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TFA

October 3, 2007 am31 8:03 am
tags: ,

Nah, this post is not really about Teach for America, but since the NY Times and Ms. Frizzle just wrote about them, I figured it would be a good attention grabber.

If your parent was a teacher you are far more likely to keep at it than the typical new teacher.

Here’s my real question: How do we get people to stay in teaching? Has to be through a totally different approach. Is there any difference between how long TF, TFA, and regular route teachers are staying?

The only predictor I can find for longevity? If your parent was a teacher you are far more likely to stick with it.

We need something better than that. A program, a profile, an approach… The union can do more… the City won’t, since they are not troubled by unstable schools.

from → Education, New York, New York City, nyc
5 Comments leave one →
  1. e permalink
    October 3, 2007 am31 8:56 am 8:56 am

    I thought Math For America was trying. Or did I get my for Americas wrong?

    Also, I’ve never done this before so not sure how it works :) :
    […] Jonathan over at JD2718 is asking how we retain teachers. Although a very good question[…]

    Reply
  2. e permalink
    October 3, 2007 am31 8:59 am 8:59 am

    I left a comment that seem to have disappeared. I wonder what happened.

    Reply
  3. jd2718 permalink*
    October 3, 2007 pm31 3:36 pm 3:36 pm

    It’s sitting there, just above. It got profiled – it has structure that makes it look like spam, and my filter stopped it. I’d say about 1 in 20 good comments ends up in there.

    Reply
  4. mathmom permalink
    October 3, 2007 pm31 9:22 pm 9:22 pm

    What is it about having a parent as a teacher that makes a young teacher likely to succeed? Nature, nurture, or otherwise? Is it a long-term exposure to teaching since childhood that helps, or is it having a parent one can turn to as a mentor when one needs help? Some things must be replicable outside the family, so if we knew why having a teacher parent positively affects retention, we could use that to provide teachers without teacher-parents with some of the same supports.

    Reply
  5. jd2718 permalink*
    October 5, 2007 pm31 3:43 pm 3:43 pm

    I think if your parent taught, you would be more likely to go into the job knowing what you are going into. Your expectations would be more realistic and you would be less likely to be shocked or disgusted or overwhelmed.

    Also, all the behavioral things teachers do, you would already be familiar with.

    But my anecdotal evidence makes this one true.

    Have you noticed the same thing?

    Reply

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