Katy Farber's "Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus" addresses an enormous problem of turnover in our current education system. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, one in three teachers quit after three years in the classroom, and 50 percent quit within the first 5 years. While it certainly may be the case that we are happy to see some of these folks go, we are also losing some great instructors due to a system that is clearly not doing enough to retain promise and cultivate potential.
I had the opportunity to interview Katy, a Vermont teacher and author of a book whose clarion call for change offers practical and inspiring solutions to this issue. Here, she discusses her views on reforming our education system so that we can retain our outstanding teachers and nurture a new generation of lifelong leaders and master educators.
Pam Allyn (P): In an ideal world, once reading your book many schools would be inspired and empowered to implement your suggested reforms to retain their great teachers. However, this does not always happen. What do you think is one of the most common, first issues that they should address in what would probably be a wave of reforms?
Katy Farber (K): Schools should begin by providing full and comprehensive mentoring programs for new teachers and principals in all schools. According to the National Commission on Teacher and America's future, comprehensive mentoring programs yield significant gains in reducing the attrition of beginning teachers, improving teacher quality, and boosting student achievement. We need universal standards of best practice in mentoring programs and insist that schools fully develop and fund these programs.
P: There is an ongoing great debate on how to address the problem of "bad" teachers. You mention, in several instances, that anyone can see that Abby, and several other teachers in your book, are great ones. Do you think it is possible to write down the characteristics of a great teacher so that they are quantifiable and easily identifiable? If so, is it then possible to identify "bad" teachers as well?
K: Great teachers have a love of children, a love of learning, constant motivation and effort to improve their practice, flexibility, kindness, humor and grace. As for bad teachers, we know those traits, for the most part, as well: late, careless, disorganized, demeaning, unable to connect with children, unmotivated to improve -- the list goes on. How many of those teachers, however, missed the opportunity to become successful? In my view, we need to be looking at how to best support teachers from the moment they are hired so more of them can become great and stay in teaching for an entire career.
P: You address the different roles and paths of many different groups of people -- administrators, school boards, parents, and students. The school system itself is a great web of interlocked individuals that are extremely influential on the others. However, do you think each group has the same opportunities, autonomy, and power to enact change? Do you think one particular group should be leading this movement and do you think change is possible if spearheaded by one group alone?
K: Teachers are busy teaching and rarely have time to lead, advocate and provide feedback. This must change. Teachers can no longer shut the door and teach in isolation while their profession erodes. In fact, teachers named "lack of faculty influence" as a top three reason for quitting teaching. The folks who are often powerless to make system changes are the ones with the most contact with children, the most teaching experience, and the ones most able to change their practice -- teachers.
P: You wrote that many new teachers and administrators have suffered because they did not have mentors and were placed in situations entirely alien to them, their teaching education, and experience. Did you have a particular mentor that helped you through the difficulties of teaching, and how did that experience shape you and your views on how mentoring can benefit teachers and administrators?
K: Oh, how lucky I was. There was no mentoring program in my school when I started teaching, back in 1999. Luckily, my grade level colleague, Marilyn Wallace, was a 25-year veteran. She worked tirelessly and modeled commitment, excellence, resilience and joy in teaching. Marilyn was my unofficial mentor. I think back now on how annoying it must have been for her, to have me asking a million questions about everything. She never showed any irritation, only patience and kindness. The administration changed each year at my first school, but I felt I had consistency, support and structure, because Marilyn was there. I had no idea that her essence of positivity, obligation to fellow teachers, and constant love of learning would carry with me all these years. Had I experienced the deep piles of trash and papers strewn on every surface in my new classroom, or the first angry letter from a parent, or my first fight on the playground without her, I am not sure I would still be teaching. I was a lucky one, but it doesn't have to be luck anymore. This is a choice and a change we can make.
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On average, teachers are losing between 25/30/40/50% or more of what should be teaching time to managing disruptive, unruly, and unfocused students. A 30% average loss is the same as 60 DAYS out of our typical school year. Imagine any other job where you were trying to get things done, yet "outside forces" were bleeding off 30% of your work time? Heck, it wouldn't matter WHAT you paid me -- I'd leave. And that's what's happening in many places.
I recently released a research paper outlining exactly this situation. You're welcome to review it and draw your own conclusions: http://socialsmarts.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/just-released-research-paper-on-how-to-achieve-more-in-education-even-with-less/ While the numbers were specifically run for the State of Washington, they extend very easily to all states in this country. Hundreds of folks have downloaded it so far and I also travel the country sharing this data in my presentation "Overcoming Failure to Educate." So far, no one has any argument with the data or the conclusions. I welcome your feedback.
- Corinne Gregory
www.corinnegregory.com
Isn't that the type of person we want to keep?
1. Respect...there isn't any. You work hard, give yourself to a tough job and you are berated for it. Administrators (think managers), with little or no classroom experience or understanding of your teaching area (say English, Math, History, etc) come and judge what you are doing for 5 or 10 minutes then leave or are supposed to be in your classroom for the full period (45 to 60 minutes) twice a year leave after 15; time between classes is spent standing guard in the hall way without an administrator in sight guarding against "bad" behavior; no choice in what students are in your class or in the curriculum you are required to teach; no acknowledgement of positive outcomes but blame for negative.
2. Treatment: spoken down to by administrators; useless meetings that have nothing to do with education or your area of education; time control like 5 periods without a break of any kind.
3. Lack of support: no supplies; spending your own money; forced to decorate according to someone's dictates; any top down dictates; paperwork that is never looked at, used or even correlated to outcomes; red tape; attacking parents with no administrative support.
I have had all these things happen to me. Looking at them, why am I in education?
1. Teaching is a prestige occupation and pays well, better than in the USA.
2. Teachers are carefully prepared and mentored over a period of several years, and in some cases they are paid stipends to train to become teachers so there is no rush.
3. Teachers do not actually TEACH as many hours per day we American teachers are required to do, leaving them time to perform functions that are absolutely necessary to good teaching: planning, grading papers, consulting with students, consulting with colleagues, observing colleagues...
In the U.S. teachers teach for what amounts to a pretty long day (I know, it seems short if you have an 8 hour workday and it is difficult to appreciate why teaching is not feasible for 8 hours per day, for starters because teaching requires undivided attention, indeed, multitasking and splitting attention every second of the workday. You must be aware of everything that is going on while you teach. You cannot turn your back, you cannot let down your guard, you cannot day dream and rejuvenate yourself for a short period, you are perpetually ON).
There are numerous additional issues that detract from the appeal of teaching as a career that won't be treated at this time due to space.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy many aspects of teaching- forming relationships, making a difference, seeing students make connections, etc.- but I count down the days towards the end of the year just as my students do.
Why? 1) No faculty influence or control. 2) A public that refuses to take responsibility for the children it produces. 3) A lack of pay. 4) A lack of respect.
Adios amigos.
And then I realized I would start at the same salary as a teacher with a 2.5 GPA from Podunk University.
So I instead went to graduate school. Today I teach remedial reading and writing to college students. The ones taught by Ms.2.5 from Podunk U. Go figure.
1. Teachers can leave for reasons other than they giving up. For example if a contract isn't renewed, a teacher leaves for a reason outside their decision.
2. Teachers can and do move geographically. When they leave one area, it is counted as a loss. But if they start again elsewhere, is that a net loss?
3. Teachers can and do move schools within an area. Is that a loss?
4. Teachers can leave the profession temporarily for family and other issues. Is that a loss?
5. It is impossible to keep 100% of the teachers.
6. Even if it was possible to keep 100% of teachers, there are some teachers who you would not want to stay in the profession.
7. What is the level of teachers leaving the profession that is acceptable? There are school districts laying off teachers. So, there is obviously more teachers than the school boards and funding authorities think is necessary.
There are just a lot of questions that are not easily summarized with such data. We need to understand more before making broad generalizations. I think the issue is probably more nuanced. There are probably local issues of teacher shortages, teacher abundance, and teacher balance. These probably vary dramatically from school district to school district, and have more to do with the individual school district that geography. That is my guess.
Now, we could go back and forth all day about whether it's the responsibility of our society to give teachers enough support to make it a more attractive job, so as to minimize that turnover. But given that very high rate of teachers leaving the profession, I think it's pretty obvious that it's not the cakewalk most people paint it as.
One, teaching is not easy. It should never be painted as anything other than a difficult job for those with dedication to the profession. I know I could never do it. I have too many friends in it, and I have heard their stories. It is not for me, and I deeply respect the professional craft they bring to school/work with them everyday.
Two, the teaching profession is unusual in its advancement structure. Most corporate professions have people moving up the ladder into supervisory, management, and even other positions as part of the normal course of career progression. Teaching is typically a solitary craft with a singular job ... teaching. If you move your career, you move out of the profession of teaching.
Three, we still do not have a line on the 50%. Is this high? low? about right? What is the composition of the number? Do we really have good measures, or are there some estimates going on? I have read several reports, and it is not as crystal clear as some make it out to be.