Teacher Policy Research (TPR) is a research partnership between the University at Albany and Stanford University that examines the behavior of teachers and administrators with the goal of developing policies that will both attract and retain high-quality teachers and leaders, especially in low-performing schools. Teacher Policy Research consists of researchers from several universities and organizations who share a common interest in conducting research on teaching and teacher education programs with the goal of providing education policy makers with current, useful data to inform their policy decisions. The research is funded by organizations that want to evaluate existing education policies, identify ways to improve those policies, or develop new policies as needed. We have received financial support from the Carnegie Corporation, the City University of New York, The National Science Foundation, the New York State Department of Education, The Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.
The study “Examining Teacher Preparation: Does the Pathway Make a Difference? (Teacher Pathways Project) is the team’s central research project.
Teacher Pathways Project Links
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.”