A new report suggests easy-to-staff, high-functioning schools may be better environments for training student-teachers than the toughest teaching environments.
The University of Michigan School of Education’s Matthew Ronfeldt examined the relationship between student-teacher placement and the retention and performance of 2,860 New York City teachers who had field placements during the 2003-04 school year. He found teachers who were placed in easier-to-staff schools were more likely to keep teaching in the city’s schools and performed better—as determined by value-added measures—than those trained in tough-to-staff schools.
The study was published this month in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
