New Teacher Center has released a new report on all 50 states that takes a look at the support available for new principals and new teachers. The results show only a slight improvement over the past few years. Support From the Start: A 50-State Review of Policies on New Educator Induction and Mentoring examines how states’ policies address nine important criteria in providing high-quality support programs for new teachers, school principals and school administrators and for the mentors who work with them. According to the New Teacher Center:
Unfortunately, states have made only limited progress over the past several years. A small handful of states have taken clear steps forward in improving multiple areas of state policy that can lead to greater support for new teachers and principals. Several states have made progress in specific areas of new educator induction.
Only three states meet NTC’s most important criteria for a high-quality system of new teacher support. Connecticut, Delaware and Iowa are the only states that require schools and districts to provide multi-year support for new teachers, require teachers to complete an induction program for a professional license, and provide dedicated funding for new teacher induction and mentoring. These same states also were the only ones to meet these important criteria in the 2012 report. Today, Hawaii also requires and funds a multi-year induction program for teachers and school principals, but not specifically for purposes of educator licensure. But while these four states are pacesetters in several areas of support for new educators, even they do not meet all nine of NTC’s main policy quality criteria.
Just as in 2012, NTC finds that few states have comprehensive policies to require high-quality induction for beginning teachers. Many states still lack adequate support for new school principals, quality standards for educator induction, and ongoing professional development and support for mentors, and many states have only limited mentoring for new teachers. Further, too many states’ policies that do exist are implemented poorly or sporadically. A sizable percentage of beginning teachers regularly report in NTC’s TELL Surveys that they were not assigned a formal mentor— even in states with a mentoring requirement.
Some of the other key areas that this report explores are: funding for support for new teachers, requirements for new teachers to have induction support and classroom practice with a mentor/advisor, new teacher preparation programs, certification procedures, oversight of the program, and teaching and learning conditions.
For a more detailed analysis of the data, see the executive summary.
For more specific information, see the full report.
For more information about New Teacher Center, see their policy section.
