DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Des Moines teacher Amanda Carlton had been warned about her first year in the classroom.
Colleagues and former classmates told the 24-year-old: Be prepared to be overwhelmed.
But Carlton describes her experience at Madison Elementary School as “wonderful, actually.” By meeting with a mentor each week to plan lessons, dissect student data and talk about instructional strategies, the new teacher said she was able to overcome early challenges and become better at her job.
Des Moines, Iowa’s largest public school district, is one of a few Iowa school districts that have revamped their new teacher mentoring programs in an effort to increase staff retention and improve student achievement. Other Iowa districts will likely follow suit over the next three years as more state money becomes available for districts that pledge to increase support for new teachers and add leadership roles for veteran educators.
National experts tell The Des Moines Register (https://dmreg.co/1iMLsJT) the strategy, while costly, has the potential to reap rewards for schools and states looking to boost student learning. Although new teachers bring energy and fresh ideas, it typically takes them three to five years to become effective educators, according to national research.
If Iowa is able to speed up that process and reduce staff turnover, the quality of instruction in the state’s schools would increase, backers say. More than a quarter of new teachers hired in Iowa in 2007-08 left the profession within five years. Nearly 1,800 new teachers entered Iowa’s schools in 2012-13, the latest year for which data is available.
“We know that when teachers get off to a good start and have an excellent first year, that really sets the trajectory for the years ahead,” said Ryan Wise, a deputy director at the Iowa Department of Education.
Students receive better instruction when novice teachers work closely with mentors, he said. And if teachers emerge from the program as highly effective instructors, future students also benefit.
“New teachers that are entering the profession are going to be very basic in their abilities,” said Cynthia Brunswick, senior vice president of induction programs with the New Teacher Center. The Santa Cruz, California, training organization has been tapped by Des Moines and other Iowa districts as they remodel their mentoring programs.
“The induction process can’t be left to chance,” Brunswick said. “You need an intentional system of support that meets teachers where they are and moves them as quickly as possible to the next level of performance.”
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An induction model emerging in Iowa and other states shifts new teacher training duties to coaches who spend each school day working with novice teachers. A few Iowa school systems, including Des Moines, have released mentors from their classroom assignments, allowing them to coach new teachers on a full-time basis. Changes are on the horizon in a number of other Iowa schools.
Nearly 150 Iowa districts applied for 2014-15 state teacher leadership funds. Most of the districts pledged to increase training for new teacher mentors, and readjust schedules so coaches and novice teachers could meet more often.
Overall, more than half of all states require beginning teachers to participate in an induction or mentoring program.
Of those, Iowa is among only three states that mandate new teachers complete two years of mentoring to receive their professional license.
The state has spent roughly $48.5 million on the program since its inception in 2001-02, data shows. But teachers say the quality of those partnerships varies widely between - and even within - districts.
Teacher retention rates have improved over that time, but student achievement on national math and reading tests have remained relatively stagnant.
State officials say school reform legislation passed in the spring of 2013 will improve the performance of new teachers, as well as the students they serve. Thirty-nine of the state’s 346 school districts will receive an additional $309 per pupil this fall in exchange for creating new leadership roles for classroom teachers.
Grant winners will also be changing the way they welcome and support beginning teachers. Under state law, some of the funds must be used to increase coaching, mentoring and classroom observations for those new to the profession.
State officials expect nearly all of Iowa’s school districts to participate in the program by 2016-17, a move that has the potential to strengthen induction programs across the state.
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The new systems of support may look foreign to veteran educators.
“When I started teaching 19 years ago, it was pretty much: Here’s your room, here’s your keys, good luck,” Cedar Rapids science teacher Melissa Hocking said.
A push to overhaul the teacher training system comes as the profession undergoes rapid changes. Iowa teachers today follow the Iowa Core, a set of standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level. Educators are expected to differentiate their lessons and incorporate technology into the classroom.
There’s also a greater focus on student test scores as a measure of teacher and school success. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, all of the nation’s students are supposed to meet grade level standards this spring in reading and math.
“We know if we want to retain quality people, we need to mentor them and help them get through those first couple of years,” said Hocking, who teaches general science and biology to high school students.
Teacher quality is likely the most important school-based factor affecting achievement, even though other factors such as poverty and parent involvement play a role, researchers say.
Having strong teachers three years in a row can boost students’ test scores by as much as 50 percentage points above what they would gain with three ineffective teachers over the same time period, according to a 1998 study of student achievement in Tennessee.
For students who spend multiple years with ineffective teachers, it’s very hard to close the achievement gap, research shows.
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Educators have spent decades debating how to improve training for prospective teachers, but statistics show those conversations are coming to a head as the number of novice teachers has skyrocketed in U.S. schools.
A report released in April by the Stanford, California-based Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching shows that today’s educators are younger and less experienced then a generation ago.
Seventeen percent of U.S. teachers were considered novices in 1988. By 2008, more than a quarter of all U.S. teachers had five or less years of experience, national data shows.
Any effort to improve Iowa schools must address the performance of new teachers, said Wise of the Iowa education department.
Amanda Carlton, the first-year teacher at Des Moines’ Madison Elementary, said the advice and on-the-job professional development provided through the system has been invaluable.
Carlton, a recent graduate of Canada’s Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, teaches reading and math to fourth- and fifth-grade students.
With no classes to teach, Carlton’s mentor can offer real-time feedback about the new teacher’s performance in the classroom.
“Having her do observations has been a huge help for me in my first year of teaching,” said Carlton, who recently asked her mentor to watch her teach a reading lesson so the two could talk about ways to encourage students to think critically.
“It highly benefits teachers to have a neutral, third party, who can watch you teach and then help you reflect on how to get better.”
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Information from: The Des Moines Register, https://www.desmoinesregister.com
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