Teacher Recruitment Incentives, Research Paper Example

Introduction

School districts across the United States spend millions in search of qualified teachers. The primary goal is to hire, train, and retain great teachers. Nevertheless, that is not always the case. It’s very obvious that retaining teachers in the United States is a difficult task. More than 200, 000 thousand teachers were hired between 1998-2008. Research concluded that of that 200, 000 more than 50 percent of the new hire will have left the teaching profession in the first five years (Healey, 2008). These numbers are daunting. Policy makers and other stake holders are puzzled about what can be done to retain great teachers. The students are suffering the most from the teacher shortage. Students are in oversized classroom in which the teacher is unable to meet the needs of each child. Consequently, many students become behavior problems because they do not understand the lesson, and the teacher is unable to assist them as needed. Many teachers who have left the profession site lack of administrative support, too many behavior problems, and lack of control in teaching what is needed, rather than what is required.

Strong Principals

The most effective way to retain teachers is by having great administrators who are supportive and have a long term goal for their schools. Because of accountability, teachers are under the microscope daily. However, many teachers feel this is unfair because they are being forced to teach a certain way, yet if the method does not work they are blamed. In some states, disciplinary actions are taken against teachers whose students do not make yearly progress.  Some schools are even experimenting with merit pay to ensure that teachers are working hard each and every day (David, 2008). Nevertheless, little research has been completed to determine how affect merit pay is. Teachers want to inspire young people to become lifelong learners, not test passers. When principals stress this concept, the goal will be met. Teachers may use some unorthodox strategies to reach the goals; consequently, walking into their rooms one may not observed the latest researched strategy. However, the overall goal is that students learn by any means necessary.  Finally, great principals will involve teachers in the decision making process of the school.

The Burn-Out

Classrooms that are driven by “this will be tested” are not successful. A teacher’s effectiveness is often determined by how well the students perform on standardized testing (Goldhaber, 2008). From August to March teachers are teaching to test. They remind students that you must learn this because it will be on the test. Finally, April arrives and the students take their test. In their minds, school is out because they have taken the test. So for the next month or more, the teacher is left trying to corral the students for anything that resembles a lesson. Students have been taught by all stakeholders that “the test” is why they are in school. The message that students are receiving must change. The test should not be the focus for the entire school year because when it has been taken, students do not want to learn anything else.

Conclusion

Many aspects of the educational system must be remedied in order to retain effective teachers. However, teachers want to teach and have been trained to do so. They must be given power over their classrooms and curriculum. The overall goal of all school systems is to prepare students for the real world. Great principals who give teachers autonomy over their classrooms are the key.  Liu & Ramsey have concluded that a teacher’s satisfaction with her job has very little to do with pay. In most cases, the teacher reported salary as last on their wish list. (2008).If this is true, merit pay will have very little effect on teacher’s performance.  This applies to students as well. Some students will not perform better when they are rewarded by the teacher. Likewise, some students perform well with or without rewards. When teachers are being forced to use strategies and curriculum they feel are unbeneficial, they are less likely to do a great job.

References

David, J. L. (2008). Teacher recruitment incentives. Educational Leadership, 65, (7). 84-86.

Goldhaber, D. (2008). Teachers matter, but effective teacher quality policies are elusive. In Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy, edited by H. F. Ladd and E. B. Fiske, 146-165. New York: Routledge.

Healey, J. F. (2008). Statistics: A tool for social research. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Liu, X. S., & Ramsey, J. (2008). Teachers’ job satisfaction: Analyses of the Teacher Follow-up Survey in the United States for 2000-2001. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(5), 1173-1184.