Bridge, 10/26
Detroit schools compete for teachers. As usual, the students suffer
By Erin Einhorn
So many schools are looking for teachers - in August, September and throughout the year - that educators can wait for bonuses and enticements to grow before accepting an offer. And every time a teacher takes an offer and leaves, that creates a vacancy likely to be filled by a teacher from another school. That other school then has a vacancy to fill. As teachers leave, students suffer. Research shows that teachers hired during or just before the school year are less effective than those who've had more time to prepare and to properly learn their school's curriculum. Experts said the teacher churn is driven in part by the fierce competition between schools in Detroit that has intensified as charter schools have expanded - they now comprise nearly half of the city's schools - and as more suburban schools actively recruit city kids. Parents often enroll in multiple schools while weighing their options and schools are left to guess how many students they'll have and how many teachers they'll need. "It's another consequence of this hyper-competition that has been created by our charter school programs and laws here in Michigan and it's really working to the detriment of everybody involved," said Mike Addonizio, a professor of education policy at Wayne State University. "The schools are competing for students," he said. "The students will dictate the revenues and that dictates their budget and therefore their ability to hire staff … And if a school is plagued with high teacher turnover, that makes it difficult for students. Outcomes won't be good and as that information becomes public, those schools don't do well in school choice decisions and enrollment will drop."