Contact: Gisgie Dávila Gendreau, University Relations, (517) 432-0924, gendrea3@msu.edu

06/03/2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Teachers would rather work close to home and in schools like the ones they attended as students, a report commissioned by Michigan State University’s Education Policy Center and released today has found. 

“This runs counter to a lot of the current policy debate which does not take into account teachers’ preferences and focuses simply on the academic qualifications of teachers,” said David Plank, Education Policy Center co-director.

A push for highly qualified teachers has meant that policy-makers have focused on getting the best teachers, but not necessarily on ones who’ll want to stick it out in the schools where they’re most needed.

The report suggests that teachers’ preferences could be the key to training, recruiting and retaining teachers for schools that serve the nation’s most disadvantaged students, Plank said.

Other findings and recommendations include:

• Teachers’ preferences to teach close to home or in familiar settings pose particular challenges to urban districts because urban areas often do not produce as high a proportion of college graduates as suburban areas. So urban districts must overcome location preferences in addition to prospective teachers’ other concerns about working in urban schools, contributing to a systematic sorting of the least-qualified teachers to the nation’s high-poverty, low-performing schools.
• Wage increases for difficult-to-staff schools or for teachers with particular skills are likely to be more effective than across-the-board increases. But most administrators don’t currently have the flexibility to allocate funds and resources to where they’ll do the most good.
• Many districts with the least-qualified teachers hire their new teachers very late in the summer or even in the fall. Districts that hire earlier are able to recruit their top choices while other districts are left with teachers who could not find jobs elsewhere.
• While policy cannot change preferences, policy-makers can use incentives, such as bonuses or improved working conditions, to encourage teachers to make particular choices. For example, alternative teacher certification programs may allow prospective teachers to start work – and earn a salary – sooner, making teaching a more attractive profession.

The report, “Public Policy and Teacher Labor Markets: What We Know and Why It Matters,” was authored by associate professor Susanna Loeb of Stanford University’s School of Education, and co-authored by graduate research assistant Michelle Reininger.

It was released today during a forum – “What Teachers Need to Know: Envisioning Highly Qualified Mathematics Teachers” – sponsored by the MSU Education Policy Center and held at the Marriott at Metro Center. 

For the full report, visit the Web at www.epc.msu.edu