Examining Teacher Preparation: Does the Pathway Make a Difference?
The team’s central research project is “Examining Teacher Preparation: Does the Pathway Make a Difference? (Teacher Pathways Project). Policymakers at every level of government and the public understand that few issues are more important than improving the performance of America’s K-12 students, particularly those in urban, low performing schools. The Teacher Pathways Project fills a gap in existing research by providing a systematic, data-rich analysis of the pathways teachers take into teaching and the impact of those pathways and teacher choices on student achievement in the classroom, focusing on the New York City Public School System. The multi-year study analyzes and identifies the attributes of teacher preparation programs and pathways into teaching that positively impact student outcomes. The data includes detailed program information on fifteen public and private traditional teacher preparation programs and two alternate route programs primarily serving the New York City area.
Excerpt from Executive Summary, Teacher Pathways Project
“The research will assess the role that pathways into teaching, both traditional and nontraditional… do and can play in both improving the quality of the teacher workforce and equalizing the distribution of highly qualified teachers across urban schools. The attributes of teacher preparation programs cannot be examined in isolation…[t]eacher salaries, teachers’ preferences about schools…and school district hiring practices all can affect teacher career paths and effectiveness. It is especially important to take these labor market characteristics into account when attempting to understand how to improve teaching in difficult-to-staff urban schools.”
The Pathways Model - Teacher Preparation Paths and Outcomes for Teachers and Students
The Pathways Project models conceptually and empirically how teacher characteristics affect the selection of preparation pathways, how teacher characteristics influence student outcomes, how pathways influence the matching of teachers to schools, and how teachers and schools together influence student outcomes.
