Recruiting and Retaining Teachers: Turning Around the Race to the Bottom in High-Need Schools

Abstract

What is it that keeps some people in teaching and chases others out? What can be done to increase the power of the teaching profession to recruit and retain effective teachers and to create a stable, expert teaching force in all kinds of districts? This issue of the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction explores these questions from a number of different angles, illuminating a range of strategies that can be used to address them. In this article, I examine the central factors affecting teacher recruitment and retention in high-need schools, and the strategies that have been found to be effective in getting and keeping high-quality teachers in the neediest communities.