by Georgia Charter Schools Association
By J. Renee Gordon,
Imagine going out to buy a house and having no idea of what you are looking for.聽 Not the number of bedrooms or baths, if it has a garage or a聽carport, or if it鈥檚 on a third of an acre or 20 acres. The only thing that you were definite about is that you wanted a house and how much you could pay, how long would you look, and聽that if you bought a house that really didn鈥檛 meet your needs, you鈥檇 start again next year.
This pretty much sums up the current methodology behind the hiring of charter school principals and teachers, here in Indiana and other mid-western states where I recruit talent to lead traditional and charter public schools.聽
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit in on a charter school board meeting. Nice group of people with a real heart for kids. Gosh, they even offered me lunch. Interestingly, they introduced their new principal.聽They spoke about how this school had gone a long time without a principal and how the process of finding this individual had been 鈥渓ong and exhaustive.鈥�
They told me that they wanted to hire someone with 鈥渟trong administrative skills.鈥澛營 am not sure exactly what that means. It鈥檚 like asking someone, 鈥淗ow do you feel?” and they reply, 鈥淕ood!鈥� What聽good聽means to me and what聽good聽means to you are more than likely two entirely different things. Listening to this principal鈥檚 background — 29 years as a teacher, got her Masters and did 2 years as an assistant principal and a couple more as a principal, and the limited amount of time she has been a leader — I questioned how 鈥渟trong鈥� her administrative skills really were, but I guess time will tell.聽聽
Then the board mentioned that one of their 11 teachers had quit.聽
Given that this was the second board meeting in a row I’d attended where they announced that one of the teachers had quit, and that I was the only one who gasped, it appears that the charter world has yet to recognize that nothing will kill your organization faster than staff turnover.聽It costs money, it costs time, it costs credibility, it costs enrollment, and it costs kids鈥� academic achievement.
So what will stop the 鈥渂urn and churn鈥� of educators in charter schools? First, charters聽have to stop replicating the recruitment and retention efforts of traditional public school districts. Passive and antiquated methods will not find you dynamic,聽21st聽century educators. Second, they must look at the national picture. In 2010, half of all U.S. principals and teachers became eligible to retire. Recently I asked the superintendent of a district I work with how many of his educators would retire in the next聽three聽years. I was stunned when he told me 65%.聽 To compound the problem, nationally the number of students enrolled in the colleges of education is dropping dramatically. Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana has seen enrollment in their school of education drop from 3,900 in 2010 to just 1,300 this year. Couple that with the fact that 57% of all teachers leave the field entirely within the first five years of starting their careers; within the Teach for America corps, that number is 85%.聽This has all of the makings of a crisis.
Charter schools boast about innovation,聽so let鈥檚 innovate in the most important area critical to the success of your school — the management of human capital.聽
J. Renee Gordon is CEO and COD (Connector of Dots) at E Squared Education Services, Indianapolis, IN
The views and opinions expressed on CharterConfidential聽are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency.聽
Georgia Charter Schools Association
The Georgia Charter Schools Association (91桃色视频) is the membership organization for Georgia鈥檚 charter school operators and petitioners, established in 2001. Our mission is to be an effective advocate and service provider for all charter public schools in Georgia.
