TY  - RPRT
TI  - Transitioning Teacher Talent: An Ethnoracial Descriptive Portrait of the Paraprofessional-to-Teacher Pipeline in New York City Public Schools
AU  - Rodriguez, Luis A.
AU  - Wu, Xinghua Toby
AU  - Myers, Emily
PY  - 2026
T3  - EdWorkingPaper
M1  - 26-1388
PB  - Annenberg Institute at Brown University
DO  - 10.26300/511n-s861
UR  - https://edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1388
AB  - Districts nationwide seek to diversify the educator workforce, yet pathways for paraprofessionals—typically more ethnoracially and linguistically diverse than the general teacher pipeline—remain understudied. Using administrative data from New York City Public Schools (NYCPS), this study examines paraprofessionals’ demographic, transition, and exit patterns. Between 2016–17 and 2023–24, the paraprofessional workforce grew substantially, and more new teachers had prior paraprofessional experience. Those advancing to teaching were more ethnoracially diverse and less likely to leave teaching in NYCPS compared to other teachers, especially when teaching in the same school that they served as a paraprofessional. Findings underscore the need for targeted support to strengthen both the retention of paraprofessionals and their success as classroom teachers when transitioning to new school environments.
ER  -