Chicago Teacher Retention Program Goes To DC

There were some folks from the Chicago New Teacher Center in DC on Tuesday, talking to Congressional staff, people from other districts, and advocates about the power of what they call high quality teacher retention programs.  In a handful of South Side areas, new teachers get tailored, weekly support from fulltime mentors, which is much more intensive than most other parts of the city or around the country.  I'm generally pretty suspicious about out of classroom support efforts, but from what I've seen this one can be really powerful.  And of course I'm partial since they asked me to moderate the event and have commissioned me to do some writing about them.  Pictured are Lisa Vahey, director of CNTC, Amy Treadwell, an induction coach, and Jennifer Frisch, a 2nd year kindergarten teacher. 

Comments

My first year in CPS was horrible partly because my mentor was also my department chair and not supportive. I know that department chairs are not officially supervisors, but I only had about 20 minutes of official observation that year. That means the department chair's opinion could have been huge in determining whether I would be asked back, so she was worthless to me as a mentor. They should implement, and enforce, a rule that new teachers should never have their department chair as a mentor.

How is it that someone who only taught for a minute is an expert at retaining teachers?

This program is horse crackers!

Who only taught for a minute?

[Lois]

The board spending any money on teacher retention yet lets go of over 100 new teachers after the 20th day is quite absurd and laughable. Many general high school had to reduce staff due to low enrollment. These schools staffed the schools according to projected enrollment given to them in March. At my school as of September 1 our enrollment was on par, however during the month of September we mysteriously lost 150 students resulting in ultimately losing 4 classroom teachers (the 7th week of classes). As many of you know this is not a new phenomenon. So how do we at the general high schools retain teachers? Why would any one run the risk of losing their jobs due to enrollment? So instead of spending money on mentors, programs and all kinds of stuff and let fund the 56 High school teachers position that they "had" to let go due to low enrollment.

[Retention v. Job Protection]

Lois,

I think you're conflating retention and job protection - two very different beasts.

Retention refers to the ability to keep teachers who would otherwise voluntarily leave the profession. (An NEA study shows that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within 5 years.)

What you're talking about is job protection - keeping veteran teachers employed. Schools which lose positions due to low enrollment don't have a problem retaining teachers. They have a problem retaining enough students to support the number of teacher positions at the school.

Both are very important issues of course. But they're quite different problems.

[cermak_rd]

Why is CPS so slow to adjust staffing? I can understand, due to the mobile nature of today's population, not having accurate forecasts, especially if they are based on March figures. What I can't understand is why after the first week or two, there isn't an immediate adjustment of teaching personnel then, rather than waiting for a couple months then majorly disrupting students at that point.

[notcrackers]

Chicago New Teacher Center certainly is not horse crackers. And no, I don't work for them. But I am acquainted with the program and its director, and she's right on the money. It's an arm of The New Teacher Center out of UC Santa Cruz, whose work is positively influencing teacher retention in that state.