impacts on student achievement in two ways: better alignment of financial incentives with desired outcomes and improved the composition of the teacher workforce. While evaluations have primarily focused on the former result, there is little research on whether the longer-term implementation of these polices can attract more effective teachers. Purpose In this study we aim to provide evidence for potential long-term impacts that performance-based pay can have on the composition of the teacher workforce by addressing two questions: Does performance-based pay attract fundamentally different individuals, as measured by their risk preferences, to the teaching profession? Are stated preferences for a particular pay format correlated to measures of teacher quality? Research Design We apply methods from experimental economics and conduct surveys with 120 teachers from two school districts who have experienced performance pay. We compare the risk preferences of teachers hired under the two pay formats to test the hypothesis that performance-based pay attracts individuals with different characteristics to the profession. We also analyze teachers’ survey responses on their preferences for performance-based pay to determine their relationships to two measures of teacher quality: student test-score gains and principal evaluations. Conclusions/Recommendations We find mixed results regarding the ability of performance-based pay to alter the composition of the teacher workforce. Teachers hired with performance-based pay in place are no different from their colleagues. However, teachers claiming to seek employment in districts with performance-based pay in place appear significantly less risk averse. Surprisingly, additional analyses indicate that teachers’ value-added scores and performance evaluations do not predict a positive disposition towards merit pay. Thus, while these results indicate the possibility for performance-based pay to attract different individuals to teaching, they do not provide evidence that such change would necessarily improve the composition of the workforce. Policymakers should take this potential tradeoff into consideration when considering the expansion of performance pay policies.

Nationally, many school districts are facing a teacher workforce sustainability crisis, and job retention for novice teachers of color is a key area of focus for educational leaders and policymakers. In this study, we draw on nine years of administrative data from Texas K–12 public schools to better understand how teacher-principal ethnoracial matching is associated with patterns of teacher retention and system-exit. Teacher labor markets are geographically small, so we link data from the National Center for Education Statistics containing geographic locale information to explore how the relationship between ethnoracial matching and novice teacher career outcomes varies across urban, suburban, rural, and town school contexts. We find that matching is associated with an increase in the probability of retention and a decrease in the probability of system-exit, with important variation for novice Black and Latinx teachers working in some nonurban school locales.

The relationship between student achievement and school inputs has long been a subject of academic research. The general conclusion of past research is that school inputs, such as the number of teachers relative to pupils, has little impact on student academic outcomes. This paper provides a fresh look at this issue. Seventeen alternative measures of student performance in North Carolina school districts are related to a wide array of school policy inputs and socioeconomic characteristics of students and their families. Both static and dynamic analyses are performed. The key findings are (1) the school policy inputs significantly related to student achievement vary by the measure of student achievement used, (2) the joint contribution of school policy inputs to student achievement is relatively small, and (3) the results differ between the static and dynamic analyses; in particular, changes in the number of teachers relative to the number of pupils in the district have a much stronger association with student achievement in the dynamic analysis.

<h3>CALIFORNIA</h3><h3>Creighton Alumni Dinner Dance.</h3> —The Creighton Medical Alumni Association dinner dance (semiformal) will be held at Peacock Court, Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco, June 23 at 7:30 p. m., concurrently with the annual convention of the American Medical Association. <h3>Dr. Bissell Goes to North Carolina.</h3> —Dr. Dwight M. Bissell, for 12 years health officer for San Jose, has been named professor of public health administration at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health in Chapel Hill. In San Jose, Dr. Bissell served as school physician in the unified school district; lecturer, University Extension Division and School of Public Health, University of California; and professor of public health administration, San Jose State College. <h3>Personal.</h3> —Dr. Paula M. Horn, assistant clinical professor, gynecology and obstetrics, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, has been invited to present the paper "Pregnancy Complicated by Poliomyelitis" at the International Congress