This study by a group of prominent researchers will not be news to teachers and principals, but should be a revelation to the U.S. Department of Education, to Secretary Arne Duncan and to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Here is the summary.
It says that teacher turnover harms student test scores in both mathematics and reading. It says that it harms academic performance most among poor and black students. It says that high rates of teacher churn affect both the students who lose their teachers and even those who didn’t. The researchers are cautious about why this is so, but they think it may have to do with the continual disruption of the school’s community and culture. It is hard to have collegiality and a cohesive staff when staff members come and go in large numbers.
Good schools don’t have high attrition among teachers and principals. Good schools are schools that professionals feel part of and want to sustain and improve. Churn is not good for schools. And now we know it is not good for children either.
So every time you hear Secretary Duncan laud the “turnaround” model, remember that he is lauding a bad idea. Remember he is saying that the mere act of tossing out the principal and half the staff constitutes “reform.” There may be instances where a school is so bad and so incompetent and so corrupt that a start over is necessary, but those instances are rare. Typically a school with low scores is struggling to meet the needs of children who are poor and don’t speak English; it needs help, not churn-by-design.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is why it is a shame neighborhood high schools were overloaded with students, rated poorly, then dismantled in NYC. With neighborhood schools you had something to work with, a logistical and communal foundation, so to speak. With poverty one of the main reasons for poor academic performance, the neighborhood school could have been a bastion for community success whether academically, athletically, culturally, and diversely in the sense of extracurricular offerings.
What better way to help a community than to get people who have a stake in it, students, parents, and educators, involved in its support.
The solution? Expand TFA…
Success and Harlem Village have a very high turnover rate. And it seems the only thing they boast about is their test scores. I wonder what they would tout if testing ended. Anything?
Churn keeps labor costs low and profits margins high. Retail workers at McDonalds or grocery stores, for example, are interchangeable because of the limits of those positions.
In schools, computers, online curriculum and online testing (“blended learning”) let privatizers limit the scope of teaching so that churn can work for their business model.
It’s not for the benefit of the kids and it’s not for the benefit of the middle class, and both Rahm and Romny know this.
An excellent school runs like a finely-tuned engine. There are literally hundreds of formal and informal procedures that make a school environment positive and efficient. These procedures have been developed over time and what works in one building may not work in another, depending on such simple things as physical layout of the school, the number of staff available, the scheduling of things like lunch, recess and bathroom time, the scheduling of specials such as art, music and physical education (IF you have these), and the storage and access to teaching materials. It also depends on more complex items such as the positive behavioral intervention strategies that are used to ensure a positive learning environment in a school. It is veteran teachers who know these finely tuned procedures. You cannot write them down and hand them on a list to a teacher new to a school. They have to be learned little by little with the help of experienced teachers. Teachers are dependent upon each other. Cooperation takes an understanding of these procedures and it takes personal knowledge and trust in other teachers. This takes time to develop and energy from both the new teacher and the veteran teachers. The higher the teacher turnover, the more energy and time spent learning, revising and teaching these procedural strategies.
One simple example from last year: I was assigned a different classroom. The change was from a relatively isolated room on the second floor to a room off the main entrance hall to the school. As a teacher of students with cross categorical special education needs, I am in and out of my room often. Many of the students need a learning space that has few distractions. It took many extra hours and experimentation to develop a classroom layout that met the needs of the children and was also welcoming to parents and other visitors to the school. I need my materials at my fingertips and my students need stability. Each rearrangement of the classroom meant re-teaching procedures to students and some trial and error with materials placement. Was educational time maximized last year? No. Was my stress level higher? Yes. Was my work load larger? Yes. Did it all work out OK? Yes, because other teachers had my back, I knew all the other hundreds of small things that make this school run well, and I knew my students and they knew me. This small change made a difference. Imagine changing numerous teachers from school to school. You don’t need research to answer the question of why high turnover decreases learning. Just ask a veteran teacher.
School stability is as valuable as family stability. Many students entering the classroom do not have the later. When their school environment lacks it as well, it’s a double whammie. Doesn’t everyone like to see a familiar face?
It never made sense to me how anyone could argue that instability is good for kids. After being at my middle school for almost a decade, I knew the community, the kids, their parents, aunties and cousins. They also knew me & knew my reputation. I didn’t have to “prove” myself like I did the first couple of years as a newbie teacher. Kids loved coming back and seeing that their teachers were still there. The sad reality for teaching in a high poverty school is that sometimes we are the only constant in their lives.
In Chicago, 10 more schools lost ALL their staff and administration to turnarounds this year . They will be opening in the fall with a much younger, less-diverse staff but the same students (Black and Hispanic).
One school, Pablo Casals, posted an 8% gain in its ISAT scores , in a year when the system average gain was only 0.9%. It is at par with all its neighborhood schools, and outscored over 100 elementary schools in Chicago ( even in 2011). Still, it was put on the list and acted upon by CPS , and now its teachers ( the ones who helped achieve that 8% gain) are spread out across the city. Weary from this process, many moved on to much “better” schools, not wanting to land in another school that might be on next year’s list for turnaround.
Sadly, this story is no doubt repeated across all 10 turnaround schools, all of them in high-poverty neighborhoods with mostly African-Am students , some like Casals, with a sizable Hispanic population too.
The toxic policies of Arne Duncan have to stop . They didn’t work in Chicago, they still don’t work in Chicago, and he has exported them to the other states. This ill-motivated man , who has never taught a day in his life, has to stop being the puppet of the billionaire’s club that is trying to steal education away from educators. He has to stop being our Secretary of Education.
Why is Ane Duncan still the Sec. of Education? I thought walking the plank was the fate of all administrators who spent four years producing lousy results. This can’t be about education, this guy is a flop!