Since 2007, when the flamboyant Disrupter Michelle Rhee took charge of the schools of D.C. with an unlimited grant of power—no checks, no balances, no constraints—the cheerleaders for Disruption (aka “Reform”) have made bold claims about the D.C. “miracle.” This despite a major cheating scandal that Rhee swept under the rug and despite a graduation rate scandal that followed a nonsensical, false claim by a high school that 100% of its students graduated.
Now this.
Blogger Valerie Jablow reports that the D.C. public schools face a major crisis of teacher attrition.
In the wake of years of testimony about horrific treatment of DC teachers, SBOE last year commissioned a study by DC schools expert Mary Levy, which showed terrible attrition of teachers at our publicly funded schools, dwarfing attrition rates nationally.
An update to that 2018 study was just made available by SBOE and will be discussed at the meeting this week.
The update shows that while DCPS teacher and principal attrition rates have dropped slightly recently, they remain very high, with 70% of teachers leaving entirely by the 5-year mark (p. 32). Retention rates for DC’s charter schools are similar to those at DCPS–with the caveat that not only are they self-reported, but they are also not as complete and likely contain errors.
Perhaps the most stunning data point is that more than half of DCPS teachers leaving after 6 years are highly rated (p. 24). This suggests that the exodus of teachers from DC’s publicly funded schools is not merely a matter of weeding out poor performers (as DCPS’s response after p. 70 of this report suggests). Rather, it gives data credence to the terrifying possibility that good teachers are being relentlessly harassed until they give up and leave.
Sadly, that conclusion is the only one that makes sense to me, given that most of my kids’ teachers in my 14 years as a DCPS parent have left their schools–with only a few retiring after many years of service. Most of my kids’ teachers were both competent and caring. Perhaps not coincidentally, they almost always also lacked basic supplies that they ended up buying with their own money; were pressured to teach to tests that would be the basis of their and their principals’ evaluations; and feared reprisal for saying any of that.
(I’m hardly alone in that observation–read some teacher testimony for the SBOE meeting here, including that of a special education teacher, who notes that overwork with caseloads; lack of supplies; and increased class sizes for kids with disabilities are recurring factors at her school that directly lead to teacher burnout.)
In other words, high teacher attrition in DC’s publicly funded schools isn’t a bug but a feature.
It’s classroom chaos that usually drives teachers to the suburbs.
You are correct……BUT, chaos in classrooms comes from bored children. Common Bore curriculum (test prep) does nothing to stimulate the minds of young children. Lack of recess and mobility causes children to act out. Too structured of an environment causes children to act out.
And in our Nation’s Capital, no less. The deformers should be ASHAMED,
D.C. should NOT become a state. Too much power in D.C., and I fear for this Nation if this happens.
on the nose: do everything you can over the years to make classrooms for poor and mostly inner city kids unbearable, hogtie teacher hands and force standardized (canned) teaching programs and endless testing — and then heavily publish the fact that the “bad” kids are acting out and the “bad” teachers are quitting
I agree that the Common Core and NGSS-based curricula and the move toward more inquiry-based learning are exacerbating behavior problems. Misery breeds revolt. I think these curricula and methods are also a factor in the spike in severe anxiety we see in kids. Many of the assignments are so confusing they make ME anxious (and surly).
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?” Many teachers have faced enough abuse.
Public schools have been on the defensive for the past twenty years. They have faced twenty years of bashing, lies, test and punish as well as disinvestment. Privatizers claim they are trying to save minority students from “bad schools.” It is a lie like most of the rhetoric from so-called reformers. If they really cared about minority students, they would want to ensure that these students attend safe, well resourced schools instead of trying to do everything to undermine their success. They only care about diverting public funds into private pockets. Hypocrites!
100%
poste d at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Teacher-Attrition-in-D-C–in-Best_Web_OpEds-Educational-Crisis_Privatize-Education_Public-Education_Schools-191023-818.html#comment748117
with this comment:
If you took the best doctors out of the hospitals, what would happen?The voice of the authentic educator had to be removed. Across the 15,880. the war on teachers began. See my series.
https://www.opednews.com/Series/War-on-teachers-and-the-pr-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-150217-827.html
The war on teachers began in the nineties.
I know. I was there. Famous after a 4 decade career, and my final successful practice, only to find myself shot in the head with fabricated charges.
In 1998, I was, as many of you know, one of the most celebrated and studied expert professionals in NYS, as Harvard studied how I did what I did, when Pew chose me as the NYC cohort for the genuine, NATIONAL STANDARDS RESEARCH just as the warehouses were filling with tests, geared to curricula that no teacher would wish to use, in order to enable LEARNING in the 30 kids who sat in front of there for 10 months.
Across the US, tens of thousands o teachers were harassed out, and replaced by novice teachers.
The union abandoned me, as they did teachers across the US…and the harassment began. Because I could not be charged with incompetence ( Harvard and Pew were studying my practice as one of the most successful practitioners in the nation) they said the I ‘threatened to kill the principal,’. That was when Randi Weingraten came to my rescue, after my HUSBAND contacted her…she helped to arbitrate me into retirement.
It was fortunate that I was famous. Other teachers were not so lucky. The professional was decimated.
Given full support of the teacher, attrition is very high. People naturally find teaching challenging and difficult to do. they get other jobs. They find ways to make a better living. A 50% rate is a crisis. Unless particular teachers are singled out to give inducements to, all but 5 will be gone over a ten year period. Sounds unsustainable to me.