Frazier O’Leary: Mentoring teachers is vital to student success
When I was a student teacher at the now-closed Garnet-Patterson Junior High in Shaw in the fall of 1970, my mentor, Brittania Capers, offered me invaluable advice, shared her expertise, and gave me the tools to understand what I was about to experience as a “real” teacher.
But when I started teaching on my own — right after Christmas break in January 1971 — I was shocked. Nothing I had done as a student-teacher seemed to work. This experience made me realize that Ms. Capers’ mere presence in the classroom was the reason I had been a success.
To run my classes smoothly, I had to strive to gain that same presence. Throughout my 47 years as an educator, I woke up each morning genuinely excited for the challenge of teaching that day. But as I recall the many new teachers I watched come and go, I now realize that without backing from the school administration — and without veteran teachers from whom to glean knowledge — new teachers are doomed to fail.
Ironically, I think one of the biggest mistakes new teachers make is thinking that they know what they are doing. Teachers need time with mentors to practice with safety nets before they can be effective in the classroom — because you can’t teach experience.
I am totally convinced that the key to teacher retention is a systemwide concerted effort that places new teachers with mentors from within their school as well as via professional development opportunities, partner organizations or experienced teachers in other schools. A lack of support can lead to teachers leaving the field, which is a growing problem in the District.
Our city needs to work on stopping this exodus. The only way to do that is to find out why teachers are leaving, provide real professional development for inexperienced and novice teachers, and establish a worthwhile mentoring system so that they can gradually gain experience.
In DC, the annual school-level teacher attrition rate is and has consistently been about 25% across both DC Public Schools (DCPS) and public charter schools. Over the last two years, the State Board of Education has examined teacher attrition rates at the systemwide and individual school levels in the District. The State Board’s most recent report found that the annual school-level attrition rate for DC teachers exceeds the national rate of about 16% — and is higher than urban city rates, which are around 19%. Three-year annual school-level averages also show that DCPS neighborhood schools in wards 5 and 8 have the District’s highest rates of teacher attrition — around 30%.
There’s a need for better — and more comprehensive — information, however. Reports from the State Board and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) in partnership with TNTP have each published different rates. There is no common understanding of teacher attrition across all of the District’s education agencies and stakeholders because there is a lack of publicly accessible data in the city. This needs to change.
The State Board is leading an effort to collect and distribute information on teacher attrition on an annual basis. We continue to call on other education agencies and stakeholders to make information public so we can fully understand why teachers are leaving their classrooms, their schools or perhaps even their profession; only by doing so can we develop strategies to retain them.
On Oct. 25, the State Board proposed a bill to the DC Council that would require OSSE to publicly report teacher retention and attrition data, including information on teachers’ experience, years at the school, demographic information, type of credentials and teacher preparation programs. The bill also requires OSSE to submit an annual report with data at various levels on why teachers decided to leave the profession; this report would include statewide figures, breakdowns for DCPS and the charter sector, and information for the individual schools.
The State Board is currently conducting a cross-sector survey of public-school teachers who left their classrooms, schools and profession in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. The survey seeks a nuanced understanding of their reasons for leaving. Questions are specific and encompass certification and training; whether a teacher sought help; if/how school leadership communicated with them prior to their departure; and a comprehensive list of hypothesized exit drivers. The State Board hopes to release survey findings and a full report in early 2020.
The point of these efforts is to ensure that we are appropriately supporting the professionals in our classrooms, providing information as to why teachers leave, and adding resources that will enable them to want to continue in their teaching profession. We trust educators with our most vital resource — our children. It is time we provided them with the support they need.
Frazier O’Leary represents Ward 4 on the DC State Board of Education and chairs the Teacher Retention Committee.
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