TQI Beginning Teachers

Too Many Beginning Teachers?

Class-size reduction, an expanding student population, and an increase in teacher retirements have all led to a critical shortage of teachers in California's public schools. In such times, not only must we retain competent veteran teachers, we must also ensure that there there are sufficient numbers of new teachers entering the profession. In recent years, the State of California has invested millions of dollars to recruit new teachers with special emphasis on those schools that are difficult to staff.

Beginning teachers help not only to reduce the teacher shortage, but also often bring with them inspiring levels of energy, passion, and new ideas to the schools that hire them. We have come to learn, however, that without sufficient support from experienced colleagues significant numbers of beginning teachers leave the profession within a few years, especially in urban settings. Programs like BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) which provide structured, one-on-one support to beginning teachers in California have proven highly effective in reducing the attrition rates of beginning teachers.(1)

The problem faced by some hard-to-staff urban schools, however, is that there are simply not enough experienced teachers at the school to provide any kind of support to beginning teachers. In 2001, there are close to 500 schools in California in which 25% or more of the teachers have no credential and another 25% are beginning teachers (i.e., in their first or second year). As pointed out in my Tipping Point reform plan:

Unfortunately, even a proven program like BTSA will not make a significant difference in the most severely challenged schools—those with the highest concentrations of underqualified teachers. At Lockwood Elementary School in Oakland, for instance, 46% of the school’s 44 teachers are uncredentialed. These people with virtually no experience and training as teachers get no support since BTSA regulations prohibit support providers from working with non-credentialed teachers. Another seven of Lockwood’s teachers are in their first or second year, leaving only 16 among 44 who have a credential and more than two years of experience. With the demanding conditions in these schools, there may be few in this group of 16 that have the interest, the time, and the qualifications to serve as a BTSA support provider. When beginning teachers, credentialed or not, cannot find enough qualified teachers to support them, it becomes one more reason that it is so difficult to reverse the cycle of dysfunction in schools like Lockwood Elementary.(2)

To ensure that there are enough experienced and competent teachers at a school to provide support for those who are new, school districts must be careful not to staff any of their schools with an excessive number of beginning teachers. The Teacher Qualification Index account for this by reducing a school's TQI rating by one if the percentage of beginning teachers is greater than or equal to 20% and less than 25%. A school's TQI rating drops by 2 points if the percentage is greater than or equal to 25% and less than 30%. A school's TQI rating drops by 3 points if the percentage is greater than or equal to 30%.

Click here to see how the TQI is calculated.

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(1) Studies estimate that without such support as many as 50% of new teachers working in urban schools leave the profession within the first five years. The attrition rate is reduced to less than 5% when teachers in urban schools participate in BTSA.

(2) Ken Futernick, "Leading Troubled Schools to the Tipping Point," 2002.