There is no secret that almost all of the 4,500 annual vacancies in the New York City Public School system were filled by "newbie" teachers as the DOE's Fair Student Funding (FSF) policy and the ever increasing Leadership Academy principals in charge of schools result in the hiring of the "cheapest and not the best teachers"for their school. How does that affect student academic achievement? Let me count the ways.
First, 50% of the "newbie" teachers will not be in the New York City school system in five years and 80% will not be in the same school that hired them.With both Long Island and Westchester now hiring after a 5 year freeze, even more teachers will flee the City schools for higher pay, better behaved and academically proficient students, with lower class sizes and better working conditions. Moreover, many of the "newbie"teachers lack classroom management skills, deep curriculum knowledge, and experience dealing with different student personalities. Finally, what's left unsaid is how do the students feel when a teacher leaves the school? They feel betrayed, blame themselves, or feel undeserving enough for the teacher to stay.
In the school I am in, three teachers are leaving at the end of the semester. One for Long Island and two others are quitting the profession as they got better offers from private companies. I covered one of the classes as the teacher took the day off after telling his class he was leaving the day before. Despite my best efforts, many of the students were angry, cursed, and complained about how their school sucks. The school is a decent school and has a relatively well behaved student body. The biggest complaint was why do so many teachers leave the school? "Don't they like us"? We forget how leaving affects the physic makeup of students who look to to their teacher as an island of stability and guidance in a world of chaos.
Had this Principal hired more experienced teachers, they would be more likely to stay since they have a stake in the game, be it the pension, the TDA, or simply they are acclimated to the New York City Schools and their student population. I don't blame the Principal since as a Leadership Academy Principal she was trained to hire "newbies" and not think about whether these teachers would actually stay at her high school.
Maybe Mr, Asher, in his new position, should be bringing up this reason to the principals on why they should be hiring ATRs since these teachers are more likely to stay long-term and provide stability to the teaching staff. More importantly, these experienced teachers will not flee the classroom and hurt student academic achievement. Isn't that what education is for? Something to seriously think about if you ask me.