Teacher Quartering: Four Reasons Why Teachers Avoid, or Leave, High Poverty Urban Public Schools
Teaching within a high poverty urban public school is challenging, to say the least. Time and again, I hear education policy experts claim that high poverty urban schools don’t have enough effective or high quality teachers “at the helm.” Part of this is due to the misuse of VAM-based models, but another aspect of this phenomenon is the propensity for working conditions to drive effective or high quality teachers out of high poverty urban public schools. In fact, at times, it feels as if teaching within a challenging or “struggling” school is akin to some form of medieval quartering. At each end of a teacher’s limb is a rope that’s attached to a “horse”, or stress-producing trigger, which, collectively, rips the teacher apart at the limbs. In my humble opinion, here are four stress-producing triggers that may cause high poverty urban public school teachers to avoid teaching in the most challenging schools, or leave the profession altogether.
Rope #1: Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings
The first rope, or stress-producing trigger, is attending mandatory meetings and PDs (professional development), which often occur throughout the school day and week. Before you misread my intention, let me publicly state that meetings are extremely beneficial and