LPI Blog

February 22, 2018 | In districts throughout California, many newly hired teachers lack any experience teaching the subject or students they were hired to teach and are not enrolled in a teacher preparation program. That’s according to a survey conducted last fall by the Learning Policy Institute, which found that persistent teacher shortages are once again leading districts to rely on underprepared teachers to fill classrooms throughout the state.

February 15, 2018 | Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” the President’s 2018 education budget proposal feels like déjà vu all over again. Last year, we published a blog post that addressed the President’s proposed cuts to the Every Student Succeeds Act. Fortunately, the Congress that developed the Act and passed it in a strongly bipartisan vote in 2015 protected its key features. This year, in the President’s new budget proposal, however, those cuts are back.

January 31, 2018 | Family and community engagement is one of the four pillars of high-quality community schools, yet school staff often struggle to build a culture that includes ongoing engagement and creates partnerships that cultivate trust and respect. In this blog, LPI Research and Policy Associate Anna Maier highlights two community school initiatives successfully bridging the gap between home and school and shares the compelling evidence of the impact of effective engagement on student and school success.

December 14, 2017 | A recent long-term study concluded that the effects of high-quality preschool programs last long into adulthood, and that because of higher projected income and diminished likelihood of incarceration, every dollar invested in quality preschool could generate a two-dollar return. Unfortunately, without a commitment by policymakers to invest in children’s education, this “powerful vaccine” won’t survive.

November 13, 2017 | Over the last three years, thousands of news stories and dozens of studies from LPI and other organizations have documented teacher shortages across the country. Yet some critics argue that turnover is not generally a problem and shortages may not even be real. In this blog, Linda Darling-Hammond, Leib Sutcher, and Desiree Carver Thomas break down the research and explain that solving turnover and shortages is not a pipedream; it’s a policy question.

October 26, 2017 | By Young Whan Choi | What should a high school student be able to do upon graduation? In this guest blog, Young Whan Choi, manager of performance assessments for the Oakland Unified School District, discusses how the use of a districtwide Graduate Capstone Project is an integral part of the district’s commitment to graduating all students prepared for college, career, and community.

October 19, 2017 | By Jiawen Wang | How are students impacted by teacher turnover and shortages? Oakland High School junior and guest blogger Jiawen Wang, a student leader with Californians for Justice (CFJ), discusses how she and her classmates experience these issues and why a strong and stable teacher workforce is key to creating relationship-centered schools.

September 20, 2017 | Across the country, districts and schools continue to struggle to meet the growing demand for qualified teachers. Since 2012, when Recession-era layoffs ended, the teacher workforce has grown by about 400,000, as districts have sought to reclaim the positions they had previously cut and replace teachers who have left. But even with intensive recruiting both in and outside of the country, more than 100,000 classrooms are being staffed this year by instructors who are unqualified for their jobs.

September 20, 2017 | An effective, stable, and diverse workforce provides the critical foundation for the other building blocks of high-quality early childhood education programs. In this LPI Blog, Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst Beth Meloy outlines key elements of a high-quality system to achieve this goal, including improvements to teacher preparation and supports for ongoing professional development.

September 13, 2017 | High teacher turnover is costly for schools and districts and can undermine efforts to improve academic opportunities and outcomes. This blog post outlines the causes and impact of turnover and speaks to the need for schools and districts to understand their local costs and begin a conversation about how to improve retention and build a strong and stable teacher workforce.