Retaining teachers is a problem; senior teachers help
NY1 interviewed Cathie Black last week, and among other things, asked about lousy teacher retention in New York City. She stumbled, as teacher retention is not on her radar; breaking seniority is. (summary, from Gotham Schools, below the fold)
Bloomberg and (Klein) and Gates and Kopp and (Rhee) and now Black like to talk about the problem of “bad teachers.” That’s bunk. We all know that, at least in New York City, about half of all teachers (what’s the real percent? 43? I forget) hired never make it to tenure. They were good enough to get hired, but decided they could not make it, or an administrator decided (rightly or wrongly) for them.
Anthony Cody, Oakland teacher and teacher-activist, poses a different problem: How do we keep teachers in the classroom? He writes about keeping science teachers in Oakland. Read. This guy is talking about giving kids better teachers. He is talking about changing the game on the ground. This guy is talking about making teaching a job that people want to make a career of. If we want to improve education, this is the conversation we need to be having.
TeamScience Tames Teacher Turnover in Oakland
Four years ago in Oakland, one out of
