A 2014 report from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) shows that the number of first-year teachers in the United States rose from 84,000 in 1987–88 to 147,000 in 2011–12. While this change is largely demographic (fueled by baby boomer retirements), it also means that over 1.7 million teachers—roughly half the workforce—has ten or fewer years of experience. While the new infusion of talent, energy, and ideas a new teacher can bring is positive, many aren’t sticking around for very long. In fact, the CPRE report notes that more than 41 percent of beginning teachers left the profession within five years. While not all teacher turnover is bad—no one wants to force weak teachers to stay merely to improve retention rates—there are also talented teachers who are leaving—and students are the ones paying the heaviest price.
Much ado has been made over why beginning teachers leave . You’ll hear different accounts of how to fix it on different “sides” of the education reform debate. One such argument provided by Richard Ingersoll, a professor from the University of Pennsylvania’s education school (and a former high school teacher), faults the isolating “sink or swim” experience that most beginning teachers face. Ingersoll notes that beginning teachers are “frequently left to succeed or fail on their own within the confines of their classrooms” and goes on to explain that some commentators even refer to teaching as a profession that “cannibalizes its young.” Perhaps Ellen Moir said it best: “I don’t know any successful businesses that would hire entry-level grads for the most difficult positions, isolate them from coworkers, and then expect them to perform as well as more experienced colleagues. But that’s exactly what we do with many new teachers.” Professional development for teachers as a whole is lackluster (over 90 percent of teachers participate in workshop-style training sessions and not much else, despite the fact that research shows it’s ineffective); but when you take into account the inexperience and challenges that come with the first few years of teaching, our inability to effectively support new teachers is a travesty.
While improving teacher training prior to entering the classroom could lessen the struggle for beginning teachers, anyone who has taught knows that the first year of teaching—once you are officially the teacher of record—is a whole different ballgame than student teaching and pre-training. We can’t just “fix” teacher training and expect novice teacher problems to disappear (particularly because fixing teacher training is very complicated). We have to provide better support during the first few years, too. Veteran teachers know this. Many still remember their first years with a shudder. That’s why mantras like “Don’t worry, it gets better” and “Wait until your second year, it’s much easier” are mainstays. Districts know it too; that’s why they send new teachers through orientations and inductions, sign them up for professional development (though it’s often useless), and pair them up with mentors. Hopefully, the general public (through media coverage like encouraging letters and survival guides for new teachers) is starting to catch on too. But the problem isn’t what we’re doing—it’s how we’re doing it.
Like many policies, supports for new teachers fall apart in implementation. In a recent Ed Week article, Texas principal David Kauffman admits that even though he “checked all the boxes” for his new teachers, many of them still left his school or the profession. The supports Mr. Kauffman lists (induction, observation and feedback, peer support) are all backed by research—so why the lack of success? Typically, districts go through the motions of supporting new teachers without actually investing and engaging in the process. It’s easy to send a new teacher through induction, but induction does little for a teacher’s growth if it’s merely new-hire paperwork, mandated professional development (such as instruction on how to handle suspected abuse or medical emergencies, which are standard and necessary but do nothing for a teacher who struggles with management or planning), and time to decorate the classroom. Observation and feedback—among the most effective ways to make teachers better— tends to be infrequent, uncoordinated, vague, or not actionable. It means little to a new teacher if a busy mentor or principal pops into the classroom for five minutes and then leaves feedback along the lines of: “Good job, don’t forget to write the lesson objective on the board.” Similarly, peer support and collaboration, which most teachers long for, is far more difficult to manage if veteran teachers don’t have time during the day to observe and collaborate with new teachers.
In short, the struggles of new teachers do often go unanswered. First-year teachers have to sink or swim—and that has to stop. Given the cost that students pay when new (or any) teachers don’t get the training and professional development they want and deserve, it’s about time that districts double down on faithfully implementing new teacher supports instead of just checking off the boxes. It’s being done successfully in some places. Schools in Austin, Texas, recently gave their new teacher supports an overhaul courtesy of a program developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching called the Learning Teaching (LT) Program. If districts in Ohio are hesitant to put the entire program (it’s a ninety-day cycle) into use, they could easily pick a few components that are simple to implement but could revolutionize the first-year teacher experience. For example, consider schools that already have mentoring programs in place. These schools could provide new teachers and their mentors with an extra planning period designed for co-planning, observation, and feedback. This adjustment ensures that new teachers receive consistent feedback outside of the evaluation cycle, allows both veterans and beginners to reap the benefits of collaboration, and prevents mentors from feeling like they have to choose between helping the new teacher and devoting their planning period to work for their own students. Or schools could simply survey their new teachers every six weeks and allow school leaders to pinpoint specific need areas and provide tailored development (maybe even through the mentor). The changes don’t have to be huge—but they do have to be effective.
Just as ninth grade is the make or break year for the rest of a student’s high school career, so too is the first year of teaching for a new teacher. While crucible moments are certainly important for effective leaders (and the leadership it takes to effectively teach is substantial), there’s a fine line between allowing a teacher to struggle and inadvertently setting them up for failure. We have to do better by our first years. They deserve it—and so do our students.
