Facing The Future

With a national teacher shortage on the horizon, there's no time like the present to build, support, and sustain a capable teaching force

Story by Suzie Boss / Photos by Denise Jarrett Weeks

Three future teachers — (left to right) Willa Towarak Eckenweiler, Paul Reynolds, and Debbie Toopetlook — are interns in Alaska's Rural Education Preparation Program. (Under the Same Sun is a related story)

Standing not quite five feet tall, Beth doesn't tower over anyone in her class of high school freshmen. And that's a shame, because she's the teacher.

If she were a tad more intimidating, suspects the 23-year-old with the sweet face and friendly demeanor, maybe the students wouldn't be so quick to test her. Maybe she wouldn't have had to live through the nightmare of seven large boys "deciding to riot on me" in the middle of a science lab.

That awful spring day marked the low point of her first year of teaching. With papers flying across the classroom and students out of control, she had to "call in reinforcements" from the front office. Nothing in her four years of college, nothing in her training to become a teacher, nothing in her student teaching experience had prepared her to manage that kind of misbehavior. Her small, rural Oregon school district provides no induction or mentoring program for new teachers, so she had no ally to turn to — not even a friendly shoulder to cry on — within the faculty.

Did she think about quitting?

"Oh, yeah."

Did she feel isolated?

"Not physically, but certainly mentally. Sure, the other teachers are nice. But they didn't seem to want to get to know me or make sure everything was going OK."

So why is she back in the same classroom this school year?

"I made a deal with myself that I was going to teach for at least three years. Then I'll decide."

The first three years mark a critical period in the life of a new teacher. Researchers estimate that as many as 30 percent of novice teachers leave the profession by the third year, and up to half of those teaching in urban schools depart within five years. New teachers recruited under fast-track programs — designed to attract those who have subject-area knowledge but lack a background in education — fare even worse. An estimated 60 percent of those who enter teaching through shortcut programs leave by their third year.

Barnett Berry of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) suggests that employers in the private sector "would not tolerate that kind of turnover. They would be absolutely mortified," he told Catalyst magazine, if they were losing even one out of three.

R & R

To improve these odds, both recruitment and retention are emerging as key strategies.

On a number of fronts, initiatives are underway to bring new faces into teaching — from paraeducators to retired military personnel to mid-career professionals itching for a change. Pipeline programs start as early as seventh grade to encourage more young people to consider teaching careers. In particular, recruiters are eager for faces that better resemble the diverse student body filling the classrooms of America. In 1999, 35 percent of the nation's 52 million school-aged children came from linguistic- or racial-minority families, but only 5 percent of teachers, counselors, and administrators were from racially diverse groups, reported Mary Hartwood Futrell in the May 1999 issue of Educational Leadership.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, announcing $31 million in Transitions to Teaching grants in October, said, "Casting a wider net for experienced professionals … will help school districts address teacher shortages, particularly in subjects where there is a great demand for qualified instructors." Both urban and rural districts across the country are reporting shortages in the areas of mathematics, science, foreign language, English as a Second Language, and special education. (See sidebar, Page 5, to learn about new Transitions to Teaching programs in the Northwest region.)

Some communities have already rolled out innovative efforts to lure new teachers. Most dramatic, perhaps, was the offer of $20,000 in signing bonuses for recent college grads or career changers who agreed to teach in Massachusetts. New York City Schools Chancellor Harold Levy launched his Teaching Fellows program in 2000, targeting young professionals and mid-career changers with the promise of financial help to obtain a master's degree in education in exchange for teaching in under-performing schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Clark County, Nevada, has become legendary for its aggressive teacher recruiting, even posting teachers-wanted advertisements in the Las Vegas airport. Chicago has so far lured 125 "global educators" from a host of countries — China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Pakistan — with the promise of work visas and help to earn an Illinois teaching certificate. And a number of school districts offer new teachers assistance with down payments or low rates on home mortgages.

More aggressive recruitment is just half of the equation being devised to solve the looming teacher shortage. Researchers and those on the frontlines of teaching are teaming up to reshape induction programs so that these new recruits will survive — indeed, thrive — once they enter the teaching profession.

As NCTAF's Berry asserts in Educational Leadership (May 2001, "No Shortcuts to Preparing Good Teachers"), alternative routes into teaching are necessary, "but they must be good programs. … Effective teachers need to know more than subject matter." Without adequate preparation, Berry writes, "many mid-career recruits lack the wide range of knowledge and skills necessary for effective teaching … understanding how students think and behave, and how to motivate them." Research shows that "knowledge of both subject matter and of teaching and learning acquired in teacher education is strongly correlated with teacher performance in the classroom."

The public seems to agree. In a recent opinion poll by Louis Harris, 89 percent of those surveyed cited having a well-qualified teacher in every classroom as an important measure for lifting student achievement. Three-quarters of those surveyed oppose allowing those with college degrees to enter teaching without also requiring preparation in the field of education.

Recruiting and training "new quality teachers," acknowledges Paige, "will require persistence and imagination." If he makes the cause sound urgent, it's no accident. Current forecasts call for 2.2 million new teachers within the coming decade to replace an anticipated wave of baby boomer retirees and keep pace with growing student enrollments. In the Northwest alone, some 35,000 new teachers will be needed by 2005, according to research by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. The spike in demand for teachers is "unprecedented," reports the University of Washington's Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy.

And it comes at the same time that states are setting high standards for student achievement. "States are clearly serious about standards for good teaching," write researchers from the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, "but not when those standards interfere with the ability to ensure an adult, qualified or not, in every classroom."

Who will teach tomorrow's children? How well will they be prepared for the task? At a time when a third of the nation's teachers are 50 or older — old enough to qualify for membership in AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons — these are urgent questions, indeed.

Dying To Teach

When she looks out on the sea of eager faces of students enrolled in teacher education classes, Ellen Moir is filled with hope about the future of the profession. "We have people who are dying to teach," says the veteran education professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz and executive director of the New Teacher Center, a nationally recognized resource. The question Moir has been working hard to answer: "How do we keep their spirits alive?" She worries about sustaining rookies' optimism and energy once they head out to work "in a [school] system that's complex, and can drain you."

Patricia Wasley, dean of the University of Washington College of Education, has not lost sight of what drew her to teaching 30 years ago. "I love working with kids," she says. That aspect of the job remains as appealing as ever, whether teacher candidates are fresh out of college or — like at least a third of the current crop of UW education students — more seasoned by life and looking for a career change.

Yet, a number of factors make it challenging to maintain interest in the profession. Women and minorities — once the mainstay of the teaching ranks — have a wider range of career choices open to them today than those who went into teaching before the civil rights movement. What's more, many beginning teachers "have a hard time," Wasley admits. "We know from research that they typically get assigned to the hardest jobs, the most difficult kids. Salaries are low, and esteem is low. Teachers are often blamed," she says, if student performance is not up to par. On top of all that, many teachers begin their careers in virtual isolation — having little interaction with anyone except the students they're assigned to teach. "There's been very little collegial interaction," admits Wasley. (See Page 10 for an interview with Wasley about UW's initiatives to support new teachers.)

Indeed, researchers Dwight Rogers and Leslie Babinski of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have written of the "reality shock that comes with being the teacher in charge. Beginning teachers," they wrote in an issue of Educational Leadership (May 1999) devoted to supporting new teachers, "feel isolated and are afraid to reveal uncertainties about their practice and reluctant to ask for assistance for fear of appearing inadequate."

The Southern Regional Education Board drew on research from the National Center for Education Statistics to track what happens to those who leave the field. Approximately 25 percent quit within their first five years to pursue other careers. Another 25 percent leave because they're no longer interested in teaching, or have grown dissatisfied with teaching. And 40 percent of those who quit say they would not teach again. Although money plays a role, low salaries are cited as the primary cause by only 10 percent of those who flee the field.

Recruiting New Teachers, a national nonprofit organization based in Massachusetts, suggests a simple way to think about remedying the complex situation: For new teachers to remain in teaching, "the good must outweigh the bad."

Better Beginnings

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future views high-quality mentoring as one of the most effective ways to address new teacher concerns. NCTAF recommends structuring the first year or two of teaching like a residency in medicine, in which novices continually consult veterans. Instead of coaching rookies through appendectomies, however, veteran teachers can help novices overcome such daily challenges as classroom management, assessing how well students are learning, lesson planning, and understanding the culture of the school.

About half of all new teachers already participate in some type of induction during their first year of teaching. The scope and quality of these programs vary widely, however. As RNT points out in its 2000 publication, A Guide to Developing Teacher Induction Programs, "Well-funded, comprehensive, developmental induction programs that serve all teachers who need assistance are far from the norm in U.S. school districts."

In a recent NWREL publication, Supporting Beginning Teachers, authors Cori Brewster and Jennifer Railsback point out, "Although many schools provide orientation programs for new hires, they often focus primarily on school policies and procedures, falling short of the ongoing professional support, training, and encouragement that new teachers need."

Well-designed induction programs, RNT reports, hold promise to slow teacher attrition; remove incompetent teachers and retain talented ones; help novices continue to develop as proficient, knowledgeable, and successful teachers; improve the climate for teaching and learning; and build community between new and veteran teachers.

The most effective programs, described in A Guide to Developing Teacher Induction Programs:

• View induction as a multiyear, developmental process. Two or three years of support may be needed to move new teachers from basic survival skills and orientation to focus on instructional effectiveness and, eventually, address systemwide issues such as student assessment, teacher leadership, curriculum reform, and school improvement.
• Ensure that school administrators understand how to orient new teachers, create supportive working conditions, effectively meet their professional needs, and convey to the entire staff the importance of welcoming, guiding, and assisting them. This means principals may need training to be alert to new teachers' needs and concerns.
• Provide high-quality mentoring, backed by adequate funding.
• Link inductee evaluation to standards.

Researchers at the Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, in a 2001 report called Revisiting What States Are Doing To Improve the Quality of Teaching, point out that formal induction programs are becoming increasingly common. In the 1980s, only 15 states offered new teachers some form of induction. By 1999, 38 states and the District of Columbia had adopted induction programs. They range from small projects that reach only a fraction of a state's newcomers to California's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program, a $100 million effort intended to match every beginning teacher with a mentor for the first two years on the job. To the extent that states require new teacher induction, "they send a powerful message to districts, schools, and new teachers themselves," conclude Revisiting What States Are Doing authors Eric Hirsch, Julia Koppich, and Michael Knapp.

Out of necessity, California is emerging as a national leader in supporting new teachers. Since the state passed a class-size reduction initiative five years ago, local districts have had to scramble to find teachers to fill new assignments. Between 1999 and 2005, the state projects hiring another 265,000 new teachers — at least 10 percent of whom are expected to arrive at the classroom with emergency credentials, without adequate training or experience.

The New Teacher Center in Santa Cruz grew out of a California study to identify effective approaches to beginning teacher support. It has been designated as an exemplary mentoring program by the U.S. Department of Education and highlighted by Recruiting New Teachers. The center consults with districts across the country, including some in the Northwest region, and attracts educators from more than 20 states to an annual symposium. The staff, headed by Executive Director Ellen Moir, also works in close collaboration with local school districts in the Silicon Valley, Oakland, and elsewhere to teach classroom veterans how to observe, coach, and support new teachers.

Moir and her hand-picked staff of veteran teachers have developed "a curriculum of mentoring," but they had to learn their lessons the hard way. "It took us a lot of messing around to come to our current understandings" of what new teachers need, she admits, and move beyond providing emotional support. No one will deny that kind of support is important for the survival of rookies. "Being new and facing the complexities of the job causes new teachers to question their sense of efficacy," Moir explains. Her research has shown that new teachers start the school year full of hope and optimism, but then "their confidence typically falls by October."

To keep up their own spirits and bolster their students' learning, novices need access to materials and strategies to support the development of sound instructional practices. "We want to support their learning over time," Moir explains, and to do so in the context of the new teacher's own classroom. A veteran teacher — known at the New Teacher Center as an "adviser" — can help by employing such methods as observation, coaching, role-playing, lesson modeling, and assessment. That way, the program becomes focused on "teacher learning to support student learning." What's more, the strategies that help new teachers learn align with sound classroom practices. Formative assessment, for example, is a powerful tool that advisers use to gauge new teachers' understanding of their own learning. New teachers, in turn, can use the same tool to help their own students become more self-directed learners. "It's all nested," Moir explains.

Harry Wong, author of the best-selling The First Days of School, argues that new teachers want instructional support more than hand holding. Although Wong is a believer in "the efficacy of mentoring," he asserts in a recent column in Education Week that what a new teacher needs and deserves "is a tutor, a master teacher, or ultimately, a group of teachers, staff developers, and administrators who will teach that new teacher and get him or her up to speed quickly. … Novice teachers want teachers — teachers they can watch teach in their rooms, teachers who will give them activities and lesson plans, teachers who will tell them what to do with those kids who challenge even the best in the field."

Transforming The Profession

When 18-year teaching veteran Jan Miles was invited to leave her regular duties and become an adviser for a group of new teachers, she felt as if she was letting down the children assigned to her classroom. But then she thought about all those new teachers struggling to get along — many of them without teaching credentials, working under emergency certification because of a dire shortage. "I told my students that if I didn't help, it would be as if I saw a building on fire and walked past it. I hated to leave my own kids, but I knew I had to help," she says.

She's had no time to look back. As senior outreach coordinator and educator-in-residence at the New Teacher Center, Miles has spent the past six years advising novice teachers in a variety of school settings, including the Silicon Valley. There's no doubt the program has made a difference for the rookies — more than 90 percent of whom have remained in teaching after six years.

The surprise, says Miles, is how much she has learned about her own teaching from being an adviser. "I knew before that I was a good teacher," she says, "but I didn't know why." Being an adviser has caused her to examine her own teaching practices, to understand her own wisdom well enough so that she's able to share it with others.

Moir sees that reflective process as one of the most useful aspects of mentoring. "It means the exceptional teacher has to ask, What have I been doing that's so effective? They have to unpack that, deconstruct what they've been doing well in the classroom," she explains, so that they're able to explain their strategies to novice teachers.

The assignment has given Miles the opportunity to visit scores of classrooms — also a revelation. "I seldom left my own classroom in all my years of teaching," she admits. "I'd never gotten a chance to see all the other ways there are of doing things." Perhaps best of all, being an adviser "has taught me to listen, to pause, to reflect," Miles says.

Another educator-in-residence in the program, Tomasita Villarreal-Carman, sees mentoring as "a real opportunity for veterans." Some of her fellow veterans, she admits, "were on the verge of leaving the profession. This allows them to continue to build their careers." One came out of retirement to work as an adviser, "and she said she's never felt more fulfilled as a teacher," says Villarreal-Carman. The collegial relationship between new teacher and veteran "opens the doors to reflective practice," she explains. "This is purely positive for our profession."

Once veteran teachers have mentored novices, their own classroom skills tend to expand in unexpected ways. "When they return to classroom teaching, it's almost like they've had a sabbatical in terms of their professional growth," Moir observes. Some advisers have gone into school administration, using their newly honed skills as instructional leaders. "This builds capacity within the profession," says Moir. "It's a critical role — being a teacher of other teachers."

Although programs such as the New Teacher Center can provide curriculum materials, research, and technical assistance to make induction more effective, Moir considers it essential for local districts to "own this work" of developing the skills of their new teachers.

By "growing their own" induction programs, districts can make adjustments to fit their specific population needs or unique geography. Montana, for example, uses e-mail to connect new science and math teachers with mentors and overcome the isolation of working far from subject-area colleagues. In urban Seattle, a teachers' association is playing an increasing role in professional development for new teachers. Anchorage taps the wisdom of retired teachers, recruiting them to mentor novices. In communities located near universities, new partnerships between researchers and classroom teachers are paving smoother pathways into teaching.

No matter what the setting, providing for the growth of new teachers "should be organic — right at the heart of the district," Moir argues. "It's really about building the profession. This is such hopeful work. And it's the cheapest money districts can spend to improve education. Ambitious teacher development goes right to supporting student learning."

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