For over 50 years, Knowledge Alliance (KA) members have worked collectively to ensure that evidence-based resources are driving policy change in education. In July 2022, KA released an issue brief highlighting how member organizations are addressing the educator shortage with State educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs). In this blog, KA’s summer 2022 intern, Julianna Collado met with Lisa Lachlan and Jim Colyott from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to discuss their work addressing the educator shortage and creating a robust and sustainable plan to recruit and retain educators, particularly educators that identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in Illinois and Ohio. Excerpts of this conversation are below. 

Collado: How did AIR get involved with the Illinois Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Recognition (ILTR3) Project?  

Colyott: Our project on teacher retainment and recruitment in Illinois came to fruition after the Director of the Region 9 Comprehensive Center (R9CC), Dr. Aaron Butler, met with the Illinois state superintendent and members of the leadership team to discuss areas they needed support. One identified need was based on an Illinois’ State Board of Education (ISBE) Strategic Plan goal to provide “Illinois’ diverse student population [with] educators who are prepared through multiple pathways and are supported in and celebrated for their efforts to provide each and every child an education that meets their needs.” Evidence-based research tells us that recruiting and retaining an effective and diverse teaching corps would be critical for meeting this goal which led to the ILTR3 Project. 

Collado: Can you tell me a little bit more about the ILTR3 Project and its outcomes? 

Colyott: In the ILTR3 project, the R9CC worked collaboratively with the Director of Teaching and Learning at the ISBE and additional leaders in the Department to leverage AIR’s Teacher Shortage Tool to understand gaps and disparities in Illinois’ teacher workforce and to identify data sets for additional analyses. AIR’s Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) developed the Teacher Shortage Tool to assist SEAs, regional offices of education, educator preparation program providers, and school districts identify disparities in educator workforce diversity through the visualization of graphs and charts from existing data sets. The utilization of this tool helped ISBE identify eight shortage components (problem statements) to focus strategies for improvement.  

Collado: AIR’s GTL Center also developed a guide focused on inclusive and culturally responsive mentoring for teachers from diverse backgrounds for the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). Can you tell me how AIR got involved in developing this mentorship guide?   

Lachlan: In 2018, the ODE convened a taskforce of 40 representatives from across the education continuum to review local data analysis and gaps. One of the recommendations of the taskforce was to “create mentoring and induction supports specific to educators of color in Ohio.” The ODE connected with the Region 8 Comprehensive Center (R8CC) and AIR’s GTL Center to support the development of a guide focused on inclusive and culturally responsive mentoring for teachers from diverse backgrounds. 

Collado: Why is mentoring important in reducing the educator shortage, particularly for BIPOC educators? 

Lachlan: Mentoring is an evidence-based way to improve teacher effectiveness and teacher retention. But a “one size fits all” approach to mentoring does not work. Teachers from diverse backgrounds face specific challenges and benefit from mentoring and induction that is tailored to their needs. Structural racism and implicit bias contribute to additional barriers and tougher working conditions for teachers from diverse backgrounds. The guide AIR developed helps mentors in Ohio engage in honest and meaningful conversation with new teachers from underrepresented backgrounds to create more inclusive partnerships and working environments. The guide was informed by evidence-based research that finds that when teachers feel like they can be themselves at school they are more likely to stay at the school and in the profession.1 

Collado: Based on your research, what role does the lack of educator diversity play in the educator shortage? 

Colyott: Our data collection as well as interviews and focus groups with stakeholders in Illinois revealed that the unalignment between Illinois’ BIPOC teacher and student populations inhibited students visualizing a career as an educator. Research has shown alignment between BIPOC student and teacher populations increases the likelihood that BIPOC students will enter the educator pipeline. This is why the lack of current teacher diversity is a hindrance to addressing the teacher shortage long-term and leads to a cyclical underrepresentation of BIPOC educators. 

Collado: What has been the response to AIR’s projects in Illinois and Ohio? 

Colyott: Because the ILTR3 summary of findings was published in September 2021, it is difficult to measure its impact right now. We anticipate the work R9CC has done, and continues to do, with the ISBE will provide some guiding light for other SEAs on the same journey to reduce or eliminate the teacher shortage. 

Lachlan: Currently, the mentorship guide is being piloted across Ohio by teacher mentors and teacher mentor leaders. In collaboration with the Region 8 Comprehensive Center, the GTL Center at AIR will gather feedback through meetings with the educators who used the tool later this year. In those feedback sessions, we will discuss how the tool helped support teachers as well as provide feedback about how to improve the guide. We are excited for this second phase of the project! 

About AIR’s work in the R8CC and R9CC  

The R8CC serving Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio and the R9CC serving Illinois and Iowa are two of 19 federally funded regional Comprehensive Centers across the nation. AIR collaborates with the R8CC and R9CC to provide intensive capacity-building services to SEAs and education stakeholders. All projects of the Comprehensive Centers strive to eliminate achievement and equity gaps and ensure that all students have the opportunities and supports they need to succeed in school and in life.   

Related Work 

Equitable Access Supports: Implementation Playbook and Equitable Access Toolkit 

Retaining Teacher Talent: Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers’ Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas 

Summary of Findings From Illinois Student Focus Groups and Teacher Interviews 

The Power of Teacher Diversity: Fostering Inclusive Conversations Through Mentoring 

Mentoring for Diversity: Starting the Conversation 

About Julianna Collado. Ms. Collado is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she majored in Public Policy and minored in Latina/o Studies. In college, she held executive positions in the student organization La Casa, participated in the UnidosUS Afro-Latinx Lideres Avanzando Fellowship, and worked multiple campus jobs in the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and Office of Academic and Multicultural Initiatives. She is excited to be pursuing her Master’s in Education Policy at the University of Texas, Austin in the fall of 2022.  

[1] Mason, S., Cole-Malott, D. M., Teoh, M., Ravenell, A., Ek-Mekki, S., Seaton, K., & Woldeyohannes, M. (2021). To be who we are: Black teachers on creating affirming school cultures. TeachPlus & the Center for Black Educator.