Posted on August 18, 2004 at 10:40 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has received a five-year, $4.4 million National Science Foundation grant to lead a multi-center study to determine how to keep novice teachers in urban schools from quitting the profession and how to improve science and math instruction. David Radford, Ph.D., associate professor of science education in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, will lead the study.

Nationally, one-third of new teachers leave the profession within the first three years on the job, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Moreover, in 2000-2001, 20 percent of teachers in high poverty schools moved to other school districts or quit the profession, while 13 percent in more affluent schools moved or quit.

The problem of teacher retention is made worse by the federal No Child Left Behind law that mandates that all teachers be highly qualified, Radford said. Highly qualified teachers must be certified and demonstrate proficiency in their subject areas, such as math and science. To address the retention problem, UAB researchers will investigate three mentoring programs for new teachers.

“We want to determine which programs are most effective in retaining [novice] middle and high school science and math teachers in urban schools,” Radford said. “We also will look at the cost of each program and whether student performance on standardized tests improves as a result of the programs.”

The other study sites will be the University of Houston and the University of Memphis. The study will involve 180 novice teachers and 67,500 students. UAB Associate Professor Cecelia Pierce, Ed.D., Assistant Professor Janice Patterson, Ph.D., and education instructor Tonya Perry also will participate in the study.