Heather Voke Policy Analysis

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

past decade or so since the demand for teachers far increases the number of qualified applicants. The career of teaching has become less desirable for college educated students - Many teachers are aging and leaving behind many turnover jobs, and benefits from unions and tenure simply do not draw in potential educators like they did before the Great Recession of 2008. According to Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post,

Eligibility: If new teachers are denied eligibility, they are encouraged to speak with the Coordinator of Mentor and Induction for New Teachers. At that meeting, the new teacher will be informed of the criteria that must be met in order to participate in induction. The new teacher must possess or have applied for a general education credential (SB 2042 or its equivalent) and receive the credential within the first sixty days of the school year. After that time, the teacher will be asked to wait until the following year for induction.

The purpose of exploring this phenomenon of teachers leaving their profession early in their career is to determine why it is happening and how it can be prevented in the future.

Many emergency licenses have been granted to people across the state to fill positions in need, especially in rural areas. There has also been a movement to hire “community experts” in place of skilled, qualified teachers who possess at minimum a four year degree in the areas of teaching and learning. This book offers many arguments against ways in which North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction and Education Standards and Practices Board is proposing adjustments to aid this crisis. It has been quoted by a board member on the Teacher Shortage Task Force that “someone is better than no one” in the classroom. Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan would argue that North Dakota could have a greater return on Professional Capital making greater investments in education by finding strategies to retain its current teachers and perhaps offering incentives to potential prospects entering the field. Political leaders must demonstrate a greater respect for teachers, instead of settling on a solution where teachers are left feeling as though their leaders and the public are comfortable filling their positions with unqualified community

Teaching has always been lauded as an altruistic and fulfilling career. What better can one do to contribute to society than educate and prepare the future generation for success? At first glance, there are many attractive characteristics regarding the job: work-free summers, plenty of holidays, and the chance to impact a child’s life forever. However, in recent years, enrollment in teacher preparation programs have been on the decline. Headlines announcing “America’s New Major Teacher Shortage” have filled the news and papers, and Florida has been named as one of the states impacted. More and more teachers seem to be leaving the field. The question, though, is “Why?”. Many might point to the poor pay that teachers are notorious for receiving, but teaching has never been known for making big bucks in the first place. With both new teachers and longtime veterans leaving the field, the problem seems to be something more internal.

James Shaw and Jodi Newton wrote an article entitled “ Teacher Retention and Satisfaction with a Servant Leader Principle”. In this article it examined a study done in 1994, when teaching was a promising time, and how teachers began to leave the profession. In 1994 the secretary of education did a study the United States would hire two million teachers. In 2004 the United States actually beat their goal and hired 2.24 million teachers. According to the study, during the same decade 2.7 million teachers quit; Ten percent in 2007, then twelve percent in 2009 (Shaw & Newton, 2014). The trend has steadily remained the same over the past few

Public education in the United States is under constant criticism as a system that is failing the children of the country. One major factor that plays into the ineffectiveness of the U.S. public education system is the lack of consistency with teachers. Public education teachers tend to have a substantial turnover rate. According to Cochran-Smith et al. (2011), “The attrition of beginning teachers was a problem in the United States, in part because of his initially stunning finding that as many as 46% of new teachers left the profession within 5 years” (Cochran-Smith et al. 19). This volume of teachers leaving the field is dramatic and is especially damaging in science, technology, engineering,

Creating advanced strategies, techniques and methodologies can optimize participation. The pool of qualified and interested candidates will increase with a multifaceted sourcing approach. It is meaningful to offer elaborate training and development programs, this investment will assure substitute teachers that they are valuable and unreplaceable assets. These educators can happily excel when they have received adequate support, training, incentive, acceptance and trust. They will feel empowered, self-assured, hopeful and

The Sparrow School District introduced a new induction/ mentoring program last year; in which the Director of Curriculum is in charge, and one teacher holds a stipend position to meet with the group of mentors and mentees throughout the school year. When a new teacher is hired, they are assigned a mentor that they try to match up with common prep time and grade level/department assignments. New teachers are introduced to the district policy at a three full day orientation provided by the Director of Curriculum; and once the teachers complete their orientation process, they are assigned a mentor teacher. The mentor and mentee are introduced to one another through an email with a monthly checklist to guide the conversations between them. It

For people who have a heavy influence on the engagement of young people, you would think teachers would be more engaged in their jobs. Yet nearly seven in ten are not emotionally connected to or are dissatisfied with their workplaces, according to a new Gallup Report (April 9, 2014). Teacher engagement appears to drop off within the early years of teaching. According to the report, teachers with less than a year on the job are most likely to be engaged, when thirty-five percent were enthusiastic about and committed to their jobs. The numbers continue to slip to a low of twenty-eight percent for those with between three and five years of teaching experience. ( Gallup Repor

Increased student achievement has been the focus of many school districts across the country in recent years, looking at the level of student achievement, what is necessary to see an increase, and how to afford it. The retention of high quality teachers is an extremely important part of the puzzle. Teacher retention includes not only keeping the teachers who are difficult or impossible to replace, but also weeding out the teachers who need to be replaced. This process of evaluation and incentives must work together to attract and keep the best possible teachers in our classrooms so students can get the best possible education to be successful in the world to come.

According to studies like those done by the Harvard Report, research has shown that high levels of teacher turnover negatively affects student achievement. There are additional studies like those done by the Teachers College Record, that indicate low teacher retention rates are often caused by poor working conditions within high-poverty schools. A school’s leadership, culture, and relationships within the school all affect working conditions and teacher satisfaction, which ultimately plays a role in teacher retention. Fortunately, these components are within the grasp of those working inside the schools and can be addressed without depending on changes by policymakers. Currently there are studies which show how

In the first year of teaching, four out of ten teachers quit. An educators job is not a walk in the park. In Kansas, we are facing a shortage of teachers. The most areas that are facing these shortages are Special Education, Adaptive and Functional Special Education, Early Childhood Handicapped, and hearing and visual impaired. It has been reported that Fewer students have chosen to major in education. There are many reasons that are causing the shortages, lack of

interest in the content (Buchanan, 2012). Despite the motivation for entrance within the profession, the problem comes in when teacher departure from the school or profession becomes a consistent factor.