I learned a new application for an old word in a recent article in Education Week (Vol. 31, No. 27).  The word is “churn”.  While the traditional definition is “to stir or agitate violently”, in this article, it refers to the practice of moving teachers around and compares this churn to a hurricane.

Urban school districts suffer the most from this type of disaster.  New teachers often leave the teaching profession within the first five years or they at least leave the urban schools for suburban institutions.  This creates a stir in the school or the entire district as educators move in and move out and others move in to take their place.  This interferes with relationship building between staff members and with their students.  This instability creates obstacles in developing trust and understanding.

A more complicated problem is that teachers not only leave urban schools, but often , those schools will move teachers around within the building (and sometimes between from one school to another) treating them as objects or widgets, merely filling a scheduling or staffing hole.  Teachers are not given the opportunity to develop expertise in a grade level or subject as they are moved about by the hurricane.  The article states, “For every two teachers who left the district or the profession during our study, another three were moved from subject to subject, grade to grade, or school to school.”  In addition to personal mastery, educators who are blown about are not able to form stable professional learning communities in which to grow in their abilities.

Educators, researchers, and policymakers have learned to accept churn as “background noise.”  The constant movement has become a fact of educator’s lives.  Further research showed that of controlled studies attempting to measure the effects of new interventions churn was ignored as a possible reason for failing to find effects from the interventions.

Churn is apparent even in the world of administrators where principals are switched about in efforts to turn around struggling schools.  As a result, teachers are constantly adjusting to new leadership styles.

What does this mean for teachers?

• Less knowledge. When teachers are moved from grade to grade, they need to learn new curriculum materials and new educational standards.  Looking at the National Common Core State Standards, it is obvious that a teacher would find differences and variance in the standards.  
  
• Weak relationships. Teachers in schools with a high-level of churn, fail to make lasting relationships with co-workers.  In fact, they may feel less inclined to even attempt the effort of connecting with colleagues if they feel that the coworker will only disappear at the end of the year. 
  
• High turnover. Teachers who feel like widgets will leave the profession http://widgeteffect.org/  Teachers who feel valued for their contribution to the education of children, stay.
  

What does this mean for students?

We have to remember that students ultimately suffer due to churn.  Students cannot build relationships when teachers are moving to other buildings.  Without a degree of staff stability, students encounter a new school climate every year of their education.

What does this mean for policymakers?

Teacher turnover has been talked about for many years.  Teachers leave the profession for a variety of reasons, but the fact remains that teacher turnover has related economic costs.  It takes money to train teachers and to provide them with materials to meet educational demands.  It takes money to recruit qualified individuals.

Turnover has educational costs.  If students are consistently taught by less experienced teachers, they will experience less effective teaching on the whole.  If students are taught by teachers who are always new to the curriculum, they will not benefit from a teacher’s deep understanding of a subject matter or grade level.

Turnover has personal costs.  Educators and administrators are never able to develop confidence in an area, a building, or a subject area if they are constantly tossed around by the winds of change.

Churn needs to be recognized and addressed.  It cannot be a necessary evil involved in education.  The root causes of churn need to be examined.  How arbitrary is churn?  What are the reasons that are given when teachers and administrators are moved or choose to move?  How can we convince teachers to stay?  How can we convince administrators to let teachers stay in one place long enough to develop a level of expertise?

Final Thoughts:

Educators leave the profession of teaching for a variety of reasons.  Although teachers may seek higher paying jobs, more often teachers site the reasons for leaving as “environments that lack essential professional supports including:

1. support from school leadership,
   
   
2. organizational structures and workforce conditions that convey respect and value for them, and
   
   
3. induction and mentoring programs for new and experienced teachers.”
   
   

When teachers feel valued and respected, they will stay – through thick and thin.  When teachers are treated like warm bodies to fill a classroom based on scheduling needs, they feel undervalued and unable to fulfill their role as a mentor for the future.

Some people think that anyone can teach.  That is a widget mentality and teachers are not widgets. 

Teacher: The Iconic Profession

Going Back to Zero

Enough already! As a nation, we generally agree that the teacher is the single most important variable in the education of children. However, very little has been done since A Nation At Risk was published in 1983 to improve the status of the teaching profession.

So what is, you may ask, the definition of a “profession”?

According to Webster’s Dictionary, a profession is a vocation based on specialized educational training.  A “professional” is defined as engaged in one of the learned professions, usually characterized by or conforming to the ethical standards of a profession. Some of  the generally accepted characteristics of a professional teacher are:

1. Skills based on extensive theoretical knowledge.
2. Professional association.
3. Extensive education and training.
4. Testing of Competence
5. Licensed Practioners.
6. High Status and Rewards (I know, I know)
7. Legal authority over activities.

So to all the teachers out there, do you feel like you are a professional? A professional teacher?

I think most of us teachers feel that we are professionals and our job is critical to the future of our students, our community and our country. However, if your experience as a teacher is similar to mine, then you know that our view is not always shared by all.  Now, there are some exceptions to this but as I talk to my colleagues across the nation, I get a similar response to the question.

A quick Google search on education reform brings up many topics such as Teacher Leaders, International Benchmarking, Teacher Retention and Evaluation, Economics and the Workforce and many, many others. Some of these current education reform efforts incorporate the teaching profession but few of them focus solely on elevating the profession itself.

While there are so many important and well-intentioned reform efforts underway, I propose that the first reform agenda item that needs to occur is reform focused on the profession of the teacher. Given the many parties involved in reform and their respective political needs, it seems to me the most cost effective and practical approach is Going Back to Zero.

Going Back to Zero suggests that we start with a blank slate and begin to rebuild the main components of the teaching profession, knowing what needs to occur now and for the next century. These would include initial recruitment, training in pedagogy and core subject areas, ongoing professional development,  evaluation, reward and compensation.   Best practices are all around us in the United States and throughout the world. It's up to us as teachers to determine the most important features for professionalizing the teaching profession, discover where the best practices for doing so exist, and recommend to policymakers that those best practices be implemented.

As a policymaker, how can you begin the process of Going Back to Zero?

One of the best suggestions I have seen so far comes from Mckinsey and Company in their report, “The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools”

“Given the complexity of the issues, and the regional and national dimensions of the talent pool, the research also suggests there would be benefits to creating a National Teaching Talent Plan. A commission assigned to this task might propose next steps and timelines for phasing in changes in how we recruit, prepare, retain, and reward teachers, informed by global best practice.”

If you are a policymaker or administrator and you believe that the teacher is the single most critical factor in the success of children in the classroom, then this publication is a must read. I would encourage you to engage teachers in a genuine way by Going Back to Zero within your own school, district or state by asking the question, “what could or should the profession of teacher look like?" If we don't start asking ourselves this question soon, we may experience a  future that is similar to what the National Commission on Excellence in Education saw in 1983:

• Too many teachers are drawn from the bottom quarter of graduating high school and college students.
• The average salary after 12 years of teaching is only $17,000(1983) per year, and many teachers are required to supplement their income with part-time jobs.
• Severe shortages to certain kinds of teachers exist such as math, science, foreign languages, special education and dual language.
• Master teachers are not significantly involved in the professional aspects of their vocation.

Note: This blog is a first in a series of blog postings on Teacher: The Iconic Profession. Future posts will include more specific pieces of the puzzle including recruitment of teachers, training and development, evaluation, rewards and compensation. Enjoy and Engage!