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National Public Radio's education editor Steve Drummond, a former teacher, recently visited the Harvard Graduate School of Education to speak with five doctoral students—all former classroom teachers—to discuss their research on the future of the teaching profession.
Sarah Birkeland, Susan Kardos, David Kauffman, Edward Liu, and Heather Peske are working with Pforzheimer Professor Susan Moore Johnson on the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, a multiyear study investigating what will attract, support, and retain the next generation of teachers in U.S. public schools. Earlier this year, the project released a study suggesting that 43% of new teachers in New Jersey anticipate leaving the classroom at some point in their careers. The following excerpt from their conversation suggests why this is so: A Lonely Profession He interviewed a first-year special ed teacher who has a mentor from the district who she talks to on the phone once a month. But it's a bureaucratic thing that in reality doesn't really do anything. Susan Kardos: In the first 50 [in-depth interviews we did] in Massachusetts, teachers all said that they had mentors, but the mentors were either in other schools or teaching other subjects, or gave them the key to the supply closet and then never saw them again. We surveyed 110 new teachers in New Jersey. We found that 97 percent have mentors who have a lot of experience and are in the same schools where the new teachers work. So it would seem like things are going to be great for the new teachers structurally. But still only 17 percent of the new teachers said that their mentor ever actually watched them teach in the classroom. Drummond: These mentor programs, are they paid? Kardos: I think in New Jersey [the mentors] get $400. In Massachusetts, they get $500. Drummond: But there is some acknowledgment that it's a professional thing that [the mentors are] doing and that they are compensated for it? David Kauffman: I don't think it's as much the money as it is the conditions that allow [the teachers and mentors] to have a relationship. Are they located close to the school? Do they have time? Is collaboration valued in the school? Kardos: The structures have to be in place for new teachers and veteran teachers to interact, but those structures have to be embedded in a culture that values that kind of interaction and that kind of collective responsibility for the students—and that kind of professional growth. Ed Liu: Just matching people doesn't do much. What really is important is what happens in the school site between colleagues. Because the professional norms of privacy and autonomy are so strong [in teaching], it's really hard to break through that. It takes the leadership of a principal or the support of various other structures to go against this norm of professional isolation. Keeping Teachers: Principals, Money, and Intangibles Drummond: Right. Birkeland: But how much of that has to do with professional culture and curriculum: that's harder to put your finger on? Drummond: From my own experience, it's such an intangible thing. I'd be interested to see whether you agree with me: you have this nagging feeling when you go into teaching that it's held in such low esteem. It was a strange identity thing for me to leave being a journalist [to become a teacher for two years], which is a view of myself I was comfortable with. And, you know, the money is tied up with that. There is that intangible [aspect] that says something about the value of teachers. Kardos: And it matters where the person is in his or her life. Some of the teachers we interviewed who were 21 said things like, "Well, right now it's OK. I live at home. But if I marry my boyfriend and we want to have kids, then things are going to be different." Kauffman: Two of the 50 [teachers we spoke with in Massachusetts] had received major inheritances recently, and that's what enabled them to become teachers. A 28-year-old guy who was in higher education in admissions inherited a large sum of money from a great-aunt and was able to teach, because his salary didn't matter anymore. He was able to buy a house. He was able to pay for his master's degree with no debt. The way we've talked about it a lot is, "Can you afford to teach?" [People say,] "This is the work I want to do. But can I afford it?" Give Me Something I Can Teach With!" Kauffman: Teachers are sometimes put in a role that they're not necessarily going to be successful in. The curriculum piece is where my passions are. And so I decided to dig more deeply into the role of the textbook and curriculum materials in supporting new teachers in the classroom. What we found to a very wide degree was, "Good Lord, tell me what to teach, and give me something I can teach with." Maybe [some new teachers] even went in with the feeling of, "I want to have this freedom to teach what I want to teach." And yet they're finding—with the constraints and the demands of the first year—"I really wish I had something." Drummond: That's really fascinating. Kauffman: The dearth of curriculum materials that these teachers find when they get to the schools is shocking. And it's exacerbated a lot when they have high-stakes testing on their heads. There are standards out there that these kids are supposed to meet. There are expectations for what the teachers are supposed to teach. But the supports have been cut out, in a way, because it's no longer OK to teach with a textbook. The textbook may not be the curriculum anymore. They may not have the colleagues in place in order to develop the curriculum collaboratively. So they are stuck in these rooms by themselves, trying to figure out [their curriculum], pulling from eight different books, getting on the Web and surfing, spending all hours of the night trying to plan a lesson for the next day, just to do it again the next night. You know, it's painful to hear them talk about the frustration of failing the kids. It doesn't come out as [though] these are unqualified teachers. These are smart, dedicated, talented people who are being put in a position in which they don't have the necessary supports. Liu: The job as constructed has to be doable. One of the professors at the Ed School, Dick Murnane, an economist, says, "No amount of money will get someone to take an undoable job or to stay in an undoable job." All photos: Linda Haas Photography ©2002. About this Article
HGSE News, Harvard Graduate School of Education
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Sarah Birkeland frames NGT research on the decision of teachers to remain or quit the profession (1 minute) 
