Where the Newest Teachers Are

Give an experienced teacher a choice of assignments and they’ll usually pick the “easy” school, right? (The one in the suburbs with the helpful parents and high-achieving students.) Left behind, in the poor urban school, are their newest colleagues—or so the thinking goes.

Well, not so fast. A new report from NEA’s partners at the American Federation of Teachers shows just the opposite. Teachers with collective bargaining agreements are actually less likely to transfer than their colleagues without agreements, the study found. For example, in 2000, 8.4 percent with bargaining rights transferred, compared with 13 percent without.

Researchers also found that the percentage of new teachers in poor schools is actually a little smaller than the percentage in wealthier schools (4 percent and 5 percent, respectively.)