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Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans
"Lessons Learned" is based on a nationwide survey of first-year teachers and aims to help leaders in education and government understand more about the quality of current teacher education and the on-the-job support and mentoring for new teachers.
Issue No. 1: They’re Not Little Kids Anymore: The Special Challenges of New Teachers in High Schools and Middle Schools
Jonathan Rochkind, Amber Ott, John Immerwahr, John Doble and Jean Johnson
This new report by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality finds new teachers in middle and high school feel most vulnerable to challenging teaching conditions. Compared to new teachers in elementary schools, high school and middle school teachers are much more concerned about administrative support, more frustrated by student motivation and behavior, less likely to see teaching as a lifelong career choice and less likely to believe that all students can achieve in school than new teachers in elementary schools.
Issue No. 2: Working Without a Net: How New Teachers from Three Prominent Alternate Route Programs Describe Their First Year on the Job
Jonathan Rochkind, Amber Ott, John Immerwahr, John Doble and Jean Johnson
"Working Without a Net" focuses on new teachers in high-needs schools, comparing the perspectives of those from traditional teacher education versus those from three alternate-route programs: Teach for America, Troops to Teachers and The New Teacher Project. According to the survey, the alternate route teachers are especially motivated by the desire to help disadvantaged children but at the same time more disheartened by the conditions they find in their classrooms than traditionally-trained teachers.
