By Kendall LaParo
Research for Action is still looking for public school districts to participate in this research. We are committed to providing districts with timely information and actionable insights. Please email Dr. Kendall LaParo klaparo@researchforaction.org if you would like to learn more about participating.
Connecting Research and Practice in Support of Early Career Teachers
I met with an experienced educator and leader the other day and she said something that stuck with me: “Sometimes what we see in the research is unrealistic.” She explained that even when she knows what the research recommends, it can be nearly impossible to implement given constraints on time and funding. This is a common reality for educators and a place where research often falls short.
Our current study on supporting early-career teachers is trying to bridge this gap. Rather than starting with an idealized version of what teacher support should look like, we are grounding our work in what districts and schools are actually doing, what educators say they need, and how research-based ideas show up (or don’t) in everyday practice. The goal is to connect research, policy, and practice in ways that are both rigorous and realistic.
What We’ve Learned So Far
At this early stage of the study, our strongest insights come from examining the policy and system context that shapes what districts are able to do to support teachers, particularly early in their careers. So far, our work has included a landscape scan of federal and state policies related to early career teacher support, background interviews with experienced educators and system leaders, a review of district documentation of teacher support policies, and a close look at the existing academic literature.
Authority over teacher support systems largely sits at the state and district levels, not the federal level. While the federal government plays an important enabling role, primarily through funding streams like Title II-A and competitive grants for teacher preparation, it does not mandate induction, mentoring, or professional learning requirements for new teachers. As a result, states vary widely in what they require, fund, and monitor when it comes to early-career teacher support, and this variation creates very different starting conditions for districts, even before local decisions come into play. For example, Virginia requires districts to provide first-year teachers with a formal one-year mentorship program and guarantees daily planning time during the school day, while Pennsylvania requires a two-year induction program tied to certification advancement but does not mandate any protected planning time or specify the structure of mentoring in the same way.
At the same time, recent instability in federal education funding has introduced real uncertainty for districts. Reductions, delays, or legal challenges affecting competitive grants and professional learning funds can have downstream effects on induction programs, mentoring roles, and coaching capacity. These shifts do not eliminate state or district responsibilities, but they can constrain what is feasible, especially in systems already operating with limited resources.
Within these constraints, districts often build robust and detailed systems on paper. Across the districts we’ve examined so far, teacher support is most commonly organized around induction and orientation, mentoring, professional learning, evaluation, and instructional coaching. Larger districts tend to document more differentiated supports for teachers entering through different pathways or at different times of year.
What is less clear, and what the next phases of the study are designed to explore, is how well these documented supports function as a coherent system across a teacher’s early career. We learned from background interviews that supporting teachers is a difficult balance; too few supports can result in low quality teaching, but too many supports can be overwhelming and incoherent for new teachers who are trying to grasp the basics while managing the same workload as their more experienced peers. We also learned that support involves many actors—typically including the staff from the central district office, school leaders, mentors, instructional coaches, and sometimes outside support programs—all while emphasizing the need for a cohesive learning pathway for teachers. This raises important questions about how systems are experienced in a teacher’s first few years of the profession and whether supports reinforce one another or operate in parallel (or even in competition).
Where the Project Is Going
Building on these early findings, the next phase of the project will focus on mapping teacher support systems and learning how teachers understand them. We are working toward a clearer picture of how different supports fit together over time, particularly for early-career teachers. This includes examining where systems are aligned, where gaps exist, and where educators experience overload or redundancy.
Ultimately, this project aims to offer practical guidance, not “unrealistic” research. By centering educator perspectives and documenting how systems operate in the real world, we hope to help districts, funders, and policymakers make more informed decisions about where to invest, what to prioritize, and how to strengthen teacher support in ways that are both evidence-informed and grounded in reality.
If research is going to improve practice, it has to start by taking practice seriously.
If you are interested in learning more or participating in this study, please email Dr. Kendall LaParo klaparo@researchforaction.org.