Through observations taken twice each year, the MSU researchers found that the mentoring program had positive results. Their findings will be published in the March-April edition of the Journal of Teacher Education.

Randi Stanulis, an associate professor of education and director of the program, said nationwide surveys have shown that early in their careers, teachers often quit because they don’t feel supported by colleagues and bosses.

“A lot of people who are really high achievers are the kind of people who leave and those are the people we can’t afford to have leave,” she said. “Most teachers are white, middle class who haven’t taught kids in high-poverty contexts. Without any kind of support to learn how to teach kids in those kinds of contexts, the teachers feel like failures and then they leave.”

Mentors in the program were required to leave their teaching duties and focus on the first-year teachers they were advising. Using an observation test with 133 different indicators, Stanulis observed teachers at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year. A group of beginning teachers with no mentors were used as a control group on which to base the observations.

“In both years, the beginning teachers in our induction program made bigger gains in their teaching effectiveness over the year,” Stanulis said. “It shows that when we do have a specific intervention, that it can improve teaching.”

Patti Seidel, a mentoring teacher in the program, said the two years she spent mentoring were rewarding for mentees and her.

“It allowed me to reflect on my own practice as a veteran teacher and to help beginning teachers find their own voice, if you will, regarding their practice,” Seidel said.

The program was successful in its two years in Lansing, but it was discontinued because of economic restrictions. Because of the recession, few first-year teachers are being hired in Michigan, said Robert Floden, associate dean for research in MSU’s College of Education.

“The challenge that we’ve had in Michigan is in the current economy; there aren’t a lot of new teachers being hired,” Floden said. “It’s just not the right time to work with new teachers in Michigan.”

Although the program isn’t being used in Michigan, it is being used in Atlanta during the current school year. Because Stanulis needed a bigger research pool, she implemented the program in the Fulton School District in Georgia in July 2008. In Fulton, 1,000 first-year teachers are hired every year.

As part of this study, Stanulis will focus not only on teacher performance, but student performance as well.

“Things seem to be going really well. We’re hoping to see some big growth,” she said.