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July/August 2001
Clever incentives may attract new teachers, but
only improving the culture and working conditions of schools will keep
them
By Susan Moore Johnson, Sarah Birkeland, Susan M. Kardos, David
Kauffman, Edward Liu, and Heather G. Peske of The Project on the Next
Generation of Teachers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Throughout the United States, school officials are either anticipating
or already experiencing a teacher shortage. The projected need to fill 2.2
million vacancies by 2010 will be intensely felt in high-poverty schools and in
certain subjects (math, science, and foreign languages) and programs (bilingual
and special education). Recognizing this, policymakers are devising ways to
make teaching more attractive, and the competition for high-quality teachers is
fierce. Recruiters in various districts can now waive preservice training,
offer signing bonuses, forgive student loans, and even provide mortgage
subsidies or health club memberships. While such strategies may well increase
the supply of new teachers to schools, they provide no assurance of keeping
them there, for they are but short-term responses to long-term challenges.
The challenge of attracting and retaining quality teachers is
heightened by increased pressure for district and school accountability, often
in the form of high-stakes testing and mandated curricular standards. In
response to these mandates, districts are introducing reforms and initiatives
at a frenetic pace. As a result, new teachers are struggling to learn their
craft in dynamic and frequently chaotic environments.
At the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, our research
suggests that the key to addressing shortages lies not in attractive
recruitment policies but in support and training for new teachers at the school
site. For it is in schools and classrooms where teachers must find success and
satisfaction. It is there they will decide whether or not to continue to teach.
As Richard Ingersoll at the University of Pennsylvania has found, the “revolving door” of teacher attrition and turnover is a primary
contributor to school staffing shortages, particularly in urban schools. Poor
working conditions and lack of significant on-the-job training and support are
major reasons why many new teachers leave the profession within five years. Our
interviews with 50 first- and second-year Massachusetts teachers working in a
wide range of schools revealed that many who are eager to become teachers find
that they need much more encouragement and direction than their schools
currently provide.
For instance, we found that new teachers had few of the traditional
supports that one might expect would be routine. They reported receiving little
guidance about what to teach or how to teach it. Instead, most described
struggling on their own each day to cobble together content and materials,
often with no coherent, long-term plan for meeting specific learning
objectives. Although virtually all of the new teachers we interviewed had
official mentors assigned by their districts, those mentors frequently taught
in different schools, levels, or subjects, and meetings with them were
intermittent and brief at best. Our respondents yearned for ongoing
observations and feedback, but classroom visits by colleagues and
administrators were rare.
Learning to teach well is slow, difficult work. Managing a classroom,
choosing or creating curriculum, developing sound instructional strategies,
accurately assessing student understanding, and adjusting to student needs are
complex tasks, and new teachers need time and support to develop the necessary
knowledge and skills. However, few of the new teachers in our study said their
schools were organized to help them cope with difficulties and become better
teachers. As novices, they were eager to watch the experts and develop their
craft under guidance, but only a small number of our respondents had access to
the wisdom of experienced colleagues.
Neither the structures nor the cultures of their schools seemed to be
geared toward their needs as novice teachers. Schedules rarely provided regular
time for joint planning and observation, nor was such collaboration expected or
encouraged. Meetings were designed to dispense information to individuals,
rather than to share struggles and strategies, which is necessary to fulfill a
collective responsibility for educating the school’s students. Mentoring
and other induction programs were limited because they were not embedded within
a professional culture that valued and supported these relationships and
activities. In the worst cases, school leaders played no role in creating a
culture that was welcoming and supportive to new teachers.
The new teachers who reported feeling the most supported described
their schools as having what we called “integrated professional
cultures.” There, new teachers could expect frequent and meaningful
interaction among faculty members across all experience levels, and an
appropriate novice status that accounted for their developmental needs while
not underestimating their potential contributions. In addition, responsibility
for the school and its students was shared among all colleagues within the
school. In contrast, many new teachers found themselves subtly excluded from
professional contact with veterans. Others, particularly those in charter
schools that were staffed mostly with novices, found that there were no senior
teachers to whom they could turn for advice or expertise.
While states and districts can assume responsibility for increasing
pay, reducing or altering entry requirements, or creating career ladders, such
initiatives will ultimately make little difference if a teacher is dissatisfied
with teaching. And it is at the school site, rather than at the district, where
key factors influencing new teachers’ experiences converge; it is there
that induction efforts should be centered. Well-matched mentors, curriculum
guidance, collaborative lesson planning, peer observation, and inspired
leadership all support new teachers in ways that recruitment incentives never
can.
The success of school-based induction programs hinges on how teachers
work together, and the principal can play a central role in establishing
faculty norms and facilitating interaction among teachers with various levels
of experience. Successful induction may also be promoted by having teachers and
principals play greater roles in the hiring process and in selecting their
future colleagues. School-based hiring can be an important tool for shaping
professional culture and building school capacity.
Establishing support programs at the school would benefit not only new
teachers, but all teachers in schools striving to improve instructional
practice for students. For example, novices and veterans both benefit from
frequent and meaningful interaction with colleagues. Veteran teachers may well
learn from and with their novice colleagues about standards-based instruction,
the latest approaches to literacy, or strategies for integrating technology
into the classroom. Therefore, the benefits of these school-based efforts are
not limited to novice teacher induction, for they provide renewal for
experienced teachers and the foundation for school-wide improvement.
Improving working conditions and restructuring schools to support
individual, group, and organizational learning is a big task. While teachers
and principals must do most of the heavy lifting, fostering integrated
professional cultures and creating truly supportive school-based induction
programs will require time and money, resources often in short supply in public
schools. As policymakers direct new resources into recruitment, they would be
wise to direct a good portion of those resources toward the schools, for it is
at the individual school site where the potential to address the teacher
shortage truly rests.
Susan Moore Johnson is the Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. Professor of
Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and directs
the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers. Sarah Birkeland, Susan M.
Kardos, David Kauffman, Edward Liu, and Heather G. Peske are advanced doctoral
students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
For Further Information
R.M. Ingersoll. A Different Approach to Solving the Teacher Shortage Problem (Teaching Quality Policy Brief No. 3). Seattle: University of Washington, Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, 2001.
S.M. Johnson. "Teaching's Next Generation." Education Week, June 7, 2000: 48, 33.
S.M. Kardos, S. M. Johnson, H.G. Peske, D. Kauffman, and E. Liu. "Counting on Colleagues: New Teachers Encounter the Professional Cultures of Their Schools." Educational Administration Quarterly 37, no. 2 (April 2001): 250-290.
S.M. Johnson and S.M Kardos. "Keeping New Teachers in Mind." Educational Leadership 59, no. 6 (March 2002): 12-16.
D. Kauffman, S.M. Johnson, S.M. Kardos, E. Liu, and H.G. Peske. "'Lost at Sea': New Teachers' Experiences with Curriculum and Assessment." Teachers College Record 104, no. 2 (March 2002): 273-300.
H.G. Peske, E. Liu, S.M. Johnson, D. Kauffman, and S.M. Kardos. "The Next Generation of Teachers: Changing Conceptions of a Career in Teaching." Phi Delta Kappan 83, no. 4 (December 2001): 304-311.
Other useful resources:
National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, Teachers
College, Columbia University, 525 W. 120th St., Box 117, New York, NY 10027;
212-678-4153; fax: 212-678-4039. www.nctaf.org
National Council on Teacher Quality. Online at
www.nctq.org
Education Week. “Quality Counts 2000: Who Should Teach?” Available online at www.edweek.org/sreports/qc00/
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