FIXING OUR SCHOOLS FOR DUMMIES - III

TEACHER RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

Using a model that would offer scholarships or reduction of student loans we need to attract college graduates into education and keep them. Unfortunately, today's future teachers not only need a degree in their subject area; but they also must have the equivalent of a Master's Degree to satisfy the numerous course requirements dealing methodology, teaching techniques, strategies and countless other courses to become credentialed. Not long ago California required all its credentialed teachers to obtain the CLAD (Cross-Cultural Language and Academic Development) credential and then the B-CLAD. I have yet to find one teacher who feels the credential was needed or worthwhile for success in the classroom. Acquiring that CLAD credential however was necessary to keep ones teaching job. With California's diverse population it seems the CLAD was more politically motivated than educationally necessary.

Once a college graduate has been recruited it would be very beneficial if that new hire got meaningful guidance and support in the classroom. Unfortunately classroom management skills have become increasing more important for teacher survival and retention. What we teach has taken a back seat to how we teach, whom we teach and more importantly the test scores of those being taught. Schools with students from poor families, with limited financial means, and missing the family and community support that more well off families and communities enjoy must compete against these schools and are judged with these schools. Neither the players nor the playing field is level. In this Race to the Top where No Child is supposed to be Left Behind the teachers are under tremendous pressure to see that their students achieve and become winners. If students do not achieve then the teachers are to blame and become the losers. Some of this countries educational leaders now proclaim that Failure is Not an Option ! And these are the same political and educational leaders who mandate programs and expect results; but provide little if any financial support.

Of course even though the classroom teacher has no control over attendance, frequency of absenteeism, homework completion and parental cooperation he/she is still held accountable for all students' successes and failures. In most schools new teachers get as much assistance and guidance as a non swimmer who is thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim! Of course there are programs where a posse of educational experts will suddenly appear in a new teachers room and offer constructive criticism on everything from the content of the bulletin boards to the way the desks are arranged. New teachers I have talked to find these classroom visits by the alleged mentoring experts most disturbing and not the least bit helpful. Is it any wonder that so many new teachers leave before reaching their fifth year of teaching?

I would recommend that new teachers be given assignments where they would be teaching the best and the brightest students in any school. Unfortunately new teachers (like the non-swimmer being thrown into the deep end of the pool) are usually given the worst classes containing the most difficult students. Teaching these classes with difficult students requires the skills of experienced teachers possessing not only a command of the subject matter; but also expert classroom management skills.

Fresh out of college I worked as an intake counselor at the Maryland Reception Classification & Diagnostic Center housed at the maximum security Maryland Penitentiary. Later I worked as a classroom teacher for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services at both the Maryland Children's Center and the Maryland Training School for Boys. During this time I attended Loyola College Evening Graduate School and earned my Masters in Education in the area of the Emotionally Disturbed Child. Concurrently, I earned my Maryland Standard Teaching Credential. Before relocating to California I taught for two years for the Methodist Board of Child Care at their residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed teenagers. I believe the years I spent teaching in the institutional setting allowed me to hone my classroom management skills that allowed me to survive the next 35 years of teaching in the public school system. I survived the deep end of the pool.

New teachers may be skilled in their respective subject matter; but in today's classroom where concern for student self-esteem is more important than any expectation of student self-control these new teachers are at a very serious disadvantage. Maybe veteran teachers should be offered bonus or incentive (I am not talking about merit pay) pay to voluntarily take the more difficult or challenging classes and students and allow the new teachers to hone their skills with the more well behaved and academically interested students. Becoming an excellent classroom teacher should be a process not a trial by fire or a situation where the new teacher either sinks or swims as his administrators and colleagues stand by and watch.

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