The article reports:
Recent findings by Richard Ingersoll at the University of Pennsylvania show that as teacher attrition rates have risen, from about 10% to 13% for first-year teachers, schools are having to hire large numbers of new teachers. Between 40% to 50% of those entering the profession now leave within five years in what Ingersoll calls a “constant replenishment of beginners.”
The end result: a more than threefold increase in the sheer number of inexperienced teachers in U.S. schools. In the 1987-88 school year, Ingersoll estimates, there were about 65,000 first-year teachers; by 2007-08, the number had grown to more than 200,000. In the 1987-88 school year, he found, the biggest group of teachers had 15 years of experience. By the 2007-08 school year, the most recent data available, the biggest group of teachers had one year experience.
The brand new teachers, as Susan Fuhrman says, are “very used to standardized testing,” she says. “They’ve grown up with it in some way. Maybe that’s healthy, in that they would be less obsessed with it.”
Fuhrman is president of Teachers College and also a member of the board of directors of Pearson.
Tim Daly, whose organization The New Teacher Project, was founded by Michelle Rhee, loves the idea of all these new teachers. TNTP exists to recruit them. He says that most were 11 years old when NCLB was passed, so they don’t know anything different from standardized testing and being held accountable for raising test scores. For them, it is the norm.
No voice in the article explains why experience matters.
No one asks why the teaching profession is being systematically dismantled.
Apparently having three years under your belt these days makes you a “grizzled veteran.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not to mention that teachers in their first three years are hardly likely to be brave enough to enter into a real relationship with students–they’re just hanging in there. And without a strong union, “deviants” will surely be quickly screened out, or intimidated and fired.
Serious learning by teachers and students requires a mindset that takes time to develop and can’t be mandated.
None–or few– have the luxury I had–of truly supportive colleagues and principal who weren’t looking anxiously over my shoulder and monitoring my test scores!
deb
Leonie Haimson responded to this post with a question: Does Teachers College tell its graduate students that teaching is a temp job, get used to it?
I have to disagree. While new teachers are often overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid, they are still dewy with the enthusiasm that brought them into teaching in the first place. They are quick to develop bonds with their students, primarily because relationships with young people are a key reason we seek out jobs in education.
Maybe someone should point out that this will end with the closing of Teachers College; I wonder what Ms. Furhman would say then? Of course, she can always fall back on her Person gig.
Why are people like Furhman, Rhee, and the others quoted so hateful of teachers and teaching? Is really just greed and narcissism driving them?
Does Susan Fuhrman have any integrity at all? How can she not see that what she said is a conflict of interest?
Translation of Furhman and Daly’s sentiments:
“New teachers had to eat the crap NCLB served them throughout all their days as students, so they’ll have no qualms serving it to their students.”
I don’t have data in front of me, or a link, but the cost of teacher attrition is astronomical, not to mention it has been shown over and over again, that teachers get better with more experience – especially peaking between the 5 to 10 year mark.
To train new teachers and fix their mistakes is expensive.
I wish I could find the data, because when I read it, I couldn’t believe how much money is spent on teacher attrition. Maybe someone that has more time and access to data can comment.
Here you are: Teacher churn hurts the kids who lose their teacher and the ones who don’t lose their teacher: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/07/21/study-says-teacher-churn-hurts-students/
Thanks, I also found the study by Center for American Progress that stated it can cost up to 15K to replace a teacher in some districts. The financial costs alone are intimidating, not to mention the the negative effects on students and staff.
There was another study that totaled the amount, I believe nationally, for replacing teachers every year, and it was very high.
I still see this as a major dilemma and cause for pause for those who care. Why are we so set on this witch hunt to find a few “bad apples” (most researchers say there are 5% to 15% of teachers that are incompetent), when we have such a high turnover? Shouldn’t we worry first about retaining teachers before we worry about figuring out which are the good ones and which ones are the bad ones?
I see the whole present-day reform effort as centering on firing the bad teachers – this stemming from NCTQ and others. The whole VAM movement is an attempt to find and fire bad teachers.
What a waste of time and money when so many teachers are leaving regardless.
And how in the world are teachers continuing to leave? Diane, I would like your take on this – during these rough economic times, it seems like teachers would sit on their jobs because there are not too many out there to pursue that would offer better wages and benefits at the present time.
Why are teachers still leaving? Maybe a majority are retiring early?
they usually say 5%
that’s probably overstated
“The whole VAM movement is an attempt to find and fire bad teachers.”
Only on the surface. The real purpose is to make teachers afraid and thereform compliant. As you mention, it’s not like teachers can easily leave the profession, since there aren’t any other jobs out there, so most teachers are dependent on their jobs even if they’re miserable. No squeaky wheels wanted.
Understanding why experience matters requires actually having some, and that only comes with time. Experience is not just knowing what to do in a given situation, but sometimes more importantly, what not to do.
I think you’re being too generous to think that they don’t actually understand why experience matters. After all, nearly every field has experience requirements in hiring new employees and in trusting current employees with more responsibility. USAToday should ask themselves why they don’t save themselves some money and fire all their experienced journalists and just have fresh-out-of-school newbies write all their columns for them.
The “reformers” want newbies specifically because they know that experience equals knowledge and power, which are things we certainly wouldn’t want in our teachers now, would we?
As a proud graduate of Teachers College, it pains me to see the president aligned with Pearsons and TNTP in any way. My experience at TC changed my life and nothing influences my practice more than my time there. I hope the reformers don’t take that away from my profession too.
The logic is totally wrong. One of the strongest voices against standardized testing is a young woman I know who teaches at the college level who put up with the FCAT here in Florida. She RAILS against it, sends letters to politicians and legislators, and hates how she has to deal with it in the College Comp class because kids are so “FCAT” trained.
HSST are all FCAT up anyway.
Traduzcala, por favor. What is HSST. Translate please!
I just heard our county supt. of schools state that if more students cannot be recruited into teacher training, we will have a catastrophic shortage of teachers within a few years. Perhaps young adults have had enough of test, test, test, and have come to realize that education needs to be something more. The kidd are tired of and bored by so much testing; why would they want to make a career out of it? The kids are definitely smarter than the “reformers”!
I think a huge reason why this has been allowed to happen within so many school systems is because many administrators nowadays are so very, very young and inexperienced in the classroom. When I was a child (before NCLB), my principals were old and had taught for many years before rising to the position of an administrator. My current principal taught 3 years before transitioning to administrative roles and then later becoming a principal. His lack of classroom experience becomes evident in conversations, particularly about SPED classes (e.g. inclusion versus self-contained, etc.). He’s great in a lot of ways, but his scope and understanding about what education really is (or can be) is so limited.
As someone who is entering her fourth full year of teaching (I cobbled together about a year and a half more of experience before I was hired full time, but of course that never counts for anything), I struggle every day with the idea of doing this job until I retire. Frankly, I wonder how much one person is supposed to take before they crack. For now, I seem to manage okay, but this is the first year I’ve understood how a lot of teachers do manage to get through. For one, they remind themselves that administrators and new fangled ideas come and go, but they remain there, fighting the good fight. For another, they start to say “f*** it” and stop giving in to the dumb ideas they know won’t affect their evaluations, but will affect their ability to successfully instruct a class. I reached this point this year. My school tried to introduce new passes that a teacher is required to sign EVERY TIME a kid needs to use the washroom. Currently, I have the old tried and true method of a wooden pass that kids use when they need to go to the bathroom. I find this new method to be disruptive to the classroom and a potential waste of instructional time (of which I already have so little). I know this because I used this same interruptive system at a previous school. Every other year, I would have hated doing it, but done it and bitterly complained about it to fellow colleagues that were on my side. This year, I decided I know what’s best for my classroom. That is not it. I will not have my classroom disrupted repeatedly by kids who need me to stop what I’m doing, locate a pen and sign a pass when I have a perfectly good solution that people have been using for decades and which does not disturb the education of the overall class or waste instructional minutes. I guess if my principal has to, he’ll discipline me. In the mean time, I’m going to focus on what’s really important: trying to crank out some independent, creative thinkers. : )
I think a huge reason why this has been allowed to happen within so many school systems is because many administrators nowadays are so very, very young and inexperienced in the classroom. When I was a child (before NCLB), my principals were old and had taught for many years before rising to the position of an administrator. My current principal taught 3 years before transitioning to administrative roles and then later becoming a principal. His lack of classroom experience becomes evident in conversations, particularly about SPED classes (e.g. inclusion versus self-contained, etc.). He\’s great in a lot of ways, but his scope and understanding about what education really is (or can be) is so limited.
As someone who is entering her fourth full year of teaching (I cobbled together about a year and a half more of experience before I was hired full time, but of course that never counts for anything), I struggle every day with the idea of doing this job until I retire. Frankly, I wonder how much one person is supposed to take before they crack. For now, I seem to manage okay, but this is the first year I\’ve understood how a lot of teachers do manage to get through. For one, they remind themselves that administrators and new fangled ideas come and go, but they remain there, fighting the good fight. For another, they start to say \”f*** it\” and stop giving in to the dumb ideas they know won\’t affect their evaluations, but will affect their ability to successfully instruct a class. I reached this point this year. My school tried to introduce new passes that a teacher is required to sign EVERY TIME a kid needs to use the washroom. Currently, I have the old tried and true method of a wooden pass that kids use when they need to go to the bathroom. I find this new method to be disruptive to the classroom and a potential waste of instructional time (of which I already have so little). I know this because I used this same interruptive system at a previous school. Every other year, I would have hated doing it, but done it and bitterly complained about it to fellow colleagues that were on my side. This year, I decided I know what\’s best for my classroom. That is not it. I will not have my classroom disrupted repeatedly by kids who need me to stop what I\’m doing, locate a pen and sign a pass when I have a perfectly good solution that people have been using for decades and which does not disturb the education of the overall class or waste instructional minutes. I guess if my principal has to, he\’ll discipline me. In the mean time, I\’m going to focus on what\’s really important: trying to crank out some independent, creative thinkers. : )
Just a thought: How many of these young teachers are also leap-frogging into administrative and mid-management positions within education but outside the classroom? We ought to be just as concerned that this is our future administrative workforce.
I agree. No individual should be an administrator until they have served as a teacher for a considerable amount of time.
I know there are exceptions – some rookie teachers – that after a few years actually make a good administrator, but it is probably rare.
It sends the wrong message to a staff when an administrator has only taught for a few years.
It would almost be like hiring a Federal Secretary of Education that has very little experience as a teacher.
When I transferred schools about 7 years ago (with 20+ years of experience), I was assigned to the Freshman Academy. No problem–I’ve taught 9th graders my entire career. My first day in this school, the Department Chair of this academy said to me “If you need any help dealing with freshmen, let me know.” Ladies and Gentlemen–this young man was starting his 2nd year of teaching. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard him yelling at students in the hallway (his class was across from mine) and letting his students run rampant. After another 2 years, he became the Assistant Principal in this same school. I have since left, but I do wonder how things are going there.
Looking back on my first years of teaching, I am embarrassed at what I did not know and how ineffective some of my strategies were. I thought I was doing a great job and, to be fair, I was probably an o.k. teacher. But after teaching approximately 500 students I feel that I am much better able to motivate students, diagnose deficiencies, and help students succeed. I wouldn’t want a first year brain surgeon operating on me, I’d want the surgeon with the most experience. Why would we think differently about teachers?
You also have to account for the fact that in some instance, dismissal means loss of pension benefits accrued. Evaluations tied to test results take human considerations out of evaluations. If your class has low scores, you go, there are no exceptions. I can’t wait until this fervor binds up TFA and others, they will have a hard time wiggling out of this in the end. No excuses may come to bludgeon them too.
TFA will be long gone before consequences happen That’s why they don’t care More churn=more job openings for them and New Teacher Project Newcomers called “irreplaceables” By themselves
I am a young an inexperienced teacher, I am not afraid to admit it! I yes I did grow up with NCLB and standardized testing, and I guess they are right, I am obsessed with it, I AM OBSESSED WITH GETTING RID OF IT!!!
yay for Jeremiah!
Apparently they believe in Bill Gates theory of How to Make Better Teachers. According to him none of us get any better after 3 years so why bother!
Here him yourself. SOOOOO Delusional!
http://edudemic.com/2012/05/how-bill-gates-thinks-you-make-great-teachers/
Change teachers like you change versions of Windows?
More $$ for the privateers, eh!!
Apparently so…..
Bill Gates’ Theory…..fingers skipped the apostrophe…sorry.
BTW, where’s the little baggie or trash can I really need it!!!
Very disturbing that the president of one of the most prestigious teaching schools is making only the statement about standardized testing and growing up with it is a strength.
Those of us that have been around a long time (20+ years) have been through much staff development, good and bad. We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t and have had the opportunity to work with our colleagues to improve our teaching strategies for each new group of students.
I have noticed in the last two to three years our new teachers know one teaching strategy – technology. They expect every student to look at the words and/or pictures being projected on the screen and learn the content.
I walk into their classrooms and when the projector/computer/digital camera/etc. goes off I can barely tell what the subject is they teach. There is no student work, no graphic organizers, no realia, nothing.
A lot of blank faces and the new teachers can’t understand why.