Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for April 23, 2006 A BRAVE NEW WORLD

Coming soon to Cairo School District Number One...

As resident "dinosaur" at the high school, I could have mentored Lori Moisoff to "keep it simple". Instead of having the students form letters with their fingers, just have them use single digits. You know...index finger would represent "A"...through little finger for "D". At the high school level, making most answers "B" would insure that the majority of students would "meet or exceed".

From The Sacramento Bee...

Rookie teachers launch new age in area schools

By Laurel Rosenhall and Phillip Reese -- Bee Staff Writers

In a clear voice bursting with energy, fifth-grade teacher Lori Moisoff asked her students to answer a series of multiple-choice questions - using their fingers to represent the letters.

The creative approach fell flat as Moisoff, just 26 and fresh out of college, struggled to show her students how to twist their fingers into a "B." Focusing on their finger contortions, the students' attention drifted away from the lesson on reading comprehension.

Such rookie mistakes are plentiful in the Sacramento City Unified School District these days because, as of the 2004-2005 school year, one out of every four of the district's teachers had fewer than three years experience, according to a Bee data analysis.

That rate tops every other large district in California and is double the state average.

The situation is even starker at poorer urban schools like Pacific Elementary, the south Sacramento campus where Moisoff teaches. There, 44 percent of teachers in 2004-2005 were in their first or second year on the job.

Part of the local trend stems from a common dilemma: Many urban schoolteachers move on to suburban districts as they gain experience, while union contracts typically prevent forced transfers of veterans back into the poorer, urban schools.

But the large number of new teachers in Sacramento also resulted from a calculated choice by school leaders. To save money, school district officials offered retirement incentives to experienced teachers in 2004. About 200 veterans took the buyouts, often to be replaced by lower-paid newcomers.

Sacramento's problems could become the state's next major challenge. About a third of California teachers now are over the age of 50, according to a recent study by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, leading to the expected retirement of 100,000 teachers in the next decade.

Rise in rookie teachers worries experts

New teachers encounter a mountain of struggles. On top of the avalanche of paperwork and lesson plans, Moisoff said she's found it particularly difficult to cope with the behavior of her 10-year-old students.

"Talking back, refusing to do things, giving attitude constantly," she said as she nibbled on a sandwich during her lunch break. "I knew I was going to have that, but I didn't know to what extent."

One student threw a pencil at her, she said. Others have announced they won't do their work and walked out in the middle of class. And most surprising to Moisoff is "the lack of interest they have to be in school."

"Even if you say, 'Take out your book and turn to page 325,' they moan and complain," she said. "I was not prepared for that."

Relying heavily on rookies to overcome such large obstacles concerns some education experts. New teachers, they say, often aren't as good at disciplining or educating kids - an argument borne out by lower scores on standardized tests at schools with more neophytes both statewide and, based on The Bee's analysis, locally.

Even looking only at schools serving predominantly poor families, students at campuses with large numbers of inexperienced teachers generally do worse on the basic skills tests than those at schools with a more experienced work force.

Take two schools where more than 90 percent of students receive subsidized lunches - the standard indicator of school poverty.

At A.M. Winn Elementary, near Bradshaw Road, fewer than one in 10 teachers were new on the job last school year. About 30 percent of the school's second-to fifth-grade students performed at or above the proficient level on that year's standardized English test, compared to the state average of roughly 40 percent - a relatively good showing for a poor school in California.

But at Freeport Elementary in the Meadowview area, where one in three teachers had little experience, just 14 percent of second-to fifth-grade students performed at or above proficient on the English test.

"As wonderful as many of (the new teachers) are, there is still a learning curve," said Freeport's principal, Debra Dillard.

Academics who study the effects of teacher experience on student learning agree with Dillard's view from the ground.

"It takes a while to figure out what you're doing in a classroom, how you manage a class and how you present the material," said Eric Hanushek, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

Time management often causes trouble

That learning curve was evident during a recent spelling lesson in Moisoff's classroom at Pacific Elementary.

"Number 9 is potato, number 10 is potatoes," she said as children copied down the words. "Number 11 is halo, number 12 is halos."

"What's a halo?" a student blurted out.

That question set Moisoff on a tangent, asking students to think of something that flies around, wears white and has wings. While the spontaneous discussion took only a few minutes, it was enough to set her behind.

Her stopwatch began to beep.

"OK. We have five more (words)," Moisoff said to the class, turning off the timer. "I was supposed to finish in 10 minutes. We need to hurry up."

Time management is a common problem for new teachers, said Moisoff's boss, Principal Kathy Kingsbury. Teachers starting out frequently allow students to steer them off topic, she said, or teach at a pace too slow to keep kids interested.

It's a worry because getting bogged down in a morning spelling lesson can mean skimping on a math or science lesson later in the day.

Just a few years ago, teachers like Moisoff made up a smaller share of Sacramento City's corps; there were many more veteran teachers. During the 1999-2000 school year, almost 30 percent of the district's teachers had 20 or more years' experience, and 18 percent had two or fewer years on the job.

By 2004-2005, those numbers had almost flipped: Just 15 percent of Sacramento City Unified teachers were veterans and 25 percent were rookies, state data show.

The big change, school officials say, was the retirement incentive taken by 200 veteran teachers in June 2004. That was on top of a smaller buyout taken by several dozen teachers in 2003. All told, the district spent less on teacher salaries during the 2004-2005 school year than it did in the 2001-2002 school year, even as the amount spent on teacher salaries statewide increased sharply.

Under the 2004 retirement incentive plan, the district offered a bonus of 7 percent of teachers' final salaries each year for the rest of his or her life. That means a teacher earning $60,000 a year at retirement would get $4,200 a year on top of regular retirement benefits.

District officials said they needed to save money because student enrollment was dropping, and along with it the state funds based on that enrollment. They touted the buyout as a way to cut costs without reducing the total number of teachers.

Some experts criticize such fiscal decisions, saying it creates a lopsided work force that relies too heavily on inexperienced teachers.

"I often think that districts that do early retirement for teachers with 20 years of experience or more are really missing a bet because what they're doing is getting rid of some of the folks who have the most likelihood of being good mentors and excellent teachers," said Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford University.

Sacramento City Unified officials say they expect the experience level of their teachers to rise steadily in the years ahead. But a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California indicates that once a district is populated with a lot of new teachers, it's likely to remain a district with a lot of new teachers.

Inexperienced teachers tend to quit more often than veterans, the study found. In all, 13 percent of teachers statewide during the 1990s quit California public schools altogether during their first two years and 22 percent left by their fourth year. New teachers also transfer often between districts, the study found, with many leaving poorer schools behind.

Once they leave, even newer teachers are often hired, the study found, and the cycle starts again.

Turnover comes in other forms at schools with young staffs. Kingsbury said she hires many long-term substitutes to accommodate the life changes people tend to experience in their 20s and 30s.

"I have a terrific young staff," she said. "The biggest hassle is everybody having babies all the time."

Order in classrooms far from automatic

Often, the biggest challenge faced by new teachers is keeping order: They just aren't sure how to calm a rowdy class.

Danny Lee knows how difficult it can be. When Lee started teaching at Oak Ridge Elementary in Oak Park last school year, 36 percent of his colleagues had two or fewer years of experience.

Lee said his college classes had trained him how to teach a child to add and subtract, but left out direction on how to handle difficult students.

"They didn't teach you how to be a social worker or a parent to these kids," he said.

Like Lee, Moisoff said she struggles to keep her class under control. After the spelling lesson, she asked students to put their pencils down and place their hands on their desks.

One girl continued to play with her pencil. Moisoff asked her again. The girl spun the pencil between her fingers.

But Moisoff simply moved on to the next lesson.

Later, she explained her dilemma. If she had dropped everything to discipline one child, she would have compromised the lesson for the rest of the class. On the other hand, she knows her authority is diminished when she doesn't punish students who disobey.

New teachers often wrestle with such conflicts, says Kingsbury, the principal.

"They tell the kids what they want, but they don't know what to do when they don't comply," she said. "It's not easy when you're a new teacher."

These days, Moisoff is trying to improve student behavior with a system of rewards. Students who behave well all week get to pick out a prize on Friday from a cache of toys Moisoff bought with her own money. Next year, she said she is determined to be firm on discipline from the first day of school.

New teachers provide passion, diversity

Despite all they have to learn, new teachers are valued - for more than just their low salaries.

Kingsbury said she loves her "baby teachers" because they are enthusiastic, creative and nurturing. Stephen Lewis, principal at Oak Ridge Elementary, said new teachers are more willing to try different approaches.

The biggest advantage of hiring a lot of new teachers, Lewis said, is the chance to make the staff look more like the student body. About two-thirds of the students at his school are still learning English, but until recently, Lewis said, "We were a pretty white staff."

In the past couple of years, Lewis has hired young teachers who speak Hmong, Spanish and Mien. Their abilities are reflected in their classrooms, where some have words in other languages taped to the walls.

Still, Sacramento school officials recognize that they must compensate for the district's large class of rookies. The school district is providing training and mentoring to its new teachers, said Associate Superintendent Carol Mignone.

Emphasis on professional development is evident at Pacific Elementary, where a private grant paid for the construction of a meeting center where teachers gather weekly. The cottagelike building with large wood tables allows teachers to spread out their work, brainstorm ideas about how to best reach their students and display demonstration lessons for their peers.

Third-grade teacher Kieu Nguyen, in her second year at Pacific, says learning from more experienced teachers has helped her run her class better.

"(We) have a lot of team meetings and grade level meetings where you meet and plan together," Nguyen said. "So that's a really big support. You're not isolated and you're not on your own."

The teachers union is trying to reduce the concentration of new teachers in low-performing schools by urging the district to hire experienced teachers, said Marcie Launey, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association.

"We have credentialed teachers who apply to the district who are passed over for the interns," Launey said. "We can't do that."

The union is not bending on its labor contracts, which prevent the district from assigning tenured teachers to schools where they don't want to work. But Launey says the district can lure teachers to tough schools by improving the working conditions there and by advertising those jobs before openings at other schools.

Ultimately, she said, something needs to change.

"I believe experienced teachers really have a sense of what's good in the classroom," Launey said. "If we have a continual revolving door, it's difficult to build that experience base."