Teresa Lundgren is a Senior Policy Analyst at ExcelinEd.
This Teacher Appreciation Week, I want to take the opportunity to reflect on the role mentor teachers play in shaping the future of education. When I was a student teacher, I had the great privilege of working under a high school art teacher named Dave Nichols.
His students consistently won awards, earned high IB and AP scores, worked hard and respected him. As my mentor, Dave showed me how to do the same. His mentorship made me a stronger teacher. Because I had a great mentor, I learned how to balance direct teaching while supporting student voice, choice and experimentation. I feel confident saying I would not have been as competent as a first-year teacher without Dave Nichols’ mentorship.
This is true for many teachers who have great mentors. Teacher quality, which greatly impacts student success, often improves rapidly in the first few years of teaching. A strong mentor can fast-track that growth. In fact, student teachers with excellent mentors can match the effectiveness of third-year teachers in their very first year. And the impact lasts: one study found that 92% of first-year teachers with mentors return for a second year. Mentorships also create leadership pathways that keep the best teachers in the classroom.
Every teacher deserves a mentor like Dave Nichols, and every student deserves a teacher who had one. ExcelinEd helps states create policies that make that possible. Policies like the Advanced Teaching Incentive Program identify top teachers, pay them to mentor others and incentivize them to go where they are most needed. Through smart policy, states can show real appreciation for teachers and their work.
Mentor teachers help bridge the gap between teacher preparation programs and real classrooms. They provide guidance, feedback and support to their mentees so they can be effective earlier in their careers. Research shows that quality mentoring, that is ongoing and embedded in the regular school day, improves school culture, builds trust among staff, and supports students.
Being a mentor teacher also gives effective educators a meaningful way to advance their careers without leaving the classroom. By taking on more responsibilities, mentor teachers share their expertise, reach more students, have a greater impact and lighten the load for school administrators. In a field with high stress and burnout, mentorship can prevent early pitfalls, retain top talent and strengthen the whole school.
Teacher retention remains a pressing challenge in education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 17% of teachers leave the profession in their first five years of teaching, but mentorship can make a big impact. Nearly 30% of teachers without a mentor left by year five, compared to just 14% of those with a mentor. This kind of turnover is costly and disrupts student learning, especially in high-need districts where they are less likely to have access to high-quality mentorship programs and fewer teacher applicants to fill openings.
Mentorship doesn’t just help retention; it boosts teacher quality. Studies consistently show that students taught by teachers who participated in some sort of mentoring or induction program had higher academic achievement. As mentor teachers help novice teachers refine their skills, they indirectly enhance the educational experiences of the students those teachers serve. When mentors guide teachers, students benefit. These impacts fuel each other. When new teachers feel supported and capable, they’re more likely to stay and grow in the profession. This creates a positive feedback loop: teachers improve, students thrive, teachers stay and schools strengthen.
Unfortunately, not all teachers receive direct mentorship when they are entering the profession, and not all teachers who do have mentors have ones who are truly excellent. While 31 states require new teachers to have a mentor in their first year, there’s often little guidance on how mentors should be selected. If selection processes exist for mentor teachers, they are often based just on being certified and the number of years in the classroom. Instead, mentors should be chosen based on student outcomes because better mentor teachers lead to better novice teachers.
Of course, mentoring is a big responsibility, and teachers need the right support and recognition to do it well. Mentor teachers should receive initial and ongoing professional development, extra pay, and lighter workloads so they have the time and tools to truly support their peers. States can support this work by codifying and funding these best practices. State agencies can create standards for mentor selection, training, and evaluation and set clear expectations for mentoring roles and time commitments.
ExcelinEd’s Advanced Teaching Incentives (ATI) program taps into the expertise of high-performing teachers to expand quality mentoring opportunities. ATI creates a system of tiered licensure designations that identify top teachers and qualify them for advanced roles such as coaching, mentoring or leading teams while keeping them a teacher. Advanced teachers earn extra pay for these roles and receive added incentives to teach in high-need schools, helping place the most effective educators where they’re needed most.
The three-tiered licensure system means there is continuous training, mentorship and professional growth opportunities for all teachers along their professional journey—not just those at the beginning of their careers. Advanced teachers gain leadership experience and higher pay without leaving the classroom. As they progress through the tiers, they take on more responsibility, coaching peers and leading teams, while new and developing teachers benefit from targeted, high-quality support. Ultimately, ATI strengthens instruction across schools, improving teacher effectiveness and student outcomes.
Mentors are an essential component of other teacher policies that ExcelinEd champions, such as registered Teacher Apprenticeships and Adjunct Teachers. Because mentorship is critical to a new teacher’s success, every route into the profession should guarantee access to strong, experienced mentors. Without it, we risk losing talent before it has a chance to grow.
Since it was passed in 2001, the Iowa Mentorship and Induction program has been a standard bearer for other states. All new teachers receive a mentor their first two years in the classroom and must complete the induction program to advance their certification. The state also provides each district with funding to pay mentor teachers and cover administrative costs. Mentor teachers must be selected by and receive mentorship training from their district, adding further levels of support for future success.
North Carolina expands on traditional mentoring through its Advanced Teaching Roles (ATR) model. ATR elevates effective teachers (identified by advanced certification, evaluations, or evidence of student growth) to leadership positions in which they receive substantial, ongoing increased pay for assuming additional responsibilities such as teaching more students, mentoring teachers or providing professional development to teams of teachers. Based on the success of this program, North Carolina recently proposed pairing ATR with registered teacher apprenticeships, which would provide the supports to give on-the-job training to prospective teachers with highly qualified mentor teachers. We are excited to celebrate the future teachers this could produce—and future efforts in other states modeled after the work done in North Carolina.
Teacher Appreciation Week is an opportunity to celebrate the hard work and dedication of educators across the country, including the mentors who help shape them. Mentor teachers, like Dave Nichols, play a vital role in developing successful educators and making the profession more sustainable. By investing in high-quality mentorship, we can build a system that demonstrates our appreciation for great teaching and enhances the educational experiences of our students.
