At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice

[groovedaddy]

HOUSTON — Tyler Dowdy just started his third year of teaching at YES Prep West, a charter school here. He figures now is a good time to explore his next step, including applying for a supervisory position at the school.

Mr. Dowdy is 24 years old, which might make his restlessness seem premature. But then, his principal is 28. Across YES Prep’s 13 schools, teachers have an average of two and a half years of experience.

As tens of millions of pupils across the country begin their school year, charter networks are developing what amounts to a youth cult in which teaching for two to five years is seen as acceptable and, at times, even desirable. Teachers in the nation’s traditional public schools have an average of close to 14 years of experience, and public school leaders and policy makers have long made it a priority to reduce teacher turnover.

But with teachers confronting the overhaul of evaluations and tenure as well as looming changes in pension benefits, the small but rapidly growing charter school movement — with schools that are publicly financed but privately operated — is pushing to redefine the arc of a teaching career.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/education/at-charter-schools-short-careers-by-choice.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130827&_r=0

[msongs]

1. as in, when teachers get better and want higher pay, they need to be dumped ASP nt

[Squinch]

2. Two and a half years of average experience. Meaning, they don't know how to teach yet.

And there is no one in the building who knows how to teach, so they will never learn.

[mbperrin]

3. Yep.

Three years is when you start to automatically do some of the things you need to, but I wasn't really comfortable until five years in.

[knitter4democracy]

4. I seriously doubt it is all entirely by choice.

What a ridiculous argument.

[kwassa]

5. Young principals without experience coaching young teachers with none.

What is wrong with this picture?

Michelle Rhee became superintendent of DC schools without ever being a principal or assistant principal, and with only a couple years as teacher.

This is pure egoism.

Arrogance unchecked. Those outside education who think they know better than professional educators with long experience. In what other profession does experience receive such disdain from the outside world? I think teaching gets it the worst.

Of course, part of this picture is exploitation, getting young people to work obscene hours with inadequate compensation to fulfill the commercial goals of private educational corporations. The obvious outcome is burnout, and on to the next thing. The kids are abandoned to the next neophyte.

The big lie being sold is that one can become a great teacher within a couple of years. It is a dangerous meme, but it gets massive donations.

[Starry Messenger]

6. That isn't teaching, that's a tourist.

[duffyduff]

7. Face it: The overwhelming majority of these charter school and regular private school teachers

are working in these places is because they can't get jobs in regular public schools, mostly because the competition for those jobs is so fierce.

Once there are job offers from those public schools, those teachers will bail.

[AnneD]

8. They are no more than indentured servents....

they get loan forgiveness and that is what keeps them there for the short time that they teach.

It takes 5 years to really become a teacher. Only one in 4 first year teachers makes it to that point. And once a teacher makes it to that point, if they work in inner city, they go to the suburbs.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. In most industries/professions they are called "interns".

I'm tempted to say "trainees".

Education supplied on the cheap, for the masses, by our rulers.