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Does Mentoring Reduce Turnover and Improve Skills of New Employees? Evidence from Teachers in New York City

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  • Jonah E. Rockoff

Abstract

Mentoring has become an extremely popular policy for improving the retention and performance of new teachers, but we know little about its effects on teacher and student outcomes. I study the impact of mentoring in New York City, which adopted a nationally recognized mentoring program in 2004. I use detailed program data to examine the relationship between teacher and student outcomes and measures of mentoring quality, such as hours of mentoring received and the characteristics of mentors. Although assignment of teachers to mentors was non-random, I use instrumental variables and school fixed effects to address potential sources of bias. I find strong relationships between measures of mentoring quality and teachers' claims regarding the impact of mentors on their success in the classroom, but weaker evidence of effects on teacher absences, retention, and student achievement. The most consistent finding is that retention within a particular school is higher when a mentor has previous experience working in that school, suggesting that an important part of mentoring may be the provision of school specific knowledge. I also find evidence that student achievement in both reading and math were higher among teachers that received more hours of mentoring, supporting the notion that time spent working with a mentor does improve teaching skills.

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  • Jonah E. Rockoff, 2008. "Does Mentoring Reduce Turnover and Improve Skills of New Employees? Evidence from Teachers in New York City," NBER Working Papers 13868, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13868
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    Cited by:

    1. Victor Lavy, 2011. "What Makes an Effective Teacher? Quasi-Experimental Evidence," NBER Working Papers 16885, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Goldhaber, Dan & Krieg, John & Theobald, Roddy, 2020. "Effective like me? Does having a more productive mentor improve the productivity of mentees?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Zenobia NICULITA, 2015. "Teachers' work style development as means of preventing their high staff turnover rates," Romanian Journal of Economics, Institute of National Economy, vol. 41(2(50)), pages 121-130, december.
    4. Anna I. Klieba & Yuliia O. Bludova & Nataliia A. Galushko & Olena H. Pavlova & Nataliia V. Pylypenko, 2020. "Construction of an Individual Educational Trajectory as a Way to Reveal the Personal and Professional Potential of a Future Teacher," International Journal of Higher Education, Sciedu Press, vol. 9(7), pages 1-73, August.
    5. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2011. "Injecting Successful Charter School Strategies into Traditional Public Schools: A Field Experiment in Houston," NBER Working Papers 17494, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Eric Isenberg & Steven Glazerman & Martha Bleeker & Amy Johnson & Julieta Lugo-Gil & Mary Grider & Sarah Dolfin & Edward Britton, "undated". "Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction: Results from the Second Year of a Randomized Controlled Study," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 1cf29b9591064d67a33c73297, Mathematica Policy Research.
    7. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2010. "Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 16256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Emiliana Vegas & Alejandro Ganimian & Analia Jaimovich, 2012. "Learning from the Best : Improving Learning Through Effective Teacher Policies," World Bank Publications - Reports 10057, The World Bank Group.
    9. Jonah E. Rockoff & Brian A. Jacob & Thomas J. Kane & Douglas O. Staiger, 2011. "Can You Recognize an Effective Teacher When You Recruit One?," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 43-74, January.
    10. Briole, Simon & Maurin, Eric, 2019. "Does Evaluating Teachers Make a Difference?," IZA Discussion Papers 12307, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. John P. Papay & Eric S. Taylor & John H. Tyler & Mary Laski, 2016. "Learning Job Skills from Colleagues at Work: Evidence from a Field Experiment Using Teacher Performance Data," NBER Working Papers 21986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Rockoff, Jonah E. & Speroni, Cecilia, 2011. "Subjective and objective evaluations of teacher effectiveness: Evidence from New York City," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 687-696, October.
    13. Dhushyanth Raju, 2017. "Public School Teacher Management in Sri Lanka," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 18(1), pages 39-63, March.
    14. María Figueroa & Sandra García & Darío Malonado & Catherine Rodríguez & Ana María Saavedra & Germán Vargas, 2018. "La profesión docente en Colombia: normatividad, formación, selección y evaluación," Documentos de trabajo 17641, Escuela de Gobierno - Universidad de los Andes.
    15. Niculita Zenobia, 2015. "Factors That Influence The Intention For Voluntary Turnover Among Teachers," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 5, pages 90-95, October.
    16. repec:mpr:mprres:6365 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Young-Chul Kim & Glenn Loury, 2014. "Social externalities, overlap and the poverty trap," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(4), pages 535-554, December.
    18. Young-Chul Kim & Glenn C. Loury, 2021. "Birds of a Feather: Life Cycle Social Externalities, Heterogeneous Beliefs, and Development Bias," Working Papers 2104, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    19. David S. Lyle & John Z. Smith, 2014. "The Effect of High-Performing Mentors on Junior Officer Promotion in the US Army," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 229-258.
    20. Carter, Susan Payne & Dudley, Whitney & Lyle, David S. & Smith, John Z., 2019. "Who's the Boss? The effect of strong leadership on employee turnover," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 323-343.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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