Keeping Teachers
Posted by Tom on November 7th, 2005There is, I believe, consensus among the education community that the most important influence on student performance is teacher quality. It would be difficult to find a parent who wouldn’t want the best and brightest teachers in their children’s classrooms. We have some amazing educators in Utah, but we don’t have enough of them. The State Office of Education expects an unmet need of 1,200 teachers per year over the next 10 years.
It’s not as simple as increasing our supply of teachers, although we need to do that as well. We have a significant number of teachers leaving the system. A draft report on educator quality from the Educator Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) states:
Teacher attrition rates exceed 11%, and Utah loses 1/3 of its new teachers within their first three years of their experience, matching national trends… Utah loses approximately half of the teachers entering the profession within the first five years.
The report cites feelings of isolation and lack of administrative support for new teachers. Mentor programs need to be developed to improve retention. Salary has to come into play; it’s almost the elephant in the living room. But rather than simply suggest across the board raises, the committee recommends signing bonuses for hard to place programs or schools, incentives for additional training, and bonuses for demonstrable gains in student achievement. All are valuable suggestions. If every suggestion in the report were implemented properly, there would not be unmet demand for capable teachers.
All of these programs cost money, but the return for each dollar spent would, I believe, be more significant than simply giving teachers raises they dearly need. If we can properly support our newest teachers to keep them excited about the profession, and provide more valuable training for administrators, we can realize measurable gains in student achievement.
At a conference of the National Association of State Boards of Education, William Sanders presented a statistical analysis of the effect of teachers in the classroom. He concluded:
Teacher effectiveness dominates student performance—even more so in high school than in elementary. Also, the difference in teacher effect is greater than the effects you get with changing class size. In addition, teacher effects are cumulative and additive—having three excellent teachers in a row can more than double the chance that students will achieve proficiency.
Mentor programs can’t do anything about lack of administrative support. When I work in an office, there is a photocopier close by, often with people tasked to make the copies quickly and efficiently for me. When I teach in a public school, the photocopier is five minutes’ walk away, it’s often broken, and use of paper is discouraged. So, when my principal asks why I don’t give daily quizzes I explain. He tells me to “work around it.”
When I worked at an airline, a Big 6 accounting firm, and a major telecommunications corporation, we had carefully targeted courses on new software use, designed for quick delivery as we needed it. Performance reviews included a discussion of what courses I might take to improve specific proficiencies in my area of specialty (law, management, real estate). In education, I get two-hour extensions on faculty meetings with people leading the sessions who know less about the software than I do, who have never really used it professionally. I get complaints about the difficulty of getting a substitute if I try to take a day for “required” continuing ed credits in my specialty (law, history, economics). At the university where I teach, I get access to a decent library and encouragement to publish and speak to outside organizations. In the public schools, I get warnings that I don’t appear “dedicated” to the school.”
I see administrators with Ed.D. degrees who don’t have a clue how to read a spreadsheet or figure a bottom line. We could use some MBA skills among the muck-a-mucks, or some chicken-stealing skills. I pray for an administrator who will cut through the red tape and get me the resources to deliver content — and when I get her, her adminstrators complain she hasn’t filled out the paperwork exactly correctly (never mind the 95% pass rate on the state exams . . .).
Howard Dean was a public school teacher before he became a physician. He got a standing ovation from teachers on his presidential run; he told them he had enormous respect, and he knew he could not be a teacher today because his bladder is not big enough. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires a couple of sizable breaks in a day other than lunch. In school, I’m expected to stand up in front of an audience and perform for a five- or six-hour stretch without a break.
I don’t want a mentor to bring me a catheter. I want an administrator who understands scheduling and human needs. I want an administrator who thinks books are necessary for kids to learn, not one who thinks books are “assets” to be protected from the kids (hence the triplicate check-out forms and bi-monthly book inspections).
And, just once, could I get the textbook a month in advance to prepare lesson plans? My administrators hold me accountable for lesson plans from day 1 — but we didn’t get the textbooks until day 3. The teacher’s edition was weeks away. All a mentor can do is commiserate . . .
Left by Ed Darrell on August 1st, 2006