Presentation
Recruiting math teachers for ‘high need’ schools
American Educational Research Association
(2011)
Abstract
One of the prevailing concerns in education is student access to well-qualified teachers. In California, the lowest performing schools – frequently those with the highest distributions of poor and minority students, as well as English learners – often have the least prepared teachers. This is particularly true in the case of math teachers, where one of out of every six teachers in high-minority middle and high schools is considered under-prepared (compared to one of twenty in high-achieving schools). Availability of qualified math teachers is a case of both recruitment and retention. Math teachers are twice as likely to leave teaching because of dissatisfaction than others (CCST & CFTL, 2007; Ingersoll, 2000). Pervasive concerns about the quantity and qualifications of math teachers have led to increased attention to recruitment through financial incentives and early exposure to teaching for students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines; however, little is known about the utility of these efforts (Guarino, Santibanez & Daley, 2006).
This paper draws on a qualitative study of seven math teacher candidates in one California teacher preparation program to explore the relationship among recruitment, candidates’ reasons for entry, and ways that their career plans were modified (or not) through participation in their teacher education program. The larger study was guided by the question, how do beginning math teachers develop a professional identity? To answer this question, I adopted an ecological view of teacher identity, attending to inter-relationships between who they are as individual educators and the ways they are shaped by the multiple contexts in which they participate (Olsen, 2010). Both the recruitment and teacher preparation efforts focused on the teaching of mathematics to students in diverse settings; five of the candidates received a competitive fellowship, which requires two years of service in a high-need district in exchange for the funding.
Data collected include an open-ended survey; interviews with the teacher candidates; and observations of participants at the university and in their student teaching, as well as written documents collected from these same contexts. Interview questions focused on students’ life histories, pre-professional experiences, understandings of teachers and their work, reasons for entering teaching, and career plans. The data were analyzed through iterative phases of content analysis, open coding, analytic and comparative memos, and discourse-specific analytics (Bogden & Biklen, 1998; Charmaz, 2003; Schiffrin, 2005).
While findings indicate that recruitment strategies were successful in drawing well-qualified candidates to the preparation program, there was little evidence to suggest that they would not have come otherwise. Recruitment supported students who were already interested in teaching but it did not expand the pool of potential recruits. Also, while three of candidates are now employed in high-need districts, only one expressed a commitment to remain there. The full paper explores various complexities of recruiting and preparing teachers for ‘high need’ schools in particular. Policy and practice implications for recruitment, early math teacher development, and teacher commitment to teaching in low-performing schools are also addressed.
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 9, 2011
Location
New Orleans, LA
Citation Information
Dena Sexton. "Recruiting math teachers for ‘high need’ schools" American Educational Research Association (2011) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/dena-sexton/7/