Breaking
the Vicious Cycle of Recruiting, Training, and then Losing Your Best Teachers
Dear
Colleagues,
Having spent another week consulting in a
very rural area of the country (and driving to work in 15 degree BELOW zero
weather), I continue to reflect on the connection between professional
development and teacher mentoring, and teacher recruitment and retention.
The “rubber hit the road” this week when the
building principal changed the focus of our next month’s training. . . moving
it from focusing on training the Behavior Intervention Specialists (that their
grant hired this year) to focus on the behavioral intervention gaps of the
classroom teachers.
While at face value this is a good decision,
the primary reason for the shift was that the principal was afraid that many of
the Behavioral Interventionists would take other jobs in other districts this
summer. Thus, she did not want to invest
time in training just the Behavior Intervention Specialists, only to have to
re-train new specialists next year.
Embedded in all of this, however, is the
fact that her classroom teachers did not receive the classroom management and
behavioral intervention training at the pre-service, university
training levels that they need to be successful in their respective classrooms. This is typical for most teachers across the
country (see recent article: CLICK HERE), who also are not
receiving the school-based professional development, mentoring, and
supervision in these areas during their first three years in the field or
when they accept a job in a new district (see the research of Dr. Richard
Ingersoll cited below).
Here is the “vicious cycle”- - where schools are “chasing their tails”. . .
* Virtually all schools nationwide now
require systematic teacher evaluations (many using some adaptation of the
Danielson model), where classroom management and effective instruction are
explicitly part of the observations, evaluations, and feedback.
* Many schools (see above) are identifying both
novice and “experienced” staff with significant classroom management and
effective instruction skill gaps that require remediation through professional
development and additional supervision.
* Between 25% to 45% of newly certified
teachers nationally are leaving the profession within five years, and many
schools routinely lose 10% to 20% of their total staff each year due to staff
relocations, retirements, leaving the profession, or becoming administrators.
* Finally, about 45% of the faculty turnovers
occur in about 25% of the nation’s schools- - schools that are
disproportionately located in high-poverty and/or urban areas.
[See articles supporting the data above
CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE.]
So. . . as my wise principal this week
deduced, one could legitimately ask,
“Is it actually cost- and time-effective to
engage in some areas of professional development- - knowing that some staff are
going to leave and my school will not benefit (and I will need to retrain the
new staff)? and
“How do I provide the professional
development and follow-up mentoring and supervision to directly address the
information and skill gaps of my classroom teachers- - who are doing the best
that they can, and don’t necessarily know what they don’t know?”
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Adding Fuel to the Vicious Cycle
Prompted by this week’s experience with my
principal and my recognition of the “vicious cycle,” I did a little research. One thing that I found was a recent focus on
the reasons why (new) teachers are leaving the profession. The
other was the incredible time, money, and student achievement impact.
Relative to the former, Dr. Richard Ingersoll
from the University of Pennsylvania has done extensive research over the past
20 years on why teachers leave the profession.
Below are the top nine reasons (see earlier link).
Add to this a Huffington Post article (CLICK HERE for post) citing the top five reasons for teacher turnover (in reverse order) as:
#5. Burn Out: Researchers think that extended hours are
wearing out educators- - which may increase their need for prep time (see above)
in order to teach their classes effectively, and which suggests that extending
the school day may be counter-productive when it increases the time that
students are in school and teachers have to directly teach
#4. The Threat of Lay-Offs: Whether due to the fact that (a) school
districts have less money and need to rift teachers, (b) state per pupil
expenditure money is down across the country resulting in the same (see figure
below), or (c) teachers are leaving the profession because of concerns that
they may be fired due to the teacher evaluation process
#2. Testing Pressure: Especially when the students’ state/national
proficiency score is the single criterion used to define school, teacher, and
student success; and teachers are evaluated- - in whole or in part- - on the
student results regardless of the students’ readiness, learning speed and
style, motivation, or need for remediation or additional services and supports
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Relative to the latter area, the same
Huffington Post article stated that the loss or movement of teachers across
schools costs districts $2.2 billion annually.
In 2007, the National Commission on Teacher and America’s Future
put this annual loss at over $7 billion per year. And then, we can add the financial loses
estimated for school principals ($163 million per year according to a 2014 School
Leaders Network publication), as well as district superintendents.
And yet, the real losers are the students
due to the “stops and starts” in their educational programs, and the
absence of needed academic and mental health services and supports (because, as
is often cited, there is no money).
Hence, another vicious cycle- - the cycle
where money that could be used to address the most critical needs of teachers
(at least as cited by those leaving the profession- - see above) is being used
to respond to the conditions that remain because they are leaving.
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Breaking the Vicious Cycle
At some point, we need to break this vicious
cycle, and stop “chasing our tails.” It
has got to start somewhere because “when you do the same old thing, you get the
same old results.”
But let’s recognize that, according to
Ingersoll’s research, most of the reasons why teachers are leaving the
profession or leaving their schools are contributory, NOT causal factors.
That is, to a large degree:
* Increasing teachers’ preparation and
collaboration time will not necessarily make them or their students more
successful.
Breaking the Cycle: We need to focus the time and sharing on demonstrable
student outcomes based on effective instructional objectives that
are linked to well-designed curricula that are functionally assessed
in the classroom relative to student learning, mastery, and application.
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* Increasing teachers’ faculty influence and
their opportunities for professional advancement will not necessarily make them
or their students more successful.
Breaking the Cycle: I am an absolute proponent for creating
shared leadership approaches in a school where there are functional committees
(see below) led by teachers and focused on annual activities that are
explicitly reflected in the School Improvement Plan and process:
* The Curriculum & Instruction Committee
* School Discipline Committee
* Professional Development/Teacher Support
Committee
* Community and Family Outreach Committee
* Multi-tiered Early Intervention Student
Services Team
* School Leadership Team
Moreover,
I believe that “professional advancement” is more than a formal teacher to
supervision to administrator pipeline.
Such advancement should include putting teachers into informal
leadership and mentorship positions- - for example, using them as collegial
consultants, coaches, mentors, and skill-specific experts.
BUT:
If the strategic planning, staff development, and teacher leadership
processes are not focused, once again, on classroom- and curriculum-based (and
not proficiency test dependent) student outcomes while simultaneously
supporting student needs, then we will not get to the root of what teachers
really want: self-determination,
the satisfaction that results when teachers feel they are making a
difference, and sustained success.
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* Decreasing teachers’ teaching load and
their class sizes will not necessarily make them or their students more
successful.
Breaking the Cycle: Clearly, if teachers have excessive teaching
loads and over-the-top class sizes, then these factors need to be
addressed. But, on the whole, the
research is very clear that decreases in these areas generally do not increase
teacher effectiveness or student success (in fact, such decreases may be
counterproductive).
One of the critical issues here is whether
there are too many different skill levels in a teacher’s classroom such
that effective and equitable differentiated instruction is impossible,
and the needed student services, supports, resources, and strategies are
unavailable or inapplicable.
In order to begin to break this cycle,
schools need to look at the academic and behavioral status of all their
students in later April or early May, and then group, program, staff,
resource, and schedule them (for the upcoming school year) based on
their needs. We have done this in
schools across the country. . . and this approach has never failed to refocus
these schools on student outcomes and increase students’ academic and social,
emotional, and behavioral interactions.
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* Decreasing students’ behavioral problems
and increasing parent support will not necessarily make teachers or their
students more successful.
Breaking the Cycle. While schools certainly need positive
parental involvement and minimal levels of student upsets, what they really
need are students who have learned, mastered, and are able to apply social,
emotional, and behavioral interactional and self-management skills.
When students demonstrate behavioral
problems, it is critical to determine why the problems are occurring so
that we can use the right instructional or intervention approaches to
solve the problem. But “the absence of a
problem does not represent the presence of a skill.” Thus, we need to complement the decrease or
elimination of the problem with the social, emotional, or behavioral skills
that will both (a) prevent the problem in the future, and (b) help the student
to be responsible for future self-monitoring, self-evaluating, and
self-correcting strategies.
Relative to parent support, we first need to
recognize- - not to be negative- - that
positive and active parent involvement does not guarantee that their
offspring are going to be academically and/or behaviorally successful. More pragmatically, at some point, students
need to learn to be responsible for themselves and accountable to a school’s
expectations (if, for example, they are to be “college and career ready”). If they learn and demonstrate these
attributes, they will be successful even though their parents may not be as
involved and supportive as we would like.
And in order for them to learn these skills,
we need to teach all students, from preschool through high school, the
interpersonal, social problem solving, conflict prevention and resolution, and
emotional coping skills that they need to be successful. This is what will help to break this
part of the vicious cycle. And this
is what the school-based research-to-practice has been saying for over 20 years.
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Summary
Having taught at two Research I institutions
for over 20 years, I can tell you that we can positively impact pre-service
training at the university level. . . but it will not be enough.
We need to provide professional development
that focuses on teachers’ (a) Knowledge and Understanding, (b) Classroom-based
Skill and Application, and (c) Confidence and Competence. Such professional development needs to be
different for (a) new teachers during their first three years in the
profession, (b) mid-career teachers during their next six years in the
profession, and (c) experienced teachers who are ready for
(informal/consultative or supervisor/administrative preparation) leadership or
specialization roles in their schools.
Relative to the vicious cycles that are
present in our schools, districts, and states:
we need to complete the functional analyses needed to decide where and
how to break one or more of these cycles.
The time is now !!! This may
involve “disruptive leadership”- - but let’s be honest, how many times in the
past decade have our (well-meaning) federal and state legislatures (or
departments of education) disrupted the educational process? At least this time, we are doing it to
ourselves while, hopefully, retaining our talented teachers, increasing their
preparation and success, decreasing and reinvesting our time and money, and
increasing student success. . . at real and meaningful levels.
Best,
Howie
