By Fritz Edelstein
March 1, 2004

Over the last several months, two significant reports on teaching have been released. One addresses how we keep high-quality teachers out of urban classrooms and the other addresses the training, recruiting, retaining and compensating teachers in America's public schools. These reports have significant implications for America's cities if the quality of teaching and learning is to improve in our schools. The issues addressed and recommendations made in each of these reports are worthy of examination and where appropriate implementation. Quality and effective urban schools are critical to the economic well-being, vitality and future of our cities.

This nation is in the process of needing about 2 million new teachers over the next 8 to 10 years as the baby boom generation begins to retire and there is continued growth in our public school population. Also, over the next few years, most cities will have to strive to meet the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and place highly qualified teachers in every classroom. Normally, the turnover in the teaching profession is about 150,000 teachers a year. But with normal turnover and retirements, as well as the need for additional teachers, the total amount is more like 200,000 a year. We need to find each year an additional 50,000 teachers. School district policies and practices for offering jobs to new teachers and transferring teachers within the district seem to present major obstacles. Also, how we train, retain, provide professional support and compensate teachers continues to be seriously called into question.

s to be seriously called into question.

Missed Opportunities: How We Keep High-Quality Teachers Out of Urban Classrooms by The New Teacher Project is one of the first comprehensive examinations of existing policies and practices that limit the recruitment and hiring of highly qualified and committed teachers in our toughest urban schools and school systems. Many policy makers assume that urban school districts simply cannot compete with their suburban neighbors and attract the best candidates. According to this report with aggressive recruitment, cities can attract large numbers of applicants and position themselves to be truly selective rather than often hiring the last ones left.

The New Teacher Projects' report states that in many cities a set of policy barriers and delayed timelines collude to cause significant applicant attrition as urban school systems fail to make offers to candidates until well into the summer long after suburban districts have completed all of their hiring. The result of the delayed timeline is simple: urban school districts lose their best applicants and hire weaker ones. According to the study, stopping this massive applicant attrition is possible, if public policy makers commit themselves to reforming three kinds of policies — around vacancy notifications, teacher union transfer and excessing requirements, and budget timelines — so their districts can hire the vast majority of new teachers by May 1. The report provides a detailed a set of recommendations for how cities can implement the hiring policy reforms necessary to place a high quality teacher in the classroom, comply with NCLB requirements and take an important step in increasing student achievement.

ality teacher in the classroom, comply with NCLB requirements and take an important step in increasing student achievement.

Mayors can have a significant role in getting these policies and practices altered as well as being a part of the recruitment team. Through their office they can bring together the key district, teacher union, school, and state and local stakeholders and unite around an aggressive goal of hiring and providing specific school placements for the majority of new teachers in the Spring.

To obtain a copy of the report of the report, go to the website http://tntp.org/report.html.

The second recently issued report Teaching At Risk: A Call to Action is a product of The Teaching Commission established and chaired by former IBM CEO, Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. The commission was a blue-ribbon panel of 19 leaders in government, business, philanthropy and education. The report praises the work of the nation's many dedicated teachers and points out that the current system fails both teachers and students. It reiterates that poor and minority students, who are often the most academically needy, tend to get the least experienced or capable teachers. Teachers who don-t have a major or minor in the subject area teaches often these students, as well as others. The current system does not reward excellence. One conclusion is that "these systemic problems prevent teachers from achieving their goals and mire educators and their students in the quicksand of the status quo."

The Commission report offers four closely linked strategies to remedy the problems in the field. These are compensating teachers more effectively, bolstering accountability and standards in teacher education and training, strengthening state teacher licensing and certification requirements, and empowering school leaders as CEOs of a school and school district. The report estimates that it would cost about $30 billion to give all teachers a 10 percent raise, and the top half of all teachers a 30 percent incentive increase. Investing in teaching to address student achievement problems according to economist Eric Hanushek will pay for itself in the long-term. He estimates that significant improvements in education over a 20-year period could lead to as much as a 4 percent addition to the Gross Domestic Product. This translates in today's terms into over $400 billion, a major economic boost to any city.

to any city.

Mayors and their staff need to examine the recommendations and build new partnerships to accomplish the improvement of training, hiring, retaining, and compensation of teachers.

To request a copy of the report go to http://www.theteachingcommision.org