When schools fail, experienced teachers may hunt for greener pastures. But what does this mean for the students left behind?
After four years at Elsinore Elementary School [CA], second grade teacher Michael Haas decided he had enough, he said. Enough of low test scores, enough of being scrutinized by district and state officials, enough of the endless staff meetings to strategize for improvement.
Haas recently transferred out of the underachieving school, where more than 50 percent of the students are "English-learners" ---- students whose primary language is something other than English and aren't yet proficient in English ---- and began his new third-grade teaching position at Cottonwood Canyon Elementary, which opened last year.
That school is in a new housing development in the more affluent eastern end of Lake Elsinore. Most of the students there are white and only 3.6 percent of them are classified by the state as English-learners.
How is it that Mr. Haas has the opportunity to do this? Because seniority, and not quality, determines which teachers can get first crack at transferring to new schools. So now, not only are the failing schools more likely to get unexperienced teachers, the experienced ones are more likely to leave. And all this is going on while parents have the option to transfer their kids out as well...
Some of those transfers have come even as the district struggles to address possible state sanctions at three underachieving schools that have lost teachers to new schools in the past year...The state recently required those schools to offer parents the option of enrolling their children at other district schools and to provide transportation to those students...
Since the district opened Cottonwood Canyon Elementary School last year, three of Elsinore Elementary's 33-member staff have transferred to the new school, McCarthy said. Another 10 teachers have left for other district schools. All but one transferred to schools with significantly lower concentrations of English-learners.
Posted by kswygert at November 17, 2003 12:35 PM