Jun 29, 2009 5:59 am US/Central
Teacher Turnover Stresses Chicago Public Schools
New U Of C Report: Typical CPS School Loses More Than Half Of Teachers Within 5 Years
CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
The typical Chicago public school loses more than half of its teachers within five years - and about two-thirds of its new ones, a study to be released Monday by the University of Chicago indicates.
Teacher churning is especially severe in high-poverty, heavily African-American schools - about a hundred total - where half of all teachers disappear after only three years, the study found.
"I find that really disturbing,'' said Elaine Allensworth, lead author of the study from the U of C's Consortium on Chicago School Research. "I just see no way they can improve if they can't maintain a stable work force.''
The consortium's analysis of teachers who worked for the Chicago Public Schools from the fall of 2002 to spring 2007 also raises a warning flag about Mayor Richard Daley's Renaissance 2010 push to replace troubled schools with up to 100 new ones, many of them small.
Smaller schools suffered higher teacher turnover than bigger ones, perhaps because "small schools put enormous demands on teachers and can potentially 'burn out' even the most enthusiastic new teacher,'' the study warned.
One "troubling" finding, according to the report, was that Chicago Public Schools teachers who leave low-scoring elementary schools tend to wind up in other low-scoring elementary schools.
Teachers who left low-scoring high schools, meanwhile, often traded up to better-scoring schools in the system, the study found.
A new recent trend is that teachers are more likely to leave Chicago Public Schools than to transfer inside it, the study said.
Many schools "are likely stuck in a cycle of teacher loss that is hard to break,'' with about 100 schools losing on average nearly a third of their teachers a year, the study found.
Schools suffering higher turnover were low-scoring, heavily black, high-poverty or located in high-crime areas.
An underlying problem often was lack of parent responsiveness in elementary schools and, in high schools, student misbehavior and safety problems.
One teacher who spent her first two years at two high-poverty, heavily black, West Side elementary schools said she struggled with kids who picked up chairs, screamed in class and threw crayons, who didn't know how to deal with anger - and parents who didn't return phone calls. She is looking for another job.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman cautioned that Chicago's overall teacher turnover rate is about the national average, and "not all turnover is bad'' because for some, teaching may not be "a good fit.''
Huberman hopes to keep more new teachers by expanding the New Chicago Teachers Center support program to all schools. New teachers will get two days of training before school starts, and then "coaches'' will visit periodically.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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