StickWithANose

Despite the poorly referenced ruminations of a newly minted media pundit, the utter poverty of the idea that schools with high teacher turnover can be successful should be obvious even to the casual observer. Thanks to the rise of Arne Duncan as the Secretary of Education, Chicago public schools are under the microscope, and the results should be crystal clear.

This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left four years later, while the typical high school had seen 54 percent leave by 2006…

While some teacher mobility is normal and expected, high turnover rates can produce a range of organizational problems at schools, such as discontinuity in professional development, shortages in key subjects, and loss of teacher leadership. Previous research also indicates that schools with high turnover are more likely to have inexperienced, ineffective teachers.