Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Effective Educators
Schools are only as effective as the teachers, administrators, and staff working within them. WEPC researchers seek to better understand the educator pipeline and to measure the impact of policies designed to improve the education workforce, from teacher preparation to professional development to increasing the diversity of the education profession.
Latest Projects
Special Education Substantially Improves Learning: Evidence from Three States
Authors: Stephanie Coffey, Joshua Goodman, Amy Ellen Schwartz, Leanna Stiefel, Marcus A. Winters, Yunee H. Yoon Project Summary Special education serves more than one in seven U.S. students, yet its causal impact remains understudied. In this paper, we estimate the effect of individualized supports with an event-study design that tracks achievement around initial classification. The research shows students’ scores decline prior to placement and rise sharply afterward. Overall, individualized...
Examining Wage Growth in ECE Programs: Evidence from Massachusetts
Authors: Pia Caronongan, Katie Hyland Project Summary Early educators are among the lowest-paid workers in the United States, in part because most early care and education (ECE) programs operate within constrained business models. In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) program distributes grants that can be used for workforce investments. We examined how educator wages changed during the program’s implementation and what factors explain variation in wage growth. Average...
Assessing the Potential Impact of Seniority-Based Reduction in Force Policies on the Changing Teacher Workforce in Connecticut Schools
Project Summary Over the last decade, policymakers and education leaders in Connecticut have prioritized efforts to improve the quality and diversity of the teacher workforce. Persistent focus and targeted investments in strong teacher pipelines have helped increase teacher diversity from 8% in 2014 to 12% of the workforce identifying as teachers of color in 2024. Through a research partnership with the Wheelock Educational Policy Center (WEPC) at Boston University, the Connecticut State...
Early Education Workforce Supports at Scale
How state-level data and research could improve innovations and investments in Massachusetts Recognizing the critical role and economic necessity of high-quality early childhood educator (ECE) workforce, Massachusetts has made substantial investments in the development and retention of the ECE workforce in recent years. And while the state is working to monitor these efforts through additional data collection, the state continues to lack foundational insights and a comprehensive...
Forecasting the Supply and Demand of Diverse Educators
Authors: Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Olivia Chi Project Summary The increasing diversity of students in Massachusetts makes growing a diverse educator workforce a critical policy goal for the Commonwealth. In recent years, state and local leaders have responded to this challenge with a variety of programs and policy changes. This report details these efforts and their considerable impact to date. However, the findings show the racial and ethnic differences between the state’s students and teachers...
Comparing Turnover Intentions and Actual Turnover in the Public Sector Workforce
Authors: Tuan D. Nguyen, Elizabeth Bettini, Christopher Redding, Allison F. Gilmour Project Summary When teachers choose to leave their jobs, it can be disruptive and costly for their school and district, affecting everything from student learning to the experiences of other teachers and staff. For this reason, policymakers have been worried by indications that many teachers are thinking about leaving the profession. But just how reliable are these warning signs that teachers are thinking of...
Examining the Supply of New Special Educators
Authors: Tuan D. Nguyen, Elizabeth Bettini, Allison F. Gilmour, Christopher Redding Project Summary Special education teacher shortages have been a consistent problem around the U.S. for decades and have only grown since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, reports of declining interest in special education among prospective teachers are especially concerning. The authors of this study examined the supply of new special education teachers into the workforce and the institutions...
Licensure Tests and Teacher Supply in Connecticut
Authors: Alexis Orellana and Marcus A. Winters Project Summary Traditional entry into the public-school teacher workforce requires individuals to pass at least one standardized test demonstrating their mastery of a particular subject and/or grade-level content area. Amid concerns about teacher shortages, policymakers are seeking to better understand whether licensure tests are serving their intended purpose and whether there are unintended consequences associated with these screening...
Disparate Teacher Effects, Comparative Advantage, and Match Quality
Author: Wiliam Delgado This reflects work completed in coordination with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Project Summary This study uses data from the Chicago Public Schools to examine differences in student performance and experiences relative to varying measures of teacher quality and seeks to ask: Is the best teacher the best for everyone? The analysis explores the extent to which "highly effective" teachers are differentially effective for different groups of...