h****r
发帖数: 258 | 1 可惜了这么好的教学楼和设施。
Nearly 200 teachers have quit their jobs in D.C. Public Schools since the
school year
began, forcing principals to scramble to cover their classes with
substitutes and
depriving many students of quality instruction in critical subjects.
The vacancies hit hardest in schools that already face numerous academic
challenges,
according to data The Washington Post obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act
request.
At Ballou High School in Southeast Washington, more than a quarter of the
faculty quit
after starting work in August. Many of their classrooms now have long-term
substitutes.
Dwight Harris, 16, an 11th-grader, said his Algebra 2 class has been chaotic
since his first
teacher left in January.
“No one is teaching. It’s been like that for months now,” Harris said. “
We don’t do
anything, so I leave and go to my biology class or English class and go do
other work.”
Most teachers wait until summer to call it quits, but in DCPS a rising
number are leaving
during the school year.
The mid-year resignation rate for DCPS was higher than for some other urban
school
systems The Post checked. In the D.C. system, 184 of about 4,000 teachers —
nearly 5
percent — quit from September to mid-May. That was a 44 percent increase
over the 128
teachers who left in the 2013-2014 school year.
In Denver Public Schools, which employs about 4,600 teachers, 115 teachers
left in a
comparable period this year. In Baltimore City Public Schools, with about 5,
150
teachers, the total who quit was 145. In Seattle Public Schools, with about
4,000
teachers, 55 quit.
DCPS spokeswoman Michelle Lerner acknowledged it is a challenge to lose
teachers
mid-year. School officials try to fill vacancies as quickly as possible with
a full-time
teacher, but she said the best time to hire is in the summer.
“Having a high-quality teacher in front of every classroom is a huge
priority for us,” she
said.
While the number who quit abruptly is small compared with the total
workforce, experts
say mid-year resignations are particularly disruptive and harmful to student
learning
because it’s very difficult to fill sudden vacancies.
Most good teachers are employed during the school year. That means if a
teacher leaves
mid-year, classrooms are left to a rotation of short-term substitutes or a
long-term sub
who may not be fully qualified to teach at that grade level or in a specific
discipline, such
as math or biology.
“Every teacher, no matter how successful they are at their job, knows that
leaving midyear
is a really unkind thing to do to kids and the school. If they are doing it,
it’s out of
anger, or an overwhelming sense that you are not doing anybody any good by
staying,”
said Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.
The Post obtained two sets of data on DCPS teacher resignations. One covered
the
systemwide totals for the past four school years. The other, from the FOIA
request,
showed in detail how many teachers quit at each campus this school year from
August
through February. Students started classes on Aug. 22, but teachers reported
to work
earlier that month. Hiring typically occurs by the end of June.
In most DCPS schools, the faculty is stable. Of 115 schools in the system,
59 had two or
fewer resignations after teachers reported to work, the data showed.
But a handful were hit hard.
Raymond Education Campus in Northwest lost 13 teachers, which accounts for a
quarter
of its faculty. Columbia Heights Education Campus in Northwest lost 11
teachers, or 10
percent. H.D. Woodson High in Northeast lost 10 of its 50 teachers, or 20
percent.
No school has suffered more turnover than Ballou High. It lost 21 teachers
from August
through February — 28 percent of its faculty. Many of the resignations
occurred in the
math department, current and former teachers say.
Several former Ballou teachers told The Post they did not want to leave mid-
year and felt
bad about the consequences for students. But they said a number of problems
drove
them to leave, from student behavior and attendance issues to their own
perception of a
lack of support from the administration. They also raised questions about
evaluations.
Some veterans said that in previous years they had received high marks from
administrators, but this year they were given what they believe are
arbitrarily low
evaluation scores.
DCPS officials declined to make the principal of the school, Yetunde Reeves,
available
for an interview.
Lerner, the spokeswoman, said the school system is looking closely at the
Ballou
situation.
“We are working with the school to make sure that the staff in the building
feel
supported and to create a long-term vision so we don’t continue to see high
turnover at
Ballou and other schools,” she said.
Rowan Langford was the Algebra 2 teacher for Harris when the school year
began. The
22-year-old was a teaching fellow at Ballou. It was her first teaching job
after graduating
from Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in math.
Langford said she asked administrators for help with behavior problems in
her
classroom — but didn’t get it.
Her classes were large. One had more than 33 students. She said the students
were very
far behind and lacked the foundation needed to be successful.
“A lot of them felt really discouraged about math and used other methods to
lash out,”
Langford said. “I couldn’t address those problems they were having on my
own.”
Langford said she threatened to quit two months into the school year but was
hopeful
she would get support to manage her classroom. She said nothing changed. In
January,
she decided to quit.
“I felt awful about it,” she said. “Before I started this job, I said I
didn’t understand why
anyone would quit mid-year. But being in it, you realize how long a year is
because every
single day feels like three.”
Ballou has about 930 students, and all qualify for free or reduced-price
lunch because
they live in poverty. Many come from homes where their parents didn’t go to
college.
The school ranks among the city’s lowest-performing high schools on core
measures. Its
graduation rate in the last school year, 57 percent, was second-lowest among
regular
high schools in the DCPS system.
In 2016, 3 percent of Ballou students tested met reading standards on
citywide exams.
Almost none met math standards.
The school was reconstituted in the 2015-2016 school year, its second
shakeup in five
years. Reconstitution means the teachers and staff all had to reapply for
their jobs.
Principal since 2014, Reeves recently said she and her staff were working to
change
Ballou’s image by raising expectations for students. In March, the school
said all of its
seniors had applied to college, a first for Ballou.
Monica Brokenborough, a music teacher and the school’s union representative
, sent a
letter this month to the D.C. Council, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and DCPS
Chancellor
Antwan Wilson raising concerns about the staff vacancies.
“Students simply roam the halls because they know that there is no one
present in their
assigned classroom to provide them with an education,” Brokenborough said.
“Many of
them have simply lost hope.”
Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University
of
Pennsylvania and expert on the nation’s teacher workforce, said there is no
national data
on what portion of teachers leave in the middle of the school year. But he
said a quit rate
as high as Ballou’s signals “there are some problems in that building.”
Ingersoll’s research shows that teachers who resign abruptly often do so
because they do
not feel supported by their administration. Some may leave if they do not
feel safe in
schools where there are fights and other disruptions. Those issues take a
greater toll on
inexperienced teachers.
“High turnover, whenever it happens, suggests there are problems in the
workplace,”
Ingersoll said. “If it’s in the middle of the year, that suggests things
are so bad people
can’t wait until the end of the year.”
Walsh, with the National Council on Teacher Quality, agreed that “
leadership is
everything.” Walsh said that when a large group of teachers leaves mid-year
, many could
be “disgruntled” and that students may be better off if ineffective
teachers leave. Still,
she said the school system needs to examine what is driving teachers out.
“I imagine behind closed doors, they are questioning leadership,” Walsh
said. “They
ought to be using it as a point of discussion with those school leaders.”
Harris said that since his teacher left, he hasn’t learned much in algebra.
Substitutes
have told him and his classmate to fill out worksheets, he said, which they
answer by
Googling the problems.
Many times, Harris said, he stays in the room for 10 minutes, long enough
for the sub to
mark him present.
“I have no idea what my grade is right now,” he said, “but I think I’ll
pass the class.”
Asked about Harris’s class, Lerner said that students in it are still
receiving instruction.
The school is “on a watch for how students do,” she said, and if there is
any loss of
learning officials will add extra time to the next year’s schedule for math
instruction.
In her message to city officials, Brokenborough included handwritten letters
from
students who described feeling unprepared for their Advanced Placement exams
and
fearful that their prospects for college will be hampered by not having a
teacher in key
classes.
Iyonna Jones, an 18-year-old senior, said in one of the letters that
security guards tell
the students lingering in hallways to go to class, but she has a substitute
teacher in her
math class and doesn’t feel she is getting the instruction she needs.
“We should just stay home, because what is the point of coming to school if
we are not
learning and have no teachers,” she wrote. | n*******l
发帖数: 2911 | 2 光花钱建楼没有用。
【在 h****r 的大作中提到】
: 可惜了这么好的教学楼和设施。
: Nearly 200 teachers have quit their jobs in D.C. Public Schools since the
: school year
: began, forcing principals to scramble to cover their classes with
: substitutes and
: depriving many students of quality instruction in critical subjects.
: The vacancies hit hardest in schools that already face numerous academic
: challenges,
: according to data The Washington Post obtained through a Freedom of
: Information Act
| m**t
发帖数: 502 | 3 DC东南....怎么不说说Fairfax和Loudoun？ | j*********r
发帖数: 24733 | 4 小石皮从蒙大拿回来了吗？医生没招了吧，应该是永久性的ED了。
moooooooooooooooooooooot！！！ |
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