More Education Plays

Policymakers and educators nationwide are experimenting with innovative approaches to attract more highly qualified teachers to the classroom, such as alternative certification, recruiting bonuses, scholarships for prospective teachers, and other initiatives. A less recognized but equally important step to address this challenge, however, is to retain high-quality teachers once they are hired. About one-third of new teachers leave the profession during their first three years, and one-half within the first five. Further, those with the highest academic credentials are the most likely to leave teaching.

High attrition obviously increases the cost and difficulty of staffing schools with qualified professionals. But it can also undermine school cohesion and improvement efforts.

"Unquestionably, we need to do more to attract high quality teachers. While recruiting good candidates to become teachers is an important issue, retaining good teachers once they enter the field is equally important." -- Former Gov. Mark Warner, Virginia

Teachers leave the classroom for many reasons, including family and alternative career options. However, other factors are more amenable to policy solutions. Teacher attrition is highest early in teachers' careers in part because many new teachers work in the most challenging, least desirable positions, but do not receive the support and training they need to adjust to the demands of their new jobs. More experienced teachers may leave teaching because the relatively flat structure of most schools often offers them few opportunities for professional advancement (or higher salaries) without leaving the classroom.

Policymakers can help mitigate these problems in a variety of ways. Induction programs provide additional support and training to help new teachers adapt to and develop the skills they need to succeed in the classroom. While such programs can vary greatly to meet the needs of individual teachers and local areas, effective induction typically lasts at least one full year and includes an intensive mentorship with a successful veteran teacher, reduced workload for new teachers, access to additional resources and supports outside the classroom, and an evaluation process to link induction programs to teacher and student results. For example, California's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) Program, enacted in 1997, provides technical assistance and state funding for local school districts to design their own programs based on state standards. By 2007, 26 percent of male teachers and 74 percent of female teachers were working with BTSA. Connecticut's Beginner Educator Support and Training (BEST) Program is a two- to three-year induction program in which new teachers receive support from a mentor or school support team and access to online state professional development in their content area. At the end of two years, new teachers must submit a portfolio demonstrating that they have mastered core knowledge and skills.

Another unique induction program at the MATCH public charter school in Boston, Mass., allows recent college graduates interested in teaching to work full time as one-on-one tutors, enabling them to develop experience in how children learn before they have to handle classroom management challenges.

In addition, policymakers can help retain and improve teacher quality through high-quality support and mentoring programs which are cost effective because they are typically far less expensive than replacing a teacher. In California, for example, new teachers that participated in a mentoring program had a 9 percent attrition rate over five years as compared to the 37 percent attrition rate of teachers that did not participate.

One groundbreaking initiative is the Toledo Plan, created by the Toledo Public Schools and the Toledo Federation of Teachers. Under this program, every new teacher ("intern") in the district is paired with a highly skilled teacher ("consultant"), who mentors the intern teacher during the first three years of teaching. Consultant teachers also advise on whether to extend interns' contracts, and counsel ill-suited interns out of the profession. As a result, Toledo hopes to screen out poor teachers before they receive tenure and become more difficult to remove. In addition, principals' or teachers' committees can recommend poorly performing tenured teachers for intervention. Teachers receiving intervention are also matched with consultant teachers for the same support and counseling provided to intern teachers. If intervention teachers fail to improve, consultant teachers can recommend removal. Since the program's establishment, some 300 teachers, including nearly 50 tenured teachers, have been removed from the Toledo schools for poor performance, and no removal decisions have been challenged by the union. In December 2001, the Toledo Plan received the prestigious Innovation in American Government award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

A similar program on which state and local policymakers can model future plans is California's Peer Assistance and Review Program, initiated by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 to give new and struggling teachers the opportunity to gain needed skills through training and mentoring. The "consultant teachers," receive bonuses for imparting their experience and skills to teachers they mentor.

Finally, policymakers can also help districts retain experienced teachers by providing opportunities for them to grow in their careers and take on additional leadership roles and responsibilities, with commensurate increases in pay. For example, many states and school districts provide salary bonuses to teachers who mentor other teachers. Another way to expand opportunities for experienced teachers is to deploy them on teams of turnaround specialists, working in or with teachers in low-performing schools to help them implement school improvement strategies. In this way, policymakers can simultaneously leverage the skills of successful teachers to benefit more students and allow them to test new roles without requiring them to leave the classroom. In 2003, then-Virginia Gov. Mark Warner proposed a turnaround specialist initiative to bring teachers and principals who have had success in this area to work to turn around low-performing schools.

Competitive pay initiatives that reward teachers for performance, knowledge and skills, or taking on challenging placements, can also help improve teacher retention by enabling high-performing teachers or those who take on extra responsibilities to earn higher salaries more on par with those in other professions (see the "Teacher Pay Play"). In addition, communities can help retain teachers in neighborhoods with hard-to-staff schools by providing them low-cost home loans, mortgage assistance, and other programs that encourage teachers to buy homes where they work, allowing them to develop community ties and relationships that keep them in the neighborhood (see the "Teacher Home Loans Play"). By improving induction for new teachers, providing mentoring opportunities, and creating additional career opportunities for experienced teachers, policymakers can keep more high-quality individuals in the classroom and raise teacher quality.

Resources For Action

Virginia's Teacher Support and Retention Initiative
www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Instruction/OCP/teacherretention.html

California's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program
www.btsa.ca.gov/default.html

The Toledo Plan, Toledo Federation of Teachers
www.tft250.org/

California Assembly Bill 1X, 1999
www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/99-00/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ abx1_1_bill_19990406_chaptered.html

California Peer Assistance and Review Program
www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/ca/par.asp

Teacher Union Reform Network
www.turnexchange.net

Additional Reading

Connecticut's Beginning Educator Support and Training Program
www.state.ct.us/sde/dtl/t-a/

Andrew J. Rotherham, "Opportunity and Responsibility for National Board Certified Teachers," Progressive Policy Institute, March 2004
www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentid=252498
&knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=135

"No Dream Denied," National Council on Teaching and America's Future, January 2003
http://www.nctaf.org/documents/no-dream-denied_full-report.pdf

Theresa Clarke, Exploring Teacher Peer Review, National Governors Association, January 2000
www.nga.org/Files/pdf/000125PEERREVIEW.pdf

Innovation in American Government Program
www.innovations.harvard.edu/awards.html?id=3699

Contacts

Dr. Bryan Hassel
Director
Public Impact
504 Dogwood Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
(919) 967-5102
bryan_hassel@publicimpact.com

Mr. Michael Goldstein
Co-founder and CEO
MATCH Public Charter School
1001 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
(617) 232-0300
(617) 232-2838
mgoldstein@matchschool.org

Mrs. Janice Kilbride
Chief Academic Officer
Toledo Public Schools
420 East Manhattan Boulevard
Toledo, OH 43608
(419) 729-8422
(419) 729-8436 (fax)
Janice.Kilbride@tps.org

Mr. Rafael Heller
Alliance for Excellent Education
1201 Connecticut Ave, NW
Suite 901
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 828-0828
rheller@all4ed.org

Andrew Rotherham
Co-Founder and Co-Director
Education Sector
1201 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 850
Washington, DC 20036
(434) 973-2173
arotherham@educationsector.org