I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Pam Grossman. "Dr. Grossman is a leading expert in teacher preparation, teacher quality, and teacher professional development. A former high school English teacher, Dr. Grossman is at the forefront of rethinking how teachers are educated and studying the connections between the support they receive, the quality of their classroom practice, the likelihood they remain in teaching, and student learning." This is the last of a collection of four episodes recorded in early 2022 on the topic of teacher attrition. We discuss the impact of school and district leadership on teacher turnover, the challenges that different types of schools face in retaining high-quality teachers, potential policy solutions to high rates of teacher resignation, and more. Enjoy.

For this conversation, I spoke with Jenine Wehbeh. Jenine teaches seventh- and eighth-grade social science in Chicago Unified. Jenine is the recipient of the Golden Apple in Teaching Excellence Award, which honors teachers for their commitment to social justice education. We discussed the conditions of teaching during a time of Covid. We also explored why the profession has such a hard time retaining individuals year over year.

You can learn more about Jenine here.

Enjoy the podcast.

For this conversation, I spoke with Dr. Richard Ingersoll, Professor of Education and Sociology at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ingersoll is a leading expert on America’s elementary and secondary teaching force. His research examines teaching as a job, teachers as employees, and schools as workplaces—from a teacher’s pre-employment training through their last day in the classroom.

We have a profession called teaching. Theoretically, it's an important profession. That profession—teaching—is staffed by teachers. Teachers come and teachers go. It’s natural for individuals to leave a profession. So is there something unique about teacher turnover? This is the question we attempt to answer by exploring the history of teacher attrition, the reasons why the professions struggles to retain teachers year over, and the current challenges facing teachers during a time of Covid. We also explore possible policy solutions to this problem. Enjoy!

Join me for a broad conversation with Dr. Lucy Sorensen, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY, and a Faculty Fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. Dr. Sorensen conducts research exploring interactions between education policy and human development, with a focus on how policy interventions can reduce educational and economic inequality. We discuss (1) the historical context of teacher attrition, (2) the why behind this problem, (3) hidden costs of teachers leaving the profession, (4) the current context, and (5) possible policy solutions. Enjoy!

Dr. Terrance Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines the relationship between educational leadership, schools, and neighborhood-communities, with a focus on racial and educational equity. His writing has been published in several journals, including Teachers College Record and Educational Administration Quarterly. During our conversation, we discussed the role that school and district leaders play in extending the traditional physical boundaries of a school to build partnerships between schools and communities. We also talked about the impact of gentrification on the schooling system.

Dr. Judy Pace is a professor in the University of San Francisco education department. She aims to prepare educators with conceptual and practical tools to create constructivist, transformative, and equitable learning experiences that promote critical and democratic habits of mind, deep understanding, and civic agency.

A qualitative researcher, she is fascinated by classroom teaching and how it is shaped by teachers, students, schools, and society. Her research has focused on classroom authority and academic engagement, teaching for democratic citizenship, social studies teaching under high-stakes accountability, and preparation of preservice teachers for teaching controversial issues. Her new book is Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues (Rowman & Littlefield). She is the author of The Charged Classroom: Predicaments and Possibilities for Democratic Teaching (Routledge), and co-editor of Educating Democratic Citizens in Troubled Times (SUNY) and Classroom Authority: Theory, Research, and Practice (Routledge).

Dr. Joanna Goode is the Sommerville Knight Professor in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. She began her career in education as a high school computer science teacher in a large, diverse urban school, and she builds on this experience to research how educational policies and practices can foster equity, access, and inclusion in K-12 computer science education. Joanna has directed multiple National Science Foundation-sponsored research projects, developed the equity-focused Exploring Computer Science high school course, and is the co-author of the book, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing (MIT Press, 2008/2017). 

In this episode, Dr. Goode talks about the development of inclusion in the CS classroom. 

In this weeks episode, Dr. Norm Vaughan talks about why it is important to create learning centers, not student centered learning. He also talks presents an alternative definition to blended learning that is less about the technology and more about the learning experience. Norm is incredibly passionate about his work and provides a critical perspective on how to approach the design of learning environments in the 21st century.

Dr. Jeremy Stoddard is a (Full) Professor and the Faculty Chair of the Secondary Education Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research examines the role of media in teaching and learning history and democratic citizenship – with a particular focus on engagement with difficult or marginalized histories and contemporary controversial issues. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the co-author or co-editor of three books, including Teaching Difficult History Through Film. Jeremy and I talked about Purple State, a research project he’s leading that is focused on engaging high school students in an authentic political simulation. One of the goals of that work is to build civic competence. We also discussed the role of film and TV in the K-12 classroom. We hope you enjoy the conversation.