How can any education plan succeed when so many teachers – the lifeblood of schools – are brand new to the job? Mayor Bloomberg’s reforms could contain the best ideas in education history, but they won’t work in the long run unless we address the biggest crisis in our schools today: recruiting and keeping quality teachers.
A recent City Council study determined that 18 percent of New York City teachers leave after one year, and 25 percent are gone after two; that’s nearly double the national average. A brain drain is dragging down our city schools, where 50 percent of new teachers leave within five years. In rural and suburban districts, the rate is around 10 percent.
The urban teacher “dropout” problem is fixable. Through better mentoring and in-school support for new teachers, smaller class sizes, and more competitive pay, the revolving door can be stopped.
As a rookie fourth-grade teacher in The Bronx, I was subject to an unofficial but common trial-by-fire, in which the administration loaded my class with problem-reputation children. In the first week of school, one disturbed child jumped on a desk during a 9/11 moment of silence, wildly screaming a string of expletives. My “dumping ground” room was a disaster zone from the first day and it took an incredible amount of time and effort to turn the year into a positive experience.
The combination of extremely high-needs students and my naive, rookie mistakes led to student fights and fractured lessons. At 22, I started losing my hair because of the stress. And many of my struggling students, lumped together all day in my room, were denied the individualized support and expertise they deserve.
Throughout my brutal initiation, I felt no satisfaction with the knowledge that I could possibly earn an easier set-up the next year, while the next newbie would have to twist in the wind the way I did. New teachers need protection from this ugly, unwritten practice. As things stand, it’s no surprise that over a third of city teachers reported in a citywide 2007 Department of Education survey that they do not trust their principals.
Rookies require a lot of help to manage the taxing and seemingly endless list of tasks that running a classroom requires. Green teachers should be paired with quality veterans in “team-teaching” environments to experience good practices in action.
New teachers should also work with smaller classes, so that they – and the children – aren’t overwhelmed. My classes had 25 to 28 students on average; a better number would be 20. And teachers aren’t the only ones pleading for more intimate spaces; lower class size is the No. 1 recommendation among parents in the Department of Education survey.
Smaller classes will keep teachers’ workloads under control and allow for many more critical opportunities for individual and small-group attention. Strong personal relationships are an invaluable part of education, and giant classes make it difficult to foster these relationships with every student.
The top recommendation in the City Council report for attracting and retaining teachers is: “Increase salaries to more competitive levels.” Coupling higher salaries with broader student loan forgiveness would draw many more talented teachers to the field.
This year, a first-year New York City teacher with a bachelor’s degree will earn $43,362. There are some bonuses available for high-needs subject math and science teachers, but the majority of new teachers make do with pay in the low 40s and no help with New York City’s hardest-hitting expense – housing.
An uncountable number of excellent would-be teachers choose higher-earning jobs because they are saddled with student loan debt, or because earning $43K is financially prohibitive in the highest cost-of-living city in America. Public servants deserve better.
New teachers must be supported in their professional environments and their pocketbooks. The prospect of walking away from teaching – a job that many enter for altruistic, good-hearted reasons – will be a lot less likely when it is solidified as a nurturing, competitive-salaried profession.
Supporting teachers has a price tag, but it can be partially offset by reducing the city’s $115 million annual turnover expenses. Let’s spend our money on offense, not defense.
Parents and students deserve continuity and excellence from schools. Unless we make more of a front-end investment in teachers, we will continue to hemorrhage good people, and scramble every year to replace them with well-meaning but under-prepared rookies.
Dan Brown is the author of the memoir, “The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle.” He currently teaches at a middle school in East Harlem.