At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice
By MOTOKO RICH
HOUSTON — Tyler Dowdy just started his third year of teaching at YES Prep West, a charter school here. He figures now is a good time to explore his next step, including applying for a supervisory position at the school.
Mr. Dowdy is 24 years old, which might make his restlessness seem premature. But then, his principal is 28. Across YES Prep’s 13 schools, teachers have an average of two and a half years of experience.
As tens of millions of pupils across the country begin their school year, charter networks are developing what amounts to a youth cult in which teaching for two to five years is seen as acceptable and, at times, even desirable. Teachers in the nation’s traditional public schools have an average of close to 14 years ofexperience, and public school leaders and policy makers have long made it a priority to reduce teacher turnover.
But with teachers confronting the overhaul of evaluations and tenure as well as looming changes in pension benefits, the small but rapidly growing charter school movement — with schools that are publicly financed but privately operated — is pushing to redefine the arc of a teaching career.
“We have this highly motivated, highly driven work force who are now wondering, ‘O.K., I’ve got this, what’s the next thing?’ ” said Jennifer Hines, senior vice president of people and programs at YES Prep. “There is a certain comfort level that we have with people who are perhaps going to come into YES Prep and not stay forever.”
The notion of a foreshortened teaching career was largely introduced by Teach for America, which places high-achieving college graduates into low-income schools for two years. Today, Teach for America places about a third of its recruits in charter schools.
“Strong schools can withstand the turnover of their teachers,” said Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America. “The strongest schools develop their teachers tremendously so they become great in the classroom even in their first and second years.”
Studies have shown that on average, teacher turnover diminishes student achievement. Advocates who argue that teaching should become more like medicine or law say that while programs like Teach for America fill a need in the short term, educational leaders should be focused on improving training and working environments so that teachers will invest in long careers.
“To become a master plumber you have to work for five years,” said Ronald Thorpe, president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, anonprofit group that certifies accomplished teachers. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of analog to that with the people we are entrusting our children to?”
Teachers’ unions and others in the traditional education establishment argue that charter schools are driving teachers away with longer hours and school years, as well as higher workplace demands. (At YES Prep, for example, all teachers are assigned a cellphone to answer any student call for homework assistance until 9 p.m.)
These critics also say that schools and students need stability and that a system of serial short timers is not replicable across thousands of school districts nationwide.
“When you stay in a school or community, you build relationships,” said Andrea Giunta, a senior policy analyst for teacher recruitment, retention and diversity at the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union.
Baby boomers who went into teaching tended to stay in the profession for decades. But as they have retired, the teaching corps has shifted toward the less experienced. According to an analysis of federal data by Richard M. Ingersoll, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, the proportion of teachers with five or fewer years of experience rose to 28 percent in 2007-8 from 17 percent in 1987-8.
The restless generation of millennials is likely to accelerate the trend. Some charter school leaders say that some experienced teachers grow tired and less effective, and that educators need to embrace the change.
“My take is yes, we do need and want some number of teachers to be ‘lifers,’ for lack of a better word,” said Doug McCurry, a co-chief executive of Achievement First, a nonprofit charter operator with 25 schools in Connecticut, Brooklyn and Providence, R.I., where teachers spend an average of 2.3 years in the classroom. But, he said, he would be happy if “the majority of the teachers that walked in the door gave us five or seven really good teaching years and then went on to do something else.”
Other charter networks have similar career arcs for teachers. At Success Academy Charter Schools, a chain run by Eva S. Moskowitz, a former New York City councilwoman, the average is about four years in the classroom. KIPP, one of the country’s best known and largest charter operators, with 141 schools in 20 states, also keeps teachers in classrooms for an average of about four years.
Charter leaders say they are able to sustain rapid turnover in teaching staff because they prepare young recruits and coach them as they progress. At YES Prep, new teachers go through two and a half weeks of training over the summer, learning common disciplinary methods and working with curriculum coordinators to plan lessons.
Novice teachers receive constant feedback from principals and other campus administrators. On a recent morning, Melanie Singleton, a 27-year-old principal at YES Prep Hoffman, which opened in Houston this month with five of its nine teachers in their first year on the job, circulated through classrooms.
Observing two first-year math teachers, she noticed that both were reviewing place values with sixth graders. “We might not be pushing them as rigorously as we can at this point,” she said. And when one teacher exhorted her students to give themselves a celebratory chant, Ms. Singleton corrected the teacher’s instructions. “I have to interrupt,” Ms. Singleton said. “It’s two claps and then a sizzle.”
Every other week, new teachers meet with instructional coaches for 45-minute sessions. On an afternoon last week, Christopher Reid (experience: four years teaching middle school math) sat down with Alondra Aponte, a first-year art teacher. He praised her for giving students helpful tips for drawing self-portraits and for creating a positive classroom climate.
But he said Ms. Aponte’s students should settle into their desks more quickly, and asked her to role-play the beginning of class four times. Mr. Reid offered comments (“You say ‘all right’ a lot,” “walk around the room narrating those who are doing a good job”) and helped Ms. Aponte install a time-keeping app on her laptop so she could give students precise deadlines.
Given the increase in applicants who do not plan to spend their lives teaching, even some traditional school districts are beginning to reward teachers for shorter career trajectories. In Washington, for example, Kaya Henderson, the public schools chancellor, said high-performing teachers could be paid $80,000 by their third year of teaching. (Starting salaries in the district are $42,000.)
Charter school leaders say similar pay structures could actually persuade their best teachers to stay longer, given that some teachers leave after just a few years because the pay is so low.
YES Prep’s performance pay system, introduced last year, is part of what persuaded Craig Brandenburg, a rare long timer with 13 years of experience, to stay on as a math teacher.
“I wanted to feel like I was moving up,” said Mr. Brandenburg, a practically ancient 36.
Mr. Dowdy, the 24-year-old teacher who is already thinking beyond the classroom, wants something more, however. “I feel like our generation is always moving onto the next thing,” he said, “and always moving onto something bigger and better.”
Then, letters today:
The High Turnover at Charter Schools
To the Editor:
Re “At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice” (front page, Aug. 27):
Thank you for shedding light on the appalling turnover rate for teachers at many charter schools. Research has shown that teacher-student relationships are absolutely crucial to student success. These relationships cannot be built in a year or two.
Working at a charter school, I saw the kids cry every year over their favorite teachers leaving. Each year, I watched the new teachers scrambling. Instability created by the constant churn of staff was devastating, especially for the most vulnerable students, who felt constantly misunderstood and undervalued.
I’ve taught for over a decade. I didn’t begin to hit my stride until my fifth year teaching. I’ve never seen a teacher with less than three years of experience whom I would even call “good.” Teaching is incredibly complex and multifaceted. A teacher must deeply understand the content he or she teaches, as well as possess pedagogical knowledge, classroom management techniques and relationship-building skills.
The charter school representatives in your article defend the rapid turnover of teachers. Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, even says that teachers can become great in one or two years! Would we expand this idea to other professions? Do we think the best lawyers are those fresh out of law school? Should we choose a rookie physician for complex surgery, because this surgeon is more “enthusiastic” than veteran surgeons?
The “short term” teachers speak of teaching not as a profession, but as a steppingstone to a career in another field. A 24-year-old charter-school teacher is quoted saying, “I feel like our generation is always moving onto the next thing and always moving onto something bigger and better.” Bigger and better than teaching children? How disrespectful of the profession and the children themselves.
CATHERINE M. IONATA
Aberdeen, N.J., Aug. 27, 2013
Aberdeen, N.J., Aug. 27, 2013
To the Editor:
This article highlights high turnover for teachers at charter schools like Yes Prep and KIPP. But it missed the successes that these charters are having in turning around low-performing schools.
The Recovery School District in southern Louisiana was formed in 2003 by shutting down 107 of the worst-performing schools and converting many of those to charters. This year, it reports that the district’s achievement gap with the state average has been reduced by 29 percentage points over the past five years. Arthur Ashe Charter School students beat the state average by five points, while serving the highest percentage of special education students in New Orleans. Success Prep Charter students increased their score 15 points in one year, while 96 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
These schools attract top college graduates as teachers and put them through grueling training and coaching throughout the first year. Some say it is not sustainable, but these schools are still making rapid gains after a decade.
RICK BERGDAHL
Issaquah, Wash., Aug. 27, 2013
Issaquah, Wash., Aug. 27, 2013
To the Editor:
The high teacher turnover at charter schools leaves these institutions fragile and ill equipped to support their most vulnerable students. It takes far more than a year or two in the classroom to develop that elusive set of skills needed to serve our nation’s neediest cohorts of students — young men of color, English language learners and so on. And I have seen some of the most well-regarded charters here in Massachusetts left reeling and in danger of closing after extensive teacher departures.
During recent years, the average experience of teachers in my school’s humanities department essentially doubled, and we have correspondingly seen increased performance by students with disabilities, decreased student attrition and some of the top high school test scores in the state.
Our school’s leaders haven’t done anything radical; they have simply continued to make thoughtful moves year after year to support our faculty — whether trimming after-school duties, providing mentors for new teachers or offering more teacher leadership opportunities.
It is possible to achieve great results for all students without burning through our youngest teachers.
HENRY SETON
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 27, 2013
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 27, 2013
The writer is a humanities teacher at Community Charter School of Cambridge.
To the Editor:
Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, makes the claim that the “strongest schools” can develop their teachers so that “they become great in the classroom even in their first and second years.” My experience (nine years of school teaching, then 25 years of running teacher preparation programs) suggests otherwise.
Teachers go through three stages in learning the craft. The first stage, the first full year of teaching, is just learning to be comfortable in a roomful of adolescents. The second stage, typically the second year, is teaching, with some success, the given curriculum. The third stage, which can begin in the third year and shouldn’t end, is teaching shaped by the creativity and originality of the teacher herself.
Most of the “short-timers” in the article will never reach the third stage. No wonder so many leave after too short a time.
“O.K., I’ve got this,” an administrator at a charter school imagines such beginners thinking about their teaching. But they don’t; they can’t. Ms. Kopp’s idea that one or two years of teaching can be enough to become great is arrogant nonsense.
DANIEL LINDLEY
New York, Aug. 27, 2013
New York, Aug. 27, 2013
