“The TAM program does seem to be building interest in the profession and long-term career decisions,” said David Blazar, an associate professor of education policy at the University of Maryland, College Park and a co-author of the study.
Nearly all school districts in the state now offer teacher pathways, but they adopted the program over time beginning in 2004. For the study, Blazar and his colleagues used the state’s staggered rollout to understand their effects. The researchers compared data—including on coursetaking, graduation rates, and career choice—for more than 225,000 students who started high school between the 2008–09 and 2012–13 school years. They collected the data from schools both before and after they adopted the academies, and to a comparison group of students in schools that had not yet implemented the academies.