Evaluating Strategies For Retaining Effective Teachers

As explained in Diane Ravitch's article, “American Schools in CRISIS,” educators are provided with little job security under Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Obama's Race to the Top educational reform initiatives; where teachers can be fired based on poor standardized test scores from their students (50). The majority of new teachers already quit within five years of entering the field; “demoralized” (Ravitch 50) by the effects of such high stakes and low resources (Ravitch 52). To combat this figure, many states have decreased the requirements for becoming a teacher, even allowing online licensure in Texas (Ravitch 51). To lower the standards of the “conservators of our common future” (Barber 122) is an irresponsible practice that must be reversed if students are to succeed. Barber proposes paying early childhood educators as much as lawyers to attract better teachers. Higher wages would encourage more ambitious individuals to enter the fields of primary and secondary education. Without highly-trained and intelligent educators, who are dedicated to progress and change, students will continue to stumble through a broken system, woefully unprepared for the task of becoming productive citizens.

It is essential to encourage school districts to collaborate with teachers and their unions when developing or implementing pay for performance programs. This can be achieved by incorporating these pay systems into sustainable human resource management strategies to improve teacher effectiveness. Compensating teachers via performance based system should be tied to the performance of the preK-12 students and not on the age, seniority or degree of the teacher. Another key aspect is to strengthen professional development of the preK-12 teachers through mentoring opportunities and evaluation of teachers. This will ensure that more highly qualified teachers are hired and retained at the various prek-12 school in U.S. The state laws that do not align educator performance based on student outcomes and compensation policies should be

The differences were connected with a teacher’s original preparation for the teaching profession, licensing in the particular subject area to be taught, strength of the educational experience, and the degree of experience in teaching along with the demonstration of abilities through the National Board Certification, in which all of these facets can be addressed through policy (Darling-Hammond, 2010).America has not produced a national method containing supports and reasons to guarantee that teachers’ are adequately prepared and equipped to teach all children effectively when they first enter into the career of teaching. America also does not have a vast collection of methods available that will maintain the evaluation and continuing development of a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom, or support decisions about entry into the field of teaching and the continuance in the profession of teaching (Darling-Hammond, 2010). n order to reach the belief that all students will be taught and learn to high standards calls for a makeover in the methods our system of education in order to be a magnet for, train, support or uphold, and cultivate effective teachers in more efficient ways. A makeover that is contingent in a certain degree of how the abilities or skills are comprehended (Darling-Hammond, 2010).In the last few years there has been increasing

The Houston R-I School District needs to focus on teacher quality. We need to be actively pursuing teachers with diverse backgrounds that can contribute to our goal of becoming a school with a pluralistic mindset. It is important that we look outside of our community for potential employees that can bring a unique and diverse perspective to our school.

This paper will effectively detail the issues surrounding policy as it pertains to teacher reform for New Jersey Tenure Laws. I will discuss why this new reform has made it impossible to terminate non-effective teachers because of the protection that TEACHNJ provides. I will also discuss inaccuracies as it pertains to accountability and transparency under the new tenure laws. Lastly, I will discuss the teacher rating system and evaluation system that rates teachers in four categories, from highly effective to ineffective. Teacher evaluations would be based on measures of student learning, such as improvement of state test scores, student work, and other practices linked to student achievement. The New Jersey Education Association has proposed streamlining the legal process for removing teachers, but has adamantly defended the basic job protection of tenure, saying it prevents unfair dismissal, favoritism and attempts to save money by firing expensive veterans. The state’s largest teacher’s union also vehemently opposes judging teachers largely on test scores, saying that doing so penalizes teachers with the most difficult students, and that the data is unreliable. Teachers are fearful of losing their jobs if they don’t raise test scores, teachers will redouble their test-preparation efforts, and quality instruction will be sacrificed,” NJEA President Barbara Keshishian said in a statement. “Parents should be alarmed and dismayed at this proposal.” (Brody)

The No Child Left Behind act emerged as a result of a massive increase in the costs of schools, while failing to show an improvement in their students performances. (Paterson 32) Since these standardized test have been in effect teachers have been judged off them. The problem is that

The state of Arizona is facing a serious education crisis in the retention of qualified teachers. Personally, my school in Yuma, Arizona encountered an average of seven new teachers every year. Yuma High School District allowed for a teacher to teach chemistry when his/her Bachelor’s degree was in mathematics. According to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ enacted in 2001, schools are required to provide “highly qualified” teachers to teach at all times (Educator Excellence). Having quality, long-term teachers is imperative to develop students in becoming productive members of society. Unfortunately due to federal budget cuts directly affecting education, Timothy L. Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, says, “Arizona has faced the most dramatic cuts to K-12 education spending of any state in the nation” (Lopez). As a result, administration is forced to have teachers make up for the lack of a certain subject by teaching it without qualifications. Due to this, out-of-state teachers leave within the first 5 years, and 25% all leave within the first year. Some reasons for this include a

With a disparity in resources resulting from NCLB, schools in the less wealthy areas tend to suffer the most: “Unlike most countries that fund schools centrally and equally, the wealthiest U.S. public schools spend at least 10 times more than the poorest schools-ranging from over $30,000 per pupil to only $3,000 (Darling-Hammond)”. A teacher who has spent years in school to earn a degree is far less likely to want to spend their career in a school that is under funded, under staffed, overcrowded and labeled ‘failing’. This in turn meant that the best educated, best prepared and most dedicated teachers would concentrate in the most highly resourced schools, leaving underperforming

Colorado’s population, employment, annual pay, and GDP have been above the national average and ranked top among the nation in 2015 (Leeds School of Business). This trend should continue, and Colorado’s economy is expected to grow within the next year (Leeds School of Business). However, to continue this growth Colorado must solve this teacher shortage problem, or it will begin to affect the

Did you know that only one of a thousand teachers is fired for performance-related reasons? Teachers with bad performance are not being fired in America, which is caused the fact that teachers are backed up by tenure, but it can be fixed through changing the criteria a teacher should be fired on. Today, I will go over in detail what the problem, causes, and solution is to the issue of having bad teachers keep their job in America. So, first and foremost, I will discuss the problem about bad teachers not being fired.

According to the state report card, Salem Elementary School’s socioeconomic status of students is strongly high in poverty. Correspondingly, all of the students enrolled in Salem also have some type of economic disadvantage. As discussed in our EDTE 2020 class, high poverty areas tend to have teachers “with less experience”, who do not have “proper certification”, or who have a “high turnover rate”. This is the complete opposite at Salem, as it’s stated on the report card that all teachers have a bachelor and a master’s degree, with over 72% of teachers being

According to the Maryland Teaching Staffing Report, the annual attrition percentage continues to decrease, going from 13.3 percent in 2010-2011 to 11.1 percent in 2012-2013 and 9.3 percent in 2013-2014. Although the total attrition percentage is improving, PGCPS continues to have the greatest percentage of attrition compared to neighboring districts as well as the greatest number of teachers that exit the district with less than one to five years of experience. These data confirm that teacher retention is a major problem that significantly impacts PGCPS. These data also support Ingersoll (2003) and Perda (2013) studies regarding the significant number of teachers that leave the profession within their first five years of teaching.

There are many contributing factors to low teacher turnover, however, the main issue is a lack of support and respect for our teachers. Instead of working on maintaining and providing support for our current educators, the conversation usually surrounds expensive and often ineffective recruitment programs. The harsh fact is that it is very expensive to live in our valley and the current teacher salary/benefits are not enough to attract top talent. We need to have a serious conversation with our teachers in order to learn what incentives they need to be successful in their roles as well as to maintain a comfortable living. Teachers are the one profession that truly molds the future of our

There is a consensus among the concerned stakeholders that the quality of teachers is the leading factor in determination of student performance. In the case of United States, the student performance can only be given an impetus by the efforts which the state can make, under all costs, to develop and retain high quality teachers. The measures undertaken determine the level of turnover of the school teachers. Lazear (2009) similarly argues the length of employment is a critical factor in averse risks of employment a trend contrary to teachers treatment. The turnover of public school teachers will refer to the rate at which the state, which is the teacher’s

Teaching is a very rewarding career if you learn and understand how to work with the diversity of the classrooms we teach in. As teachers, we need to be more vigilant of where are students come from. Before we can teach we need to know who we are teaching and what background, knowledge, and customs they bring with them to the classroom. We must also be aware of the factors that are relevant to the academic achievement of the students we currently teach. There are many of these factors, but I want to focus on two; teacher quality and low teacher expectations.