new teachers

Future teachers

Chicago

Updated April 17, 2019

In rush to fill teacher vacancies, Illinois has lots of proposals and no immediate solutions

Illinois is preparing to end another school year with more than 1,000 teacher vacancies, a crisis that has ignited legislators and the state’s…

Miseducation

Colorado

October 16, 2018

In Colorado’s high-poverty schools, many teachers are just starting their careers

The percentage of Colorado’s teachers in their first or second year in the classroom is among the highest in the nation. That has consequences for students and teachers.

educators of color

Colorado

July 30, 2018

Denver’s newest group of teachers is its most diverse ever

Hiring more teachers of color has long been a goal for the urban district.

teacher training

Colorado

July 3, 2018

The first year of teaching is notoriously tough. Denver is experimenting with a new approach

“Associate teachers” will teach part-time in a high-poverty school and spend the rest of their time planning, observing, and learning.

Detroit Journalism Cooperative

Detroit

June 21, 2017

Restrictions on teacher pay in Detroit schools can scare away applicants — and make it hard to fill 260 classroom positions

In Detroit, as many as 260 classroom teacher positions are unfilled in the state’s largest district, prompting a shortage so severe that substitutes last year were the full-time solution in more than 100 classrooms.

New York

September 1, 2016

How some of New York City’s newest teachers found their way into the classroom

There’s always that irrational fear of, ‘What if I fail the kids — what if I’m not doing enough or being present for them?’

teacher diversity

Colorado

August 3, 2016

A look at the 935 new teachers joining Denver Public Schools this year

The new cohort of teachers highlights a perennial problem for Denver Public Schools: too few teachers of color.

On The Bus

Indiana

July 27, 2016

Why one Indianapolis township includes a bus tour in its new teacher orientation

As part of their introduction to the community, every year Wayne Township takes new teachers on a bus tour of the surrounding neighborhoods where their students live.

New York

June 22, 2014

Included in evaluation deal: language ensuring little protection for new teachers

A proposed amendment, expected to pass at this week’s Board of Regents meeting, clarifies that first-year teachers can be fired for their performance in the classroom at any time—even before they’ve received their first evaluation.

New York

September 11, 2012

With federal funds lost, city sending trainees to stronger schools

Chancellor Dennis Walcott talks to teachers at M.S. 223 while principal Ramon Gonzalez looks on during a visit last week. M.S. 223 is working with nine teaching residents this year. A program to train and keep new teachers inside some of the city's most struggling schools is expanding to include better-performing schools as well. The New York City Teacher Residency launched last summer at two schools that were receiving federal funds earmarked for overhauling struggling schools. The point of the program, city officials said at the time, was to create a talent pipeline for schools that have trouble attracting teachers. But because the city and its teachers union did not agree on a new teacher evaluation system by a state deadline, the funds were cut off in January. The city is going forward with plans to double the size of the residency program anyway, but instead of sending new residents only to struggling schools, it is also directing them to schools that the city has touted as success stories. And it is picking up the bill out of the Department of Education's regular budget. The department opened the program to stronger schools in order to expose the teachers-in-training to a wider range of "best practices" and mentorship from experienced teachers, officials said. "Think, what would it actually be like if these teachers were trained at a successful school instead of at a failing school?" said Ashley Downs, the special education director at M.S. 223 in the Bronx who is helping to mentor that school's nine residents.

New York

August 17, 2011

As hiring freeze thaws, more new teachers enter city classrooms

For the first time since the city imposed a hiring freeze two years ago, the number of teachers entering the classroom from alternative certification programs has risen. While some senior teachers worry about finding positions, two prominent organizations, Teach For America and New York City's Teaching Fellows, are contributing hundreds of new teachers to the city's teaching force. The organizations estimate that they will bring about 800 new teachers into classrooms this fall. That would be 25 percent more than last year, when the groups brought on just under 650 new teachers, about 2,000 less than in 2006. The dropoff began in 2009, when the Department of Education enacted restrictions limiting most hiring to teachers who were already in the system. The policy severely curtailed recruitment plans for TFA and Teaching Fellows and in a matter of two years, both were producing just a few hundred teachers per year. Most of those teachers worked in shortage areas, such as science and special education. Now, as the city has eased some longstanding hiring restrictions in new subjects, those numbers are inching back up in response to demand.

New York

August 19, 2009

Hiring freeze unjust, an out-of-work Teaching Fellow tells Klein

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the DOE's new teacher orientation today. An as-yet-unhired Teaching Fellow ambushed Schools Chancellor Joel Klein today, charging that it is unfair for the city to recruit new teachers and then deny them jobs. Arah Lewis, a 28-year-old new teacher, stopped Klein as the chancellor left LaGuardia High School this morning after speaking at the city's annual new teacher orientation. Lewis was hired this spring to join the city's Teaching Fellows program, but then the city closed its teaching ranks to most new hires in May. "To be here and to hear you speak is wonderful," she told Klein. "But it's also kind of a slap in the face." Lewis explained that she had found a middle school in the Bronx, MS 337, whose principal wanted to hire her as a math teacher. But the principal, Andrea Cyprys, can't offer the position until the hiring freeze is lifted, something Klein warned recently isn't likely to happen any time soon. On the verge of tears and surrounded by other new teachers, Lewis protested to Klein that her situation is unfair. "I don’t know an organization that would go out and recruit people and expect them to change their lives and then say you can’t work here," she said. "It doesn't make any sense."

New York

May 28, 2009

A surge of Teach For America teachers to charter schools

Teach for America, the program that places new teachers in hard-to-staff public schools, is planning to send nearly a third of its new New York City teachers to charter schools this fall, up from just 3% in 2005, internal TFA projections show. The shift to charter schools insulates the latest batch of Teach For America teachers from a new-teacher hiring freeze the city announced earlier this month. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated, so they aren't subject to the freeze and can hire any certified teacher, whether she is already in the Department of Education system or not. The move follows a downsizing in Teach For America's pool to about 300 from 500 teachers last year. The city's dismal budget picture led to the retraction.

New York

April 21, 2009

Hoping to "fall back" into teaching? The jobs are scarce

With the economy in the shape it is, some people are considering pursuing teaching as a “fallback career.” But the reality is that the…

New York

February 9, 2009

In case you thought that there wouldn't be a budget fight…

The logo for the Department of Education’s recruitment campaign for new teachers. Here are some key pieces of back-to-back interviews Randi Weingarten and Joel…

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