by Diane T. Pan and Sue E. Mutchler

The needs of beginning teachers have been brought to the forefront of state and national policy due to increasing concerns about teacher quality and teacher shortage problems. As long ago as 1988, researchers at the national level were declaring the urgency of problems in the teacher pipeline, citing a "proliferation of policy activity in states and localities to address the perceived problems of teacher supply and quality" (Haggstrom, Darling-Hammond, and Grissmer, 1988, p. 1). A decade later, teacher supply and quality remain a serious problem, with schools experiencing "continuing high rates of attrition for beginning teachers, more than 30 percent of whom leave within the first five years of teaching" (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1997, p. 21).

Research and reporting by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) over the last decade has led to an understanding that quality teaching is critical to student success and "what teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn" (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996, p. iv). The commission's 1996 report called for a number of strategies for supporting beginning teachers, including effective induction through teacher mentoring. Demands on what teachers must know and do have increased due to factors such as increasingly diverse student populations and pressures of accountability systems, making first-year induction programs critical for the success of beginning teachers. According to research evidence, "traditional sink-or-swim induction contributes to high attrition and to lower levels of teacher effectiveness" (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996, p. 40).

In the last two decades, more states have begun supporting induction programs that provide mentoring for beginning teachers. NCTAF's school and staffing survey of 1993-94 reported that among teachers with less than 5 years of experience, 55 percent experienced some kind of formal induction program during their first year of teaching. Only 16 percent of teachers with more than 10 years of experience received first-year support. In Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's (SEDL) region, all five states (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas) have instituted state-level policy for mentoring of beginning teachers. Teacher mentoring efforts contrast greatly among these states with respect to program components, funding, and longevity. Oklahoma's "residency" program for beginning teachers has been in place for two decades, is backed by state funds, and has supported 40,000 teachers since its inception (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2000). State mentoring initiatives in Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico are newly instituted, and program implementers are still in the early development stages of these state programs (Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, 2000).

Mentoring in Texas

Since 1989, the state of Texas has experimented with mentoring for beginning teachers as a strategy to encourage and facilitate the retention of teachers through their first years in the profession. In 1990, when the state created its alternative certification program, mentoring was included as a requirement for all alternatively certified teachers; and in 1991, the requirement was mandated (although not funded by the state) for all teachers during their induction year. In 1995 this requirement was challenged by legislation that would release districts from their obligation to comply with unfunded mandates. This legislation, however, did not result in a change in the Texas Education Code. Further state-level recommendations regarding mentoring was included in the Texas State Board of Educator Certification's (SBEC) 1996 strategic plan, which stipulated that all educators granted a conditional teaching certificate have the support of a mentor during their two-year induction period. This recommendation, too, is not funded or otherwise supported by the state. As of September 1, 1999, the Texas Education Code includes the following amendment to 19 TAC Chapter 230, Subchapter V, Induction for Beginning Teachers:

230.610. Induction Program for Beginning Teachers.

General provisions. Beginning teachers who do not have prior teaching experience shall be assigned a mentor teacher.

Induction training for beginning teachers. Beginning teachers shall participate in teacher orientation, which may include specialized induction year program activities.

After failing to gain state appropriations for the mentoring of beginning teachers, in 1999 SBEC sought and received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to pilot a support system named the Texas Beginning Educator Support System (TxBESS). The state agency has begun work funded by a three-year, $12 million grant to develop and model a support and assessment system for beginning teachers.

TxBESS focuses on support systems for beginning teachers in their first and second years on the job. The goals of the program are to increase teacher retention and develop professional expertise. Starting in spring of 2000, regional partnerships, led by Texas' 20 Regional Education Service Centers, began piloting models of support designed to meet the needs of beginning teachers, students, and schools. While each Education Service Center and participating school district has discretion in planning and implementing mentoring activities that respond to local needs, TxBESS does institute certain program features. First is feedback from assessments developed for early-career teachers using the TxBESS Activity Profile (TAP). The TAP serves as a performance assessment instrument to provide formative information for the beginning teacher and summative information for the teacher preparation program from which he or she graduated. Second is a support team model in which the mentor teacher, an administrator, and a representative from an educator preparation program share responsibility for mentoring the beginning teacher. Third is training for the mentors and other support team members who will implement the TAP observation and assessment rubric.

Current funding for TxBESS has allowed a limited number of school districts to participate in the program. A number of districts are operating a smaller scale version of the TxBESS program in which limited support is provided for training and stipends. Many districts in the state are not yet participating in TxBESS. Future funding to support teacher mentoring in Texas beyond the three-year TxBESS implementation, either through subsequent federal grants or authorized by state legislation, is uncertain.

Description of SEDL's Teacher Mentoring Research Project

Rationale of SEDL's Study. The state of Texas is experiencing a shortage of teachers in the K-12 public schools--a shortage that will become even more serious when "student enrollments reach an all-time high by 2007 and large numbers of current teachers retire" (Huling, 1998, p. 1). Recent actions by state policymakers and agencies demonstrate state-level concern for teacher retention and represent steps to address the problem through mentoring. With the initiation of the state-supported TxBESS by SBEC, SEDL sees a policy need and opportunity for collecting information on those mentoring programs that already exist in the state. These programs represent the varied and unstudied district-initiated and supported activities that have emerged since the state embarked on its mentoring exploration a decade ago. Established mentoring programs offer rich stories of how local education systems have designed and funded their own unique efforts to meet the needs of beginning teachers. Moreover, of interest to SEDL and all of the five states it serves is what kind of mentoring programs might encourage and facilitate the retention of teachers in schools and districts that serve student populations high in racial, ethnic, and language diversity.

Areas of Inquiry. The three policy questions appearing below guided SEDL's research on teacher mentoring programs as a strategy to address beginning teacher quality and retention. SEDL examined teacher mentoring programs as an important local response to state law on teacher retention and induction. As the questions indicate, the research focused on mentoring programs in the state of Texas with emphasis on existing strategies. SEDL also explored the implications of mentoring for teachers of diverse student populations.

1. How have schools and districts planned and implemented mentoring programs to respond to state policy on teacher induction?
2. What are the characteristics of district or school mentoring programs in the state with respect to resource allocation, range of activities, and effectiveness?
3. What are the implications of current mentoring activities for the retention of teachers in districts or schools with increasingly diverse student populations?

Methodology. SEDL pursued a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods to address the questions to be studied. In order to align the research focus with current knowledge and state policy priorities around mentoring, staff worked with an advisory team made up of state agency representatives, content advisors in the field of teacher mentoring and induction, and experts in research methodology. SEDL also contracted with researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and SBG Research to assist this investigation. The project's advisory team and research consultants reviewed the research plan and helped refine the design. The advisory team also provided information on the progress of state initiatives around teacher mentoring. This information, along with a review of the literature and conversations with local and state experts about mentoring programs and teacher retention, provided researchers with a better understanding of the context of mentoring in Texas.

SEDL used three primary data collection sources: a statewide survey of Texas school districts, quantitative analysis of administrative data available on three case study school districts in Texas, and interviews with staff involved in active mentoring programs in the three case sites. Researchers conducted the statewide survey during the spring of 2000 and used preliminary results to help inform the case study site selection. Case study interviews were conducted during the summer and fall of 2000 and administrative data were analyzed during the fall of 2000. While the three data sources helped to inform each other in terms of final conclusions and implications (presented in Chapter Six of this report), each is meant to represent a separate yet complementary viewpoint on the questions under study. The methodology for each of the three data sources is described, along with their results, in the report.

Organization of This Report. This report represents findings from the research conducted by SEDL, which drew data from three sources as described above. After a literature review grounds this research in current understandings of teacher mentoring (Chapter Two), three separate chapters present findings and analysis from the statewide survey (Chapter Three), quantitative analysis of administrative data on the three case sites (Chapter Four), and reporting and analysis of findings from qualitative research at the three case sites (Chapter Five). Conclusions, implications, and recommendations that draw from findings of all three data sources are presented in the final chapter of this report. Appendices consist of the statewide survey instrument and an annotated bibliography of additional resources on mentoring.