Teacher Retention, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Each year, school districts all of the United States spend  a great deal of money, effort, and human resources as they search for quality teacher candidates. Administrators and human resource officials hope that if they do a good enough jobs in the evaluation of prospective teachers, the result will teachers who will remain in their system. They also hope that these new educators will also someday mentor and support new teachers.  The educational system in the United States has a major problem with the retention of qualified teachers. Between the years of 1998-2008, 200,000 new teachers were hired out of the 2.5 million teachers needed to sustain the students. It was estimated that of that 200,000 new teachers hired, 40 to 50 percent of them would leave the teaching profession within five years. In 2008, President Obama addressed the need for high-quality teachers within the public school (Healey, 2008).  These staggering statistics have policy makers, educators, and other educational stakeholders pondering what can be done to retain great teachers. Students are suffering the consequences of the shortage of quality teacher. Many students find themselves with inadequate educational experiences that live them neither college nor career ready. One of the main reasons teachers who leave the profession cite for their choosing to leave is lack of administrative support. Other reasons for leaving the profession include teacher retirement plans, student population, classroom policies, and shortage of resources. Many novice teachers convey that they don’t feel adequately prepared by their college to handle the wide variety of classroom challenges. They feel confident in their subject matter and pedagogical strategies, but feel they lack classroom management and secretarial skills to maintain the high demands placed upon a classroom teacher.  The process of preparing classroom teachers must be revised. Retaining highly qualified teachers can only be done if the educational system goes through and entire overhaul-teacher work environments must be improved as well as financial compensation.

Teaching is one of the most demanding and stressful jobs one will ever willingly choose.  Students who are preparing to become teachers often only have about four months of hands on experience with a veteran teacher. Some veteran teachers can be territorial and this will adversely affect the amount of hands on experience the student receives. Veteran teachers often see student teachers as secretarial assistants. They allow them to grade papers, escort students to lunch, P.E. or other places, and other leg work they may have grown tired of.  After this four month period, novice teachers are given a classroom with students and expected to maintain their sanity. Novice teachers become overwhelmed and are too unfamiliar with the learning community to seek help from appropriate professionals.  These facts coupled with other laws that make the literal teaching of teaching nearly impossible. According to Hill, & Barth, 2004:

“The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) (2001) has had far-reaching and sometimes devastating implications for many schools and districts. Fullan ( 2005) states:

NCLB requires all states to have an achievement driven system in which “annual yearly progress” in student achievement is documented and reported publicly for every school in each state, with a sequence of escalating consequences for those schools not improving. There is little investment in capacity building and it places people in a high-alert dependency mode, jumping from one solution to another in a desperate attempt to comply. Any minor gains are bound to be out-weighed by a system that guarantees superficiality, temporary solutions, and cynicism in the face of impossible goals” (Hill & Barth, 2004).

Teachers are left feeling like magicians rather than educators. They are moving from one act to the next before enough time is spent discerning if the first strategy worked or not.

If systems are to retain quality teachers, attention must be paid to addressing known risk factors. Student engagement, building relationships with co-workers and parents, classroom management and discipline, curriculum, and coping with the overload of work are issues that are forcing novice and veteran teachers to leave the profession (Hill & Barth, 2004).  The No Child Left Behind Act has created a conflict between immediate student needs and assessments. Numerous teachers convey that they feel they are teaching to the test and not to the individual child. Their lessons are driven by test standards. School reform in the United States began in the early 1980s. The nation began to realize that educational achievement had been on the decline since the early 1970s. With this decline came a growing disengagement in education. Communities became less interested in schools and even resented funding them through raised proper ty taxes. The school system was even further challenged with the start of social revolution. Teacher unions were formed. Laws regarding the education of disabled students and those with limited English proficiency were enacted. Minorities and women began to demand fair treatment in schools. With all of these issues in their midst, education was placed on the back burners. The American public school system deteriorated rapidly.  Reform efforts called for teaching to be improved and enhanced with preparation and professionalization and accountability are added to education. In other words, someone had to be blamed and held accountable for poorly educated students.

Teachers are increasingly pressured to improve student achievement and held accountable when students do not reach achievement goals. Teacher effectiveness is an important aspect of student achievement, but is not the only factor in student achievement. Increased scrutiny and finger pointing has left teachers feeling underappreciated and neglected. As a result, Brown says, “Novice teachers are challenged to not only meet unclear and poorly articulated legislative mandates, they are also being required to enter the profession prepared to be productive in classrooms while learning and adapting to new environments and organizational structures”(Brown, 2003 ). She goes on to say that even when educators come together to try to solve the problem, they are in fear of being judged by other educators. So the communities that educators form are often false and never generate the knowledge to remedy the problem.  Educators play roles and withdraw in order to remain safe and secure jobs. (Brown, 2003).  With increased accountability, educators are constantly under the microscope being subject to disciplinary actions for the lack of heir students’ academic performance. What is must upsetting is the fact that the persons who are observing and evaluating have not been adequately prepared or have little prior experience in the education field. Teachers are by theory are some of the most intelligent people on the face of the earth. Having someone who has no educational background coming into their domain and telling them how to best do a job they have been trained to do is an insult to every teachers’ intelligence. (Marshall, & Pepin, 2005).

Strong administrators with visions of great schools are the key to teacher retention. Most teachers will do their job if allowed to. When teachers know that they are supported by their administrators they will do everything possible to the academics needs of their students (Marshall, & Pepin, 2005). Some tactics may be a little unorthodox or may not look like researched strategies when one walks into the classroom, but the students will learn concepts far beyond applying them to a test. That’s what education should be about-preparing students for real world situations. That’s why people chose the education field-they want to inspire children to become lifelong learners. They don’t want their classrooms driven by “this will be on the test, so you must learn it”. As a result, when students have taken the test in early April, they feel school is over. This epidemic of the lack of wanting knowledge is “burning out” great teachers. If it is not test related students are not willing to learn it. This is so because they have been taught by the media, teachers, communities, administrators, and other educational stake holders that “the test” is the most important aspect of the schools. Successful teacher must have the guidance of strong leaders. An effective leader will involve teachers in decisions that affect them. Great teachers are willing to share and work with others in the educational field. Good teachers will not remain at schools where principals perform poorly and do not support them (Marshall, & Pepin, 2005).

There are several aspects of the educational system that must be changed in order to retain great teachers. Teachers want to teach, they must be allowed to do that. Teachers want to prepare students who are prepared for the real world, not just students who can pass standardized testing. Teachers need support, especially novice teachers.  Great principals retain great teachers. All students learn differently and therefore must be taught differently. Teachers are capable of this strategy.  Educators face many challenges every day when trying to reach the varied needs of all of their children. School communities need to work on solving the problem of declining student academics, rather than bandwagoning every new concept that researchers present. This confuses students and educators alike. Some strategies that worked should have never been changed. Cooperative groups are great for some classes are some students, but are more than impossible for some students to achieve.  For example, “Change produces tension. We tend to become comfortable with the known and anxious with the unfamiliar” (Hill & Barth, 2004).  In other words teachers should be given the option to use what works for their students, not just forced to use a strategy because statistics says it works.

References

Brown, S. (2003). Why mentoring programs may be the key to teacher retention. Techniques, 62, (1)

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

Hill, D. M., & Barth, M. (2004). NCLB and teacher retention: Who will turn out the lights? Education and the Law, 16(2-3)

Marshall, C., & Gerstl-Pepin, C. (2005). Re-framing educational politics for social justice. New York: Allyn & Bacon.