Every Child Deserves Our Best, published by the North Carolina Association of Educators, the National Education Association, and the Center for Teaching Quality, is the result of a first-of-its-kind policy summit held in Greensboro, North Carolina on August 17, 2005. Nearly 600 of the state’s National Board Certified Teachers, administrators, and policymakers participated in a day-long conversation to discuss proactive ways to recruit and retain accomplished teachers for hard-to-staff schools. After the summit, National Board participants continued their dialogue via an interactive listserv, sponsored by the Center for Teaching Quality. The report, written by Barnett Berry and North Carolina teacher leaders, Bill Ferriter, Carolyn Banks, and Kathy Drew, draws on research evidence as well as the “on-the-ground” expertise and ideas of NBCTs from the summit and the listserv and offers a blueprint for attracting accomplished teachers to high-needs schools throughout the state, and supporting them in their teaching. CTQ will be assisting the NEA in similar efforts in five other states – Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington.

The Center for Teaching Quality, with the support of SERVE, has surveyed approximately 4,200 Alabama educators in Mobile, Talladega and Hoover County School Systems to inform the work of the Governor’s Commission on Quality Teaching. By asking those whose opinions matter most on these critical issues—classroom teachers—policymakers can better gauge what incentives and school conditions are most essential in recruiting and retaining teachers for all Alabama classrooms. More than half of educators surveyed were undecided or at least somewhat willing to teach in a hard-to-staff school (58.3 percent). The most pressing concern about moving to a hard-to-staff school is being supported adequately by parents and the community. Survey respondents are clear about the incentives necessary to attract them to these schools. To learn more about these incentives and the research findings, read the full report.

The National Governors Association recently published a policy brief from the Center for Teaching Quality outlining several state strategies for recruiting and retaining teachers, and some of them are trying particularly to help hard-to-staff schools. The brief describes promising practices for governors to consider in meeting the needs of chronically hard-to-staff schools.