"We are in a perfect storm where we don't have enough teachers," said Dayna DeFeo, director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR). DeFeo and ISER director Diane Hirshberg discussed CAEPR's research on teacher turnover issues in rural Alaska with Steve Heimel, of KYUK Bethel.
Read More
A team of researchers at UAA and UAF led by Dr. Dayna DeFeo will collaborate on a four-year project funded by the National Science Foundation to learn more about factors that contribute to retention of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) teachers in high-need schools. The project, “Sufficient COmpensation for Retention and Equity” (SCORE), will examine how compensation, working conditions and other factors encourage teachers to stay.
Read More
On Wednesday, March 18, Dr. Dayna DeFeo, Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, and Dr. Diane Hirshberg, Professor of Education Policy, testified to the Alaska Legislature’s House Education Committee. Their testimony wove together major findings from seven CAEPR research studies to explore teacher supply, demand, retention, turnover, and competition in Alaska and relative to the lower 48. They shared some of Alaska’s areas of opportunity in meeting the need to staff its classrooms with high-quality educators, including expanding efforts to grow our “homegrown” teacher pipeline, improving working conditions that drive turnover, particularly in rural Alaska, and ensuring that compensation structures are on par with other states. DeFeo and Hirshberg’s presentation followed a discussion of current educator turnover research from REL Northwest.
Read More
Director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and Research Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Dr. Dayna DeFeo, was recently featured by KTUU to discuss the growing concern around the number of teachers in Alaska. Dr. DeFeo explained that lower enrollment in education programs has resulted in less teachers being produced locally. On top of that, issues with the budget make it difficult to hold on to the ones that are currently working here.
Read More
ISER researchers Dayna DeFeo, director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research and Diane Hirshberg, professor of education policy, were featured prominently in Education Week for a recent article on teacher turnover in Alaska.
Read More
School superintendents are all too familiar with the costs of teacher turnover that deplete educational resources and challenge student achievement. A new paper, by Dayna DeFeo, director of ISER’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and Trang Tran, ISER research professional, looks at how superintendents in Alaska’s rural districts – where teacher turnover is particularly pronounced – are working to address turnover by integrating a place-conscious approach in their hiring practices.