Abstract
Recruiting locally connected individuals has gained policy attention under recent “Grow-Your-Own” initiatives, yet evidence linking teacher localness to student achievement and retention is limited. Using statewide Maryland data on teachers’ high school enrollment, postsecondary training, prior school employment, and certification, we examine three dimensions of localness: growing up locally, engaging in local teacher training, and working locally before teaching (e.g., as an instructional assistant). Value-added models with student fixed effects show that certification and licensure pathway, not localness itself, is the strongest predictor of early-career effectiveness. Teachers with formal university-based preparation in Maryland outperform young conditionally certified teachers in math by 0.06 standard deviations—even though conditionally certified teachers are the most likely of any certification group to have grown up in-state. Local upbringing is only modestly and imprecisely associated with achievement gains, while local school teacher-preparation pathways show positive effects comparable to university-based preparation. Former aides, who have strong local ties and are more racially/ethnically diverse than other novices, perform similarly to peers. Retention analyses show a different pattern: local upbringing and local training most strongly predict remaining in the same school or district. Local recruitment complements, but does not substitute for, high-quality preparation.
Citation
Dominguez-Mel, N., Morris, W. T., Montana, S., & Blazar, D. (2026). Teacher Localness, Early-Career Effectiveness, and Retention. (EdWorkingPaper: 26-1501). Retrieved from Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/aks6-3197
