Chapter 29 - Economic approaches to teacher recruitment and retention

Abstract

The quality of teaching in a school results from a range of factors, including available resources, curriculum, and instructional leadership, but it is also driven by the individuals who teach in each classroom. The staffing of teachers in schools, in turn, is a product of both recruitment and retention practices. This article describes how the choices of teachers and the actions of schools and districts influence who enters the profession and who stays. It then identifies common policy approaches for advancing recruitment and retention goals and summarizes the current research, discussing the effectiveness of these policies. The article focuses on teacher labor markets in the United States (for information on teacher labor markets outside of the US, see Ladd (2007) and Vegas (2007)).