Staying Put: Positive Spillovers on Teacher Retention From a Middle School Science Initiative

• In Event: Examining Teacher Induction and Retention in STEM

Abstract

Many schools struggle to meet the demand for qualified math and science teachers, with high-poverty, high-minority, and urban schools being especially hard to staff. Teacher retention is documented as a dominant factor in filling this demand. This paper is the first to examine whether New York City’s Urban Advantage (UA) program, a collaboration between informal science education institutions and the NYC Department of Education, can improve teacher retention. We use detailed longitudinal administrative data on all teaching personnel from 2007-2015 and combine matching and fixed effect methodologies to account for selection into the program. Results indicate that UA improves the probability that a science teacher will remain teaching at the same school by 3.2 percentage points (base of 84%).

Authors

• Menbere Shiferaw, New York University

• Meryle Weinstein, New York University