The Leadership We Need: New Teacher Retention –
A Bare Bones Introduction
John Baird, M.Sc.
Austin ISD
Introduction
• Better education means we need better teachers
• Retention of the best and most effective teachers is a measure of how well our school systems perform
The Problem
• According to the NEA, as many as 50% of new teachers leave within the first five years
• According to the Gates Foundation, the top 10% of new teachers leave education at a rate of 60-70% within the first five years
• We are not only failing to retain teachers, but we are specifically failing to retain the very best and brightest!
The Cause
• According to the Gates Foundation, the reason most cited by top tier teachers for leaving: administrative leadership
• Principals, assistant principals, and other school leaders are NOT leading effectively
• That ineffective leadership is causing the best to leave rather than affect change
Case Studies
• A Houston charter school• Special population with low SES
• Very small (~40 students)
• Oversight from a Texas university
• An urban Houston school• Low SES student population, majority Hispanic
• Academically struggling
Case Studies
• A small Austin charter school• Highly diverse with a spread of SES
• Ranked highly for math and science
• A large Austin charter school• Part of a national chain of charter schools
• Academically successful
• Predominantly Hispanic
Case Studies• Each of these four schools failed to retain their
best talent
• The first closed completely after a few years
• The second lost its math department head and subject team leads
• The third lost half the math department and much of its social studies department
• The fourth lost 30% of all teachers one year, after losing 50% the year before
Why?
• Leadership, or the lack thereof
• There have been plenty of proposed techniques that work – but what about all the things that fail spectacularly?
• Better leadership can come from knowing how others screw-up as much as how others succeed!
Ways to Flunk a School
• Negotiating in bad faith
• Making decisions without data
• Ignoring the value of extracurricular clubs
• Changing the goal posts without warning
• Bringing up problems but no solutions
• Unwilling to try new best practices
• And more!
