Looking for educators who are ready to work in the poorest neighbourhoods. |
The
“windy city” has embarked on an aggressive drive to court teachers, often weary of
working in a district where a majority of students live in poverty
Three years ago, administrators
in the Chicago Public Schools did little more than advertise available teaching positions
in local newspapers in an attempt to recruit educators.
This academic year, they’ll spend more than $2 million on the endeavour, dispatch
headhunters throughout the nation to locate talent, and develop a partnership with
the city to provide affordable housing for those they hire.
“In a seller’s market, we have to go out there and woo people,” said Carlos Ponce,
chief human resources officer for the school district. Critics, however, warn that
ambitious recruiting efforts must be coupled with well-funded retention policies.
“You can recruit all you want and have wonderful incentives, but if working conditions
are not palatable, teachers are going to leave,” said Barnett Berry of the National
Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, a panel of educators, public officials,
business and community leaders charged with analyzing the national teacher shortage.
Corporate tactics
Like many urban school districts in the United States, the Chicago Public Schools
has overhauled its approach to attract and retain teachers. Of the 26,000 educators
now on the payroll, 17 percent will be eligible to retire next year, Ponce said.
And while the state of Illinois produces more than enough teachers to meet demand,
only a handful want to take on the challenges of working in America’s third-largest
school district, where 94 percent of the 432,000 students enrolled are believed to
live in poverty, a figure based on the number of free lunches distributed. Many students
are black or belong to Hispanic and other minority groups, and administrators are
desperate for educators to reflect this diversity, as well as for those who are bilingual,
qualified to teach special education, mathematics, science, or are willing to work
in schools located within the poorest neighbourhoods.
“In the past, we used to just sit back and wait until teachers came to us,” Ponce
said. “What we did [during the 1998-99 school year] was to institute a corporate-style
recruiting programme.” That meant allocating significantly more dollars and manpower
to recruitment efforts and thinking creatively about meeting the needs of rookie
educators. The recruitment budget was increased from $500,000 to $2.1 million over
the past three years, and 12 recruitment officers now do the work once assigned to
two, Ponce said. This year, they’ll travel to 60 colleges and universities around
the country to attend job fairs, a strategy never before implemented.
Furthermore, the headhunters are offering competitive packages. Beginning teachers
with bachelor’s degrees can earn between $35,521 and $39,365 their first year; those
with master’s degrees can pull in between $37,981 and $41,825. Educators also have
the choice of two types of medical plans and may be eligible for a college debt cancellation
programme offered by the federal government, provided they choose to work in a shortage
area. To make the deal even more attractive, the district has instituted a pilot
programme to provide up to $5,000 in salary advances to be repaid over a teacher’s
first few years of work. Future plans include embarking on a partnership with the
city to provide housing assistance for teachers in a city where the cost of living
is high.
To date, the strategies appear to be working, Ponce said. “During the 1998-99 school
year, we brought in 1,900 teachers,” he said. “In 1999-2000, we did 2,200. This year,
we’re shooting for 3,000.”
Experts, however, point out that there is no research available to determine which
strategies are most cost-effective. “We’re getting a number of takers on these things,
but we don’t know what the long term impact will be,” said Susan Melnick of Michigan
State University.
Success depends on making lasting changes within the system, she said, from higher
wages and better training to effectively manage the difficulties of the modern-day
classroom. That will all come in good time, Ponce said. “None is happier than me
about the national teacher shortage because it has allowed us to question and create
change.” |
