A Proposal to Select, Place, and Keep, the Best Teachers in the Neediest Schools. A Kansas State Dept. of Education White Paper

Teacher selection, retention, and evaluation form a contentious policy knot. This paper: (1) reviews the recent history of teacher labor markets; (2) describes the teacher selection, preparation and retention policies of three countries that successfully reformed their systems; (3) proposes a different theoretical guide; and (4) reviews key teacher survey data and a large, current experiment in teacher evaluation. Based on this evidence, it then proposes a more promising experiment in teacher selection, preparation, and assignment. This proposed experiment offers an opportunity to overcome some cultural and institutional character flaws. It would systematically select, train, and place our most capable teachers with our highest-need children and families. It deliberately limits turnover and limits costs in several ways.