How We Began

Susan Moore Johnson

In 1998, I joined with four doctoral students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—Susan Kardos, David Kauffman, Ed Liu, and Heather Peske—to create the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. We all had been teachers (they far more recently than I) and shared an interest in strategies to improve teachers’ experiences and accomplishments, especially those new to the profession. At the time, a very large cohort of veteran teachers who had made teaching their career since the late 1960s and early 1970s were beginning to retire. They were being replaced by a new generation of teachers who were entering in a labor market with many professional options, which were unavailable three decades earlier to woman and to men of color--teaching's traditional recruits.

We were curious about who would enter teaching in this new context. Why did they choose to teach and how did they prepare? What would they experience as novices? Would they remain in schools and teaching long-term, as their predecessors had done? And what factors would influence their career decisions? With those questions in mind, we conducted an exploratory study of 50 first- and second-year teachers in a diverse sample of Massachusetts public schools. We wanted to learn about the full range of new teachers—individuals with different types of preparation, those working in urban and suburban schools, and those teaching various subjects and students at different levels. We interviewed these teachers in person, asking questions such as “How did you decide to teach?” “How did you come to teach at this school?” “What support have you received as a new teacher within your school or district?” “What formal or informal contact do you have on a regular basis with other teachers?” “Do you have a curriculum for the subjects you’re assigned to teach?”

Our study focused on individuals and was intended to illuminate characteristics of the new generation of teachers. It proved to be so informative that we followed those novices for four years. During that time Sarah Birkeland and Morgaen Donaldson joined our team. We found that most of these novices chose teaching for the same reasons their predecessors had—seeking meaningful work that would “make a difference,” enjoying young people, and loving the subjects they taught. However, their paths to the classroom differed, with many entering at mid-career and through alternative preparation programs. Also, many were making a tentative commitment to teaching as a career. They knew that if the work didn’t suit them they could pursue careers in an array of other fields that were now open to to women and to men of color--teaching's traditional recruits.

Initially we wanted to know about our participants as members of a new generation who might have different priorities and preferences than their predecessors. However, when we asked about their experiences, these novices told us again and again about their school and what it was like to teach there. Although we saw obvious similarities among individuals in this new generation of teachers, what seemed much more notable was what they experienced in their particular school. Their work environments differed widely, even within the same district. And those differences appeared to matter, influencing not only teachers’ day-to-day satisfaction, but also their career decisions. After 4 years, approximately 1/3 of these 50 teachers were still in the same school, 1/3  had changed schools, and 1/3 had left public school teaching. Some left for personal reasons, but most explained that they decided to stay or leave largely because of their school’s work environment. If they were not assigned to courses that matched their areas of expertise, if they did not get support from their colleagues and principal, if they did not have an adequate curriculum, or if the school lacked order and discipline, they might well leave.

We werre interested in learning whether findings from our study of  50 new teachers in Massachusetts would hold true for novices in other states.  We werre especially curious about how new teachers were hired, when and how they  interacted with colleagues, and whether they had access to the curriculum they needed. Using original surveys, Ed Liu, Susan Kardos, and David Kauffman surveyed random samples of new teachers in seven states (California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan, and Washington) From these surveys we learned more about how new teachers experienced working in the context of their schools. 

Liu found that some teachers experienced timely, robust, school-based hiring in a process he called "Information-rich," while others were hired late and hastily in an "information-poor" process. Good hiring ensured that new teachers would have jobs that provided a good match between them and their schools, thus enhancing their satisfaction and the likelihood that they would remain.

Kardos found that teachers who had been assigned a mentor were not necessarily supported in their work.  Often they were mismatched with a mentor in another subject, grade-level, or school.  Moreover, few mentors were trained or given the time to work closely with the novice.  New teachers who worked regularly with colleagues with all levels of experience from their grade level or subject area were more likely to report being satisfied with their school than were teachers who had been assigned a mentor. 

Kauffman, whose study focussed on elementary teachers, found that many did not have the curriculum they needed to teach the subjects they were assigned. They were more likely to have a complete curriculum in reading and math than in social studies and science.

In analyzing the findings across all three studies, we found that teachers working in low-income schools were more likely than were their counterparts in high-income schoos to experience late, inadequate hiring; isolation or irregular interaction with colleagues; and insufficient curriculum .