New York Shifts Strategy on Mentoring New Teachers

A New York City mentoring program once hailed as possibly the largest overhaul of teacher induction in the country has been dismantled amid district officials’ push to give schools more say over their own affairs.

In place of the 3-year-old venture to support beginning teachers in the classroom, New York’s schools will individually shape help for new teachers, using a combination of dedicated and general resources.

First-year teachers will still have mentors, as required by state law. But the mentors will no longer be part of a cadre trained under the eye of the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a nonprofit organization that has pioneered a widely admired system for supporting and improving novice teachers. And fewer of the mentors will be occupied with...