The Recruitment and Retention of Mathematics Teachers in High-Need Schools

One potential avenue to address the STEM teacher shortages reported internationally is to offer scholarships paired with targeted preparation experiences for high-performing STEM majors and professionals to become K-12 teachers. In the study reported in this paper, the influence of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program on the recruitment and retention of mathematics teachers in high-need schools was investigated. The research found the Noyce Scholarship and program activities to be an effective mechanism for recruiting high performing college students as mathematics teachers and to retain them in the critical first few years of teaching. Discussed in this paper is how the Noyce Program made these impacts through financial incentives, as well as the scholars' participation in the program and interactions with others.