Research is the first to simultaneously study factors affecting teacher retention and their connection to schools and neighborhoods in L.A.
Michael Gottfried, an assistant professor in the LMU School of Education, was awarded a $52,648 grant by the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation to evaluate the Teach For America program in Los Angeles. His research will focus on teacher retention in the Los Angeles area by comparing TFA teacher turnover rates and examining the characteristics of teachers by school site and neighborhood.
“The analyses will determine which factors influence TFA teachers in their decisions to stay at their assigned schools, teach at a different location or choose a different profession altogether,” says Gottfried. “I see these data being used by TFA Los Angeles to more effectively match teachers with schools, thus increasing retention in the field and TFA’s impact on Los Angeles.”
Gottfried’s research project, “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Exploring the Assignment and Retention of Teach for America Teachers by School and by Neighborhood in the Los Angeles Region,” is the first to focus on TFA teacher retention specifically in Los Angeles. Previous research conducted on TFA and teacher retention has been national.
Gottfried’s research focuses on the economics of education and education policy across multiple areas of interest, including classroom contextual effects and STEM. He has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the American Educational Research Journal and Teachers College Record. For his work, Gottfried received the 2009-10 American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Publication Advances in Methodology Award.
Through the LMU/Teach For America Partnership, the LMU School of Education has been affiliated with Teach For America Los Angeles since 2000, providing graduate training and support for TFA corps members as they earn their California teaching credential with the option of adding an LMU master’s degree in education. Now TFA’s exclusive university partner in California, the LMU/TFA Partnership is one of the organization’s largest and most successful partnerships in the country, with more than 200 current corps members and 1,000 alumni, including 53 school and system leaders and 11 elected officials in the Los Angeles region.
