The Irreplaceables: Study says schools losing top teachers
I listened to a panel a few weeks ago on whether schools were aware of and keeping their top teachers. I have not had a chance to write up the findings but will soon. In the meantime, here is a new report from The New Teacher Project that addresses the same issue: Whether schools are doing enough to keep their best teachers.
A new study finds that urban schools are systematically neglecting their best teachers, losing tens of thousands every year even as they keep many of their lowest-performing teachers indefinitely—with disastrous consequences for students, schools, and the teaching profession.
The study by TNTP, a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that all students get excellent teachers, documents the real teacher retention crisis in America’s schools: not only a failure to retain enough teachers, but a failure to retain the right teachers.
“The Irreplaceables,” released at an event featuring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, NEA Secretary-Treasurer Rebecca Pringle, and DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, spans four urban school districts encompassing 90,000 teachers and 1.4 million students. It focuses on the experiences of the “Irreplaceables”: teachers so successful at advancing student learning that they are nearly impossible to replace. Schools rarely make a strong effort to keep these teachers despite their success—and rarely usher unsuccessful teachers out.
As a result, the best and worst teachers leave urban schools at strikingly similar rates. The nation’s 50 largest districts lose approximately 10,000 Irreplaceables each year. Meanwhile, about 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years of experience are less effective at advancing academic progress than the average first-year teacher.
“America’s best teachers are truly irreplaceable,” said Secretary Duncan. “I’ve said that when it comes to teaching, talent matters tremendously. But TNTP’s report documents in painful detail that school leaders are doing far too little to nurture, retain, and reward great teachers—and not nearly enough to identify and assist struggling teachers. Our teachers, who play such a crucial role in the lives of children, deserve a profession built on respect and rigor. And our children deserve—and need—to learn from those irreplaceable teachers.”
The study attributes negligent retention patterns to three major causes:
•Inaction by school principals. Less than 30 percent of Irreplaceables plan to leave for reasons beyond their school’s control. Simple strategies, like public recognition for a job well done, boost their plans to stay by as many as six years. Yet two-thirds indicated that no one had encouraged them to return for another year. Similarly, principals rarely try to counsel out low performers, even though replacing them with a brand-new teacher will immediately achieve better academic results 75 percent of the time.
•Poor school cultures and working conditions. Schools that retain more Irreplaceables have strong cultures where teachers work in an atmosphere of mutual respect, leaders respond to poor performance, and great teaching is the priority. Turnover rates among Irreplaceables were 50 percent higher in schools lacking these traits.
•Policies that impede smarter retention practices. A number of policy barriers hamper principals from making smarter retention decisions. Because of inflexible, seniority-dominated compensation systems, for example, 55 percent of Irreplaceables earn a lower salary than the average low-performing teacher.
The report notes that current retention patterns stymie school turnaround efforts and prevent the teaching profession from earning the prestige it deserves. It offers two major recommendations:
•Make retention of Irreplaceables a top priority. Districts should aim to keep more than 90 percent of their Irreplaceables annually, monitor and improve school working conditions, pay the best teachers what they’re worth and create new career pathways that extend their reach.
•Strengthen the teaching profession with higher expectations. Leaders at all levels should set a new baseline standard for effectiveness: Teachers who cannot teach as well as the average first-year teacher should be considered ineffective and dismissed or counseled out (unless they are first-year teachers). Policymakers should change teacher hiring and layoff policies that discourage schools from enforcing higher expectations.
“Our schools should be obsessed with keeping their best teachers. But today it appears that they are almost completely oblivious to them,” said TNTP President Tim Daly. “It’s degrading to teachers and their profession. The challenge now is to address both sides of this crisis: the neglect of our best teachers, and the indifference to performance that keeps unsuccessful teachers in the classroom for too long.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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117 comments Add your comment
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
July 31st, 2012
5:19 pm
What percentages of schools and school systems pay lip service to teaching excellence for the sake of public image while effextively encouraging pedagogic mediocrity in the interest of faculty comity?
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Georgians for Educational Excellence
July 31st, 2012
5:21 pm
“effectively”
CCMST
July 31st, 2012
6:18 pm
Jane W. – since I have only taught in Ga, and I am alternately certified so I never went the traditional ed prep route, I have no idea what you are talking about when you talk about unions. I don’t belong to one, I have never had a contract negotiated by one, nor have I ever had an issue with a parent or administrator settled by one. With Race To The Top, I can be evaluated by student test scores regardless of what a union wants or doesn’t want (or whether it has even been shown to be effective or not).
Do you have children? If you do, are they public, private, or home-schooled? I ask, because as a parent, it matters to me that good teachers are leaving – I want my children to have good teachers to complement what I do at home, and help instill a love of learning. It bothers me that we seem to be okay as a society with allowing the best to walk away. My children have had first year teachers, and with one exception (who sadly no longer teaches in public schools), they were NOT good. They also had veteran teachers that were out of this world, and worth their weight in gold. I don’t understand you people; I really don’t.
HSTeach
July 31st, 2012
8:08 pm
As a teacher going back for my fourth year of service in a challenging urban setting I face a sad reality. If I perform well with the 39 plus students in each of my classes, in a few years I will receive a whopping $100 a year raise. Yep, half a decade of service will bring me $100 pretax dollars more a year. Despite accolades, stellar scores and the joy of seeing students succeed, I am seriously considering leaving the profession after next year. I would like to start a family of my own and can’t dream of that on a teaching salary. What have we come to when teachers can’t afford to have children of their own because they have chosen a career that involves teaching the children of others?
Once Again
July 31st, 2012
8:20 pm
Private schools are not losing their best. The free market knows how to reward quality. The government only knows how to reward failure.
FLteach
July 31st, 2012
8:34 pm
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”
My two cents on how these Irreplaceables should have reconsidered their own end of the bargain as more often than not I see these folks leave the profession because of their own personal belief in what a teacher should be. You’ve gotta play the game.
The nature of the beast, currently, involves implementing the district’s ridiculous amount of unsupported mandates and keeping data of how/when it’s done. You (amazing teacher) are hired by a school district to teach for that school district… you are not some wandering sage that gathers pupils to impart knowledge on a grassy knoll. You have to get over yourself.
So, if the district wants a “94% pass rate”, give them a 94% pass rate. You were hired by them to work for them.
If the district wants credit/grade recovery, assign credit/grade recovery. You were hired by them to work for them.
The good teachers are the ones that can find the loopholes and cracks in the massive, Atlas-like load of mandated curriculum that you are given and find ways to still teach. The great teachers find ways to mold the mandated stuff into their own ideas, and don’t burn-out from double duty.
So, don’t burn yourself out, become even more badass, and the praise, fame, and glory will come.
I realize that this post might get blasted by some as “caving in” to such things is highly unpopular and leaves very little fodder for vent-fests by the Coke machine. Just know that your administration will love you, and your fellow teachers will soon come around and want to learn how you’ve achieved a balance and worked through the loopholes. All of a sudden you’ll have most of your department shining in the district’s eyes as well as feeling ethically satisfied with the job they are doing.
This coming from a new dept. head that is in the process of winning over his team.
CCMST
July 31st, 2012
8:37 pm
Once Again – with some high-priced exceptions, private schools generally don’t pay well – not sure how that’s “rewarding quality.” It is a lot less stress – less CYA paperwork, fewer problem students, smaller classes, and more involved parents – that’s worth the pay cut if you can afford it.
I would debate your comment that the “free market rewards quality” – I can think of times that a higher quality product was shut out by a lesser quality one – Betamax vs VHS? Boutique vs WalMart? You get the point – sometimes the market rewards quantity over quality – is that the education you want for your children?
Mary Elizabeth
July 31st, 2012
8:44 pm
CCMST, 6:18 pm
“I ask, because as a parent, it matters to me that good teachers are leaving – I want my children to have good teachers to complement what I do at home, and help instill a love of learning. It bothers me that we seem to be okay as a society with allowing the best to walk away.”
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Your comments, above, are wise and caring ones.Thank you for them. I urge you to become politically savvy and to begin to recognize how what is happening to public education and to public school teachers is larger in scope and design than the education arena alone, and to recognize that what is happening has very powerful and wealthy forces behind it. Knowledge is power.
Beverly Fraud
July 31st, 2012
10:14 pm
Let’s see:
If a teacher tries to hold a student accountable for work, the student in kind can verbally abuse the teacher-and the teacher gets blamed for it by administration.
If a teacher then tries to hold a student accountable for verbal abuse, the student in kind can verbally threaten the teacher-and the teacher gets blamed for it by administration.
If a teacher then tries to hold a student accountable for verbal threats, the student in kind can physically assault the teacher-and the teacher can not only get blamed for it, but can even be put on a PDP plan for protesting the lack of support.
And we lament that good teachers are leaving? And ask why? OF COURSE we do, because we are still playing “let’s pretend” and acting like the above scenarios are not part and parcel of the corporate culture of far, far too many school systems today.
Former Math Teacher
July 31st, 2012
10:56 pm
Arne Duncan needs to take some of that responsibility, too. Race to the Top is one of the main reason why I left the teaching profession.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
August 1st, 2012
8:36 am
@FL Teach “The good teachers are the ones that can find the loopholes and cracks in the massive, Atlas-like load of mandated curriculum that you are given and find ways to still teach. The great teachers find ways to mold the mandated stuff into their own ideas, and don’t burn-out from double duty.”
I used to be able to do that…but over the last two to three years, as the pressure has increased, I have found myself caught more and more in situations in which I had to make a choice between “playing the game” as you say, and doing what was best for my students. Maybe you have not reached that point yet, but as a professional, dedicated to actually teaching my students, I can tell you, those kinds of choices are soul-killing.
MB
August 1st, 2012
10:29 am
@FLTeach The problem is that the data is flawed. When 46% of your students actually master the material at a passing level but you pass 94%, the next teacher gets kids whose scores say they should have an adequate foundation BUT THEY DON’T. That mirage of a foundation means that students leave with a high school diploma that says they showed up – maybe they slept through class, or spent half the day wandering the halls, but they showed up. If they take that HS graduate status to employers, they scream that the kids can’t read, can’t think logically and can’t make change. If they take the post-secondary route, those schools complain that students don’t have the academic skills and have to be remediated. Of course, now colleges are pressured to graduate more, without being allowed to turn away unqualified students, so what will happen to the value of a college degree? Where does the buck stop in responsibility for acknowledging the emperor wears no clothes in this?
FLteach
August 1st, 2012
4:10 pm
@I love teaching….
I hear you. I have ups and downs. I think having an open administration definitely has made that chore easier; I’m dealing with more garbage that before, but having a direct line to what needs to be done in what fashion helps. For me, the most soul-eating of assignments are the ones where the administration doesn’t seem to understand its purpose or function, yet still presses it. I guess I’ve gotten lucky in the past year in that regard.
@ MB
The data is flawed. It’s total crap. But I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy having a paycheck.
Also, I do fail on a regular basis, and perhaps I should have made that clear. I just make sure that my students do the “credit recovery” tasks the following quarter and that takes it off my conscience. They didn’t meet the standard that I know they need to meet, but if the district wants to let them go on by… so be it.
I talk with district folks about the problems we face from time to time, but there’s often so much hand-tying and finger-pointing I just let it go and just keep swimming, just keep swimming….
ColonelJack
August 1st, 2012
9:25 pm
Race to the Top … Common Core … Administrators who were themselves children when I started teaching telling me how to do what I do … NCLB … doing “more with less” (whatever that is supposed to mean) … disrespect … disobedience …
I’ve called it a career. I decided to retire over this summer, and as my colleagues in my system prepare to go back to work this week, I am not going. I wish them well. I close my 23 years as a teacher with fondness for my students, respect for those of my colleagues who have persevered, and an upraised middle finger (sorry, Maureen) to the people in charge of education in my county and this state.
Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do. Oh, heaven, do they not know what they do.
Pride and Joy
August 3rd, 2012
10:51 pm
D makes a silly comment. He or she says parents aren’t willing to make sacrifices to send their kids to private school. D, now D, do you really believe that?
Do you even know the price of a private school? I do. The Children’s School of Atlanta — price SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR PER KID. Now, let’s just say you have LESS than the average number of cihldren? That’d be two kids, 34,000 for one year….oh, and that would be in after tax dollars thank you. So, jack that figure up to at least 46,000 annually in gross income…
do you even know the average income of the American household? Around 65,000. so after taxes taht would leave you about 50,000. So now you have about 4,000 for after care, a home, car, food, medical care, and so on…AND you still have to pay the government for the low-quality public schools you don’t use….so when you say “unwilling” to make the sacrifices what you are really saying is “I am an idiot poster who doesn’t know my head from a hole in the ground.”
Every parent I know would give a limb to be able to give their kids a K-12 education at Woodward Academy. Not WANT to make the sacrifice? Bullsheet. We’re unable to make the sacrifice…who do you think you’re talking to?
Stu
August 5th, 2012
2:33 pm
Better salaries and working conditions needed to attract and retain top teachers! Let’s begin with a starting teacher salary of $100,000 and that is doable right now. Check it out, share, and retweet: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/engagement_and_reform/
N. GA Teacher
August 11th, 2012
10:38 pm
I have taught for 30 years in the public schools, and one truth about all schools is that everyone-parents,students, teachers, admins- knows who the best teachers are. In no other field is it so easy and cheap to keep your best than public education, yet it is stunning how many districts fail to do this! Salary schedules mandate pay, so this cannot be negotiated on an individual basis, and teachers are not “headhunted” and paid significantly higher by other districts or private schools, as in the private nonteaching market. No, what the best (and many of the rest) teachers want is a PROFESSIONAL WORKING ENVIRONMENT. They are craftsmen whose sense of fulfillment comes from learning by their students and helping their colleagues. They want a say in curriculum, for they know what works best in the classroom. They do not need external ridiculously high-paid “curriculum experts” coming in and telling them what to do. They DO want opportunities for legitimate professional development, including technical training and visits to professional meetings. They want to be supported in classroom discipline by the administration and don’t wish to hear the tired line “there wouldn’t be any discipline problems if you were a good classroom manager”. They are trained, certified, experienced professionals who do not want to be micromanaged, insulted, and rated by student test scores or a couple 15-minute look-ins. They do not want to work in a climate of fear created by politics. To the average professional out there,such as a CPA or engineer, this sounds eminently doable, especially in light of not salary increase, which IS the gold standard in the private sector, but if you have read this blog fro a time, you realize that creating such a situation is beyond most districts.