Notebook

Seeking Success with Students
New Teachers Can't Be Successful—and Won't Stay in Teaching—Without Help from Their School

A huge wave of teacher retirements is spawning a raft of clever approaches to recruitment. But there's no sense turning somersaults to recruit if we don't fix the conditions that drive half of new teachers out. What drives them out? What keeps them?

Why New Teachers Leave ...
By Leslie Baldacci

As a new teacher, Leslie Baldacci had six weeks of training, 35 seventh-graders, and obstacle after obstacle put between her and classroom success. She survived her first year, but she understands why so many of her peers did not.

... and Why New Teachers Stay
By Susan Moore Johnson and The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers

In teaching, there's no corner office, no big payday. Teachers' primary reward is seeing their students succeed. To retain teachers, one key piece is simple: Give new teachers the support they need to be effective in their first few years. Chances are, they'll stay for years to come. That's the message from the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers.

Teachers Transfer Because of Conditions, Not Seniority of Student Poverty

How Teacher Unions Can Support New Teachers

Why One Teacher Is Staying "Forever"

Drop Everything and Read—But How?
For Students Who Are Not Yet Fluent, Silent Reading Is Not
the Best Use of Classroom Time
By Jan Hasbrouck

Sustained silent reading has swept the country. It seems like just what students need—but is it? Not if they are still struggling to read fluently. That requires a good model, lots of practice reading out loud, and frequent feedback.

Alone in the World
For Autistic Children, relating to Others Is Life's Greatest Challenge
By Laura Schreibman

From the 1988 movie Rain Man to a recent cover of Time magazine, autism seems to be a hot topic in the popular media. This is great for raising awareness, but the depiction of the disorder is not always accurate. Laura Schreibman, who has been studying autism for 40 years, sets the record straight.