District Administration - September 2007 - (Page 50)

ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. Likewise, beginning high school teachers who received other supports, such as regularly scheduled collaboration with other teachers, observation of their teaching with feedback, and the principal’s support and encouragement, were 50 percent more likely to remain in their schools than their colleagues who received little or no support. Superintendent Maria Ann De La Vega notes that Ravenswood City School District in Palo Alto, Calif., went from a 75 percent teacher turnover rate to an 87 percent teacher retention rate within three years of beginning its partnership with the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a national nonproﬁt organization that works with districts to create new teacher and new principal induction programs. In addition, the district is seeing signiﬁcant gains in student achievement since the program started: The number of students scoring as “proﬁcient” in algebra has doubled, and the schools have seen 100-point gains on state achievement tests. Fred Williams, executive director of recruitment and retention at Durham Public Schools in North Carolina, has seen similar results using the New Teacher Center model. After the program’s ﬁrst year of implementation, there was a 38 percent decrease in beginning teacher turnover. Also, when the district compared the performance of students taught by veteran teachers with beginning teachers in the program, the results revealed some new teachers demonstrating greater student achievement gains than their more experienced colleagues. Likewise, after Oakland Uniﬁed School District in California introduced its statefunded Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment (BTSA) induction program in 2004, its retention rate rose from 50 to 75 percent. But Lisa Spielman, BTSA induction coordinator, cautions that induction programs are only part of the equation. If there’s a lack of student discipline resources available at the school level, then both beginning and experienced teachers alike will feel stressed and burned out. 50 September 2007 Analyzing the Costs For a new teacher induction program to be eﬀective, Ellen Moir, executive director of the New Teacher Center, believes it needs several key components: extensive mentor training and support; contextualized, classroom-based mentoring, including using a formative assessment system to monitor the beginning teacher’s growth and development without threatening his or her job security; opportunities for beginning teachers to observe experienced teachers teaching; a chance for beginning teachers to network with each other, share their experiences and develop problemsolving strategies; and professional development for new teachers that includes having a mentor available who can translate the theory into classroom practice. Although funding an eﬀective program is not cheap, Moir believes that such programs virtually pay for themselves in the ﬁrst ﬁve years. Using actual data for a medium-sized California school district, the New Teacher Center conducted a ﬁveyear cost-beneﬁt analysis of the induction program. As expected, the district faced signiﬁcant upfront costs to support its 119 new teachers over the ﬁrst year. The project cost $6,606 per teacher: the district paid $2,300, the state supplied $3,665 as part of the BTSA program, and the beginning and mentor teachers and principals contributed the equivalent of $640 in total in personal time to participate in after-school meetings. But the investment has paid oﬀ. After ﬁve years, data from the center shows that the $13,000 price tag of a two-year program yields about $21,500 in beneﬁts to the student, state, district and society, from the district’s recruitment and orientation savings to students’ achievement gains, generating an $8,500 return on investment per new teacher. On average, teachers in an induction program have a 2 percent attrition rate, compared to the state average of 4 percent, and only 17 percent of the beneﬁts came from reducing teacher attrition. However, nearly half of the beneﬁts came from increasing teacher eﬀective- Tools for New Teachers, Mentors and Administrators Are you looking for a professional development program for mentor training? Do you want to point new teachers to an online support community? Do you have a new teacher induction program in place but need additional materials? If so, check out these Web-based resources. BEST Program www.sde.ct.gov/sde/taxonomy/ct_taxonomy.asp Resources for beginning teachers, mentors and other school district personnel related to Connecticut’s comprehensive induction program for new teachers. teachers. A CERRA Web portal is in the works to facilitate communication between the participants and CERRA’s staff. ED Pubs www.edpubs.org Part of the U.S. Department of Education, this Web site provides teachers and administrators with free education publications and issue briefs. CaseNEX www.casenex.com Using a case-based, slice-of-life approach to instruction, districts hire CaseNEX to provide online professional development courses that allow new teachers to work with each other and a trained facilitator to ﬁnd solutions for realistic problems dealing with assessment strategies, classroom management and curriculum design. Ideas for New Teachers and Education Students www.adprima.com/ideamenu.htm The site offers “how-to” information on lesson planning and writing objectives as well as ideas about management and different instructional methods. Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention & Advancement (CERRA) www.cerra.org A national model for teacher recruitment, CERRA’s programs, which are free for South Carolina districts, support new and mentor Inspiring Teachers www.inspiringteachers.com Supporting student, substitute and new teachers, as well as administrators and mentors, this resource links to a plethora District Administration http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/taxonomy/ct_taxonomy.asp http://www.edpubs.org http://www.casenex.com http://www.adprima.com/ideamenu.htm http://www.inspiringteachers.com http://www.cerra.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2007

Cover Contents Editor’s Letter Letters News Update Curriculum Update Inside the Law District Profile Administrator Profile District Buying Power 2007 X-Factor Student Achievement Awards 2007 We've Got Mail Supporting New Teachers How Well Does This Web Site Work? New Products Problem Solution Computer Literature Research Corner Online Edge Supervisor’s Opinion Speaking Out Calendar of Events Understanding the Times

District Administration - September 2007

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