Chapter 1: Situating Teacher Induction in the Urban Teaching Context: A Journey Through New Terrain as Novice Teachers’ Share Stories of Finding Their Way

The chapters in this book characterize urban teaching environments in which beginning teachers start to teach. In the United States, 50% of neophyte teachers leave their positions in five years or less. In the Greater Houston area, which is home to 26 versions of teacher education programs, mostly offered by alternate providers, 50% of those beginning to teach abandon the profession by their fourth year of service. In a very large Houston area school district, 80% of its teaching staff have five years or less of experience, and 50% of its principals have five years or less of experience. Within this rapidly shifting urban milieu, what happens in the first five years in the profession—the induction years—is vitally important to teacher retention. Teacher attrition is highest among secondary teachers, particularly those teaching English as a second language, special education, and the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines. This volume unpacks the induction experiences of metropolitan beginning teachers in all subject areas, drawing to the forefront for discussion phenomena that inextricably link teacher induction, attrition, and retention, creating the U.S. urban education crisis that is known throughout the world.