Recruiting Accomplished Teachers to Hard-To-Staff Schools

Why It Matters
Research has consistently identified the inextricable links between the quality of teachers and teaching and the achievement of students. However, stakeholders have struggled to come to a consensus on how to identify accomplished teachers—until recently.

In 2004 alone, three separate research studies showed that National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) produce greater student achievement gains than their counterparts and do so especially for lower achieving students.

The problem is that NBCTs are more likely not to be teaching in low-performing schools (as
well as schools serving poor and minority students). Only 19 percent of NBCTs teach in a school in the bottom third of performance for its state and only 12 percent of them are in schools with more than 75 percent of their students receiving free or reduced-price lunch. The students who most need accomplished teachers simply aren’t getting them.

What We’ve Done
With support from the Chicago Public Education Fund and the Joyce Foundation, CTQ has completed an assessment of the issues affecting recruiting and retaining NBCTs for low performing schools in Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami-Dade. The assessment draws on data from these urban communities along with insights from the accomplished teachers of the Teacher Leaders Network, most of whom are NBCTs and a number of whom are working in hard-to-staff, low performing schools.

What We’ve Learned
In Recruiting and Retaining National Board Certified Teachers for Hard-to-Staff, Low Performing Schools, CTQ describes three major issues policymakers and practitioners must face in solving the problem of the maldistribution of accomplished and expert teachers:

1. Salary and other financial incentives are necessary, but not sufficient, to recruit and retain accomplished teachers for hard-to-staff schools.

2. Importing accomplished teachers into low-performing schools is not nearly enough to solve teaching quality problems found in such schools.

3. The National Board assessment process can be a powerful professional development tool, but states and districts must create specific strategies if NBCTs are going to help improve low-performing schools.