Charter Schools Face Challenge of Recruiting Top Teachers

Charter schools have an especially pressing need to attract top teacher talent to raise the achievement of the academically disadvantaged students who typically enroll. This month's feature article summarizes the literature on teacher recruitment, offers practical tips for improving recruiting efforts, and provides an overview and update of an innovative charter school's program to attract talent with six-figure salaries. It also suggests additional resources that delve deeper into the subject of recruiting and selecting effective teacher candidates.

Serving as a platform for innovation, many charter schools have adopted lessons learned from private business and educational entrepreneurs. The message of McKinsey & Company's 1998 report titled The War for Talent was clear: companies that rise above mediocrity to achieve excellence do so because of the human capital talent that they are able to attract. As in business, decision makers in the field of education know that when it comes to helping every student reach his or her potential, effective teachers accelerate the pace of learning.

Despite widespread consensus about the importance of effective teachers, the "war for talent" in education is far more subdued than in the corporate sector, according to Integrated Talent Management: Part 3, a 2008 report from the IBM Institute for Business Value. There is an emerging consensus that the field suffers because it fails to comprehensively address myriad variables--from recruitment and compensation to working conditions, evaluation, and retention--that cause teachers to enter or remain in the profession. In the United States, only 23 percent of teachers come from the top third of their college class, according to McKinsey & Company's Closing the Talent Gap report published in 2010. In high-poverty schools in the United States, the report states that only 14 percent of teachers are recruited from the top third of their college class.

Research further suggests that charter school teachers exhibit certain characteristics that are, on average, associated with lower levels of effectiveness. Although classroom experience is not always predictive of a teacher's effectiveness, and many young, energetic new teachers are highly effective, compared to traditional schools, charter school teachers have half as much experience and are 23 percent less likely to be certified in their main assignment field, according to the Michigan State University Education Policy Center's 2004 report Teacher Recruitment and Teacher Quality? Are Charter Schools Different?

In addition, The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Schools and Staffing Survey data from 2003-04 suggest that, compared to traditional school teachers, charter school teachers are far more likely to leave the profession or transfer to a different school. According to Teacher Turnover in Charter Schools, a 2010 research brief from the National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt University, attrition in charter schools results from charter schools' tendency to employ young, uncertified, and part-time teachers, which are categories of teachers who leave all schools at higher rates. Charter school teachers also tend to be dissatisfied with their workplaces (e.g., working hours, salaries, and administrator support). These conditions are not inevitable. As innovators with unprecedented authority over teacher recruitment and selection, charter schools are in a position to lead the education system in this high-priority policy area.

Improving the Hiring Process

An effective way to put more top teachers in classrooms is to recruit and select appropriate candidates. Research suggests that it is more cost-efficient to hire teachers with the needed skills than it is to develop these skills later. Good judgment and other important skills should be established before hiring because it is often difficult, if not impossible, to develop these attributes, and selecting and hiring the right candidates is more likely to result in job satisfaction, which contributes to an effective workforce and collaborative work culture.

Organizations such as Teach For America and The New Teacher Project, both of which supply teachers for many charter schools, have led aggressive recruitment campaigns. And in some ways, charter schools appear to be making headway. In a study conducted by AIR for The Boston Foundation titled Out of the Debate and Into the Schools, 100 percent of the Boston charter school principals surveyed, compared with only 50 percent of Boston principals in traditional schools, agreed that they had enough teachers to meet their student achievement goals. Likewise, the report found that 95 percent of the charter school principals surveyed agreed that they were able to identify highly qualified staff to fill their vacancies, compared with only 62 percent of the traditional school principals surveyed.

Improving recruitment requires a plan. According to research (e.g., Behrstock, Meyer, Wraight, & Bhatt, 2009; Lawler, 2008), elements of an effective recruiting and hiring system include such actions as the following:

Create systematic and transparent hiring procedures, streamlining the application process with technology and training of hiring committees in interviewing and using proven rubrics to guide candidate selection.
Find untapped sources of teachers and develop relationships through alternative teacher preparation programs, community colleges, and the reserve pool of inactive teachers.
Provide realistic previews of the job in vacancy announcements and staff testimonials, and formally state expectations.
Examine candidates' past practices and performance, which are more telling of their potential than interviews or resumes.
Offer to provide candidates feedback on their performance in the hiring process as a way to differentiate those who are eager to learn and those who are not.
Create and promote a highly selective hiring process so that applicants know they are part of a rigorous program, and market the strengths of the school to attract top teachers.
Customize employment contracts to accommodate top talent, including allowing special compensation packages and flexible hours.
Provide internships to gauge potential employees' performance and provide them with a more realistic preview of the job.

A New Approach to Recruiting Is Put to the Test

The Equity Project (TEP), a charter school in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, opened in Fall 2009 with 120 fifth graders, an 8-member teacher staff, a plan to grow to 480 students in Grades 5-8 and 28 teachers--and a website homepage touting that all TEP teachers earn a salary of $125,000, plus an annual bonus of up to $25,000. TEP singles out teacher quality as the essential lever for improving achievement. To attract and retain the most effective master teachers, the charter school has adopted its own "3 Rs""

"Rigorous Qualifications" for expertise in subject matter and teaching, curriculum development ability, and verbal skills
"Redefined Expectations" intended to improve student achievement by focusing on a professional work day that includes daily peer observations and coteaching, a work year that includes a six-week summer development institute, and professional growth through a mandatory sabbatical once every five or six years
"Revolutionary Compensation" achieved through $125,000 salaries and a bonus based on schoolwide performance

No outside funding is used to pay the salaries, which come from the public school budget TEP receives as a New York City public school. Teachers' productivity allows savings through, for example, not employing assistant principals or supervisors besides the principal. "TEP's teacher-centered organizational philosophy runs counter to the more traditional top-down model in which numerous administrators are focused on monitoring teachers, who presumably have less pedagogical expertise," according to the school's website. Likewise, TEP does not buy professional development or instructional services, such as workshops conducted by outside experts. And the school does not employ administrative staff, such as an attendance coordinator, relying instead on each teacher to take on "whole-school service" responsibilities. The school administration believes that filling such roles contributes to each teacher's understanding of a student's school life, family life, and the interplay between the two. More detailed information about how the school funds its attractive salary schedule is available at the school's website.

The initial recruitment process involved Zeke Vanderhoek, Founder and Principal of TEP, who conducted 100 initial candidate interviews and then visited each of the 35 finalists to observe them teaching in their own schools. Winning candidates exhibited, among other traits, high levels of student engagement, expertise in redirecting potential troublemakers, and contagious enthusiasm for their subject.

The durability of the TEP model is yet to be seen. For example, in the Out of the Debate and Into the Schools report ,100 percent of traditional school principals surveyed by AIR indicated that the level of salary and benefits offered in their schools help them attract qualified teacher candidates, compared with only 28 percent of charter school principals. Charter school principals were more likely to see their school's reputation as their recruitment advantage, with nearly 90 percent agreeing that their reputation helps them attract qualified candidates.

The TEP hiring process from Year 1 to Year 2 evolved, according to Vanderhoek. "The biggest change is that candidates audition by teaching for a full day at TEP (instead of us traveling to them)," he stated in an e-mail response to questions from the National Charter School Resource Center. "This gives a more realistic sense of whether they have the skills to succeed at our school," according to Vanderhoek. "One thing we've learned is that producing exceptional results in one teaching setting does not always easily transfer to a very different setting."

Also, elements of the written application were modified, including requirements for teachers to demonstrate past student achievement. Candidates must exhibit expert knowledge of their subject through their own academic achievement and provide an example of their own writing and an analysis of a pedagogical issue related to their subject. Options for candidates to demonstrate teaching expertise and experience include submitting an unedited video clip of a lesson, with an accompanying written analysis, and evidence of what students have achieved. An example of a curricular tool developed and refined by the candidate also is required. TEP provides more details about the qualification requirements on its website.

TEP had 600 applicants the first year. "The applicant pool was mixed," Vanderhoek told the Resource Center. "For some subjects (such as music and social studies), we were very impressed by the number and high quality of the applicants. For other subjects (such as special education), we continue to have difficulty finding exceptional candidates."

Whatever the challenges, Vanderhoek remains convinced of the key role of compensation. "There is no question that compensation is a key lever in attracting and retaining talent--this is true for any schools (charter or public) and has been borne out by the volume of quality applications that we have received over our first two years."

References

Behrstock, E., Meyer, C., Wraight, S., & Bhatt, M. (2009). Managing educator talent: A research-based framework for district and state policymakers. Naperville, IL: Learning Point Associates.

Lawler, E. E. (2008). Strategic talent management: Lessons from the corporate world. Madison, WI: Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

Charter Schools Face Challenge of Recruiting Top Teachers