Building and sustaining a quality STEM teacher workforce: Access to instructional leadership and the interruptions of educator turnover

Policymakers have focused on improving STEM outcomes for US high school students for over 50 years. Much of this focus has centered on improving the quality of STEM teachers, particularly in poor and minority schools. Few, if any, of these efforts have considered the importance of the content knowledge of those providing instructional leadership in schools - namely, principals and assistant principals. This chapter examines the percentage of school leaders with teacher certification in mathematics or science and the degree to which teacher and school leader turnover interrupts the leadership-Teacher relationships. The study concludes relatively few school leaders have the content knowledge to provide deep instructional leadership. Moreover, the study finds combined teacher and school leader turnover greatly diminishes the sustained relationships between instructional leaders and teachers, particularly in lower-performing schools.