Back in March, noted education historian Diane Ravitch penned a blog for Education Week called “Why Are Teachers So Upset?” Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, is the author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” and was assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration. She knows of what she speaks.
Her blog cited a MetLife study stating that teacher job satisfaction was the lowest it has been in 20 years. In three years, it went from 59 percent to 44 percent while the percentage of teachers likely to leave the profession climbed from 17 percent to 29 percent.
Ravitch contends that job satisfaction is directly tied to feeling that the profession is respected by the community. This calls to mind a story in Tuesday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the School District of New Berlin. The district is in danger of losing up to a third of its teachers. A total of 50 out of 314, more than 15 percent, have resigned or retired already this year.
Salaries and benefits are not the main reasons behind the departures. The paper spoke with more than a dozen employees and wrote that the concerns of most have little to do with paying more for retirement or benefits.
“The resentment appears to stem from feelings that their input doesn't matter, that the administration doesn't communicate well with them, that they aren't supported or appreciated by people in the district, and that changes meant to be good for kids are poorly executed and fail to improve teaching.”
The fact is, the teachers quitting the profession are often the very best we have. That is something that should concern everyone. We all want our children to have the very best education possible. High teacher turnover comes with serious consequences.
For starters, studies show that teachers are at their best after seven years in a classroom. With nearly half quitting before their fifth year, there is a serious lack of experienced educators.
Fiscal conservatives take note: all the turnover is extremely expensive. The Alliance for Excellent Education says that schools and districts nationwide spend about $2.2 billion per year recruiting and training replacements.
A major recent study provides more reasons for concern. Entitled “How Teacher Turnover Hurts Student Achievement,” it was conducted by researchers Susanna Loeb of Stanford University, Matthew Ronfeldt of the University of Michigan, and Jim Wyckoff of the University of Virginia.
Mark Simon, an education policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, summarized the findings in the Washington Post. “Turnover affects morale and the professional culture at a school. It weakens the knowledge base of the staff about students and the community. It weakens collegiality, professional support and trust that teachers depend on in their efforts to improve achievement.”
As the debate over education reform continues in Wisconsin, do not lose sight of the fact that schools across the state are losing high-quality teachers, teachers that very are difficult to replace. As the situation in New Berlin proves, it can happen anywhere.
I do not have the ability to force other people's children to learn like immigrants. I do understand their motivation though. More money has not improved education this far, how much more will do the trick? "No one complains when Rock concert, athletic, or movie tickets go up in price.", what planet are you from? Everyone I know complains, some still go, but they complain.
Walker's other policies , goals: fail
Public schools are local - the Pentagon is federal. There is a difference. Anyone with an ax to grind should be able to walk into a meeting and make themselves heard. People do have the right to assemble and can walk around in the street in front of the White House waving a sign telling everyone they want us out of Afghanistan. I bet there is even a way to get a hearing with officials in Washington if you take the time and are respectful. You have hit the nail on the head about the public schools not being able to be everything for everyone. One suggestion I had was that control over the schools in RUSD be given over more to the principal and teachers. Each school should be able to run themselves the best way they see fit - that would allow different schools with different needs to operate in the most efficient and effective manner. However, the very nature of the public school system right now prevents differentiation. A shift away from that would take a systemic change.
Really?
There are probably some hard choices ahead of us and unfortunately it will include personal responsibility. Maybe we can not save every student. Some may have to be tossed to the street, they may need to be allowed to fail in life. We may need to stop supporting any able bodied people that do not want to support themselves. You want to eat, you have to get a job. you want a job, you have to stay in school. A safety net should no longer be a way of life. This does not just apply to the under privileged, a punk in the suburbs should also thrown out and left to fend for himself. We have to get past the idea of life needs to be fair and start promoting individual responsibility.
What level of teacher compensation would you like to see? Give us a number. Remember the average compensation for an MPS teacher is over $100,000/year.
Koch: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers. Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that —because we thought about that. The problem—the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this… My only fear would be if there’s a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems…
You sound like the high school girl that doesn't get the lead in the play, so she goes home and cries to her mother "everybody HATES meee", mother comforts her and tells her she should have gotten the lead. The next week upon getting a C on her math test, she goes home and cries to her mother "everybody HATES meee", mother rolls her eyes and tells her daughter that nobody hates her. Soon the girl is not invited to a slumber party, she runs and cries to her mother "everybody HATES meee", the mother looks hard at her daughter and starts to realize why everybody hates her.
According to your logic the teachers we need are called something else: babysitters - they are cheap and work when needed. Sounds like the new landscape of public education to me. What are we waiting for? Think of all the money we could save.