Wake Task Force on Teaching Excellence
The Wake Task Force on Teaching Excellence released its report, Recruit, Retain and Respect, in March 2005. The introduction from the report is reprinted below, along with a list of the recommendations and information about the Task Force.
Introduction
Recruiting, retaining and respecting quality teachers is critical for school success, but these are not new areas of concern. Like its precursor All for All, this report looks at what makes good teaching and how our community and the Wake County Public School System (“WCPSS”) can ensure quality teachers are teaching in every classroom.
The basic answers are straightforward.
We need to recruit quality teachers for Wake County schools. Just to keep up with “normal turnover,” WCPSS will need to hire three teachers every working day of each year.
Once we’ve hired these teachers, we need to retain them. Too many good teachers leave the profession too soon. Experience in the classroom helps novice teachers improve, but many leave before they have that opportunity for growth.
To retain these teachers we need to respect them as professionals. If quality teaching is important in the lives of children, if we value experience, dedication and excellence in teaching, if we continue to challenge and raise our expectations of teachers—then teachers should also be able to work in a county that values experience, minimizes distractions, and honors the desire and need for personal and professional fulfillment. Teachers are willing to live up to every measure of accountability so long as they believe there is a tailwind moving with them, rather than a headwind impeding them.
Expanding on these answers, this report also presents priority action items outlining how we should recruit, retain and respect our Wake County teachers.
Numerous other reports, studies and commissions find common ground in recommendations similar to those presented here.
In other words, as a community and as a school system, we already know of or have seen most of the recommendations set forth below. In some instances we are already working toward making them a reality. In other instances we prefer to overlook or dismiss the recommendations as wish list items—despite a consensus that implementing them will make a positive difference in the classrooms of Wake County.
Wake County is fortunate to have a public school system where students, teachers, administrators can succeed. Our schools can either move forward to ensure continued success or risk failure and mediocrity. If teaching excellence is our goal, WCPSS employees, the Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners, as well as other elected leaders and local corporate and community partners will need to work together to lead our schools and our students to higher achievement and success.
We know what we ought to do. As a community of parents, educators, businesspeople, civic leaders, taxpayers and citizens, will we?
Recommendations
- Embed more time within the school day for all teachers to plan and reflect, to participate in professional development and to collaborate with other key personnel.
- Ensure that principals have the understanding and capacity to create an environment that supports quality teaching and the retention of quality teachers.
- Support teaching as a profession through career enhancement and leadership opportunities.
- Develop a process for teachers to use critical self-analysis and shared reflection to plan their own professional development, using the “Quality Teaching Characteristics” index or other tools.
- Make the sharing of best practices routine among teachers within and across schools.
- Ensure that professional development includes a range of opportunities to support teachers as they grow in their careers from novice to experienced teacher.
- Improve mentor programs to more consistently meet the needs of new teachers.
- Create career pathways for teachers using the Teacher Enhancement and Leadership System (TELS).
- Improve working conditions for special education teachers, including salary incentives, reduced case loads, planning time and paperwork assistance, to reduce increasing turnover rates.
- Review and upgrade teacher salaries and benefits systematically to keep pace with competitive job markets.
- More carefully plan how curricular decisions impact teachers with a coordinated, system-wide timeline for new initiatives.
- Recruit advocates among the business community and parents to support teaching excellence.
Task Force
Wake Education Partnership convened the Wake Task Force on Teaching Excellence in January 2004 to update the work from its 2001 All for All report and make specific recommendations on the current state of recruiting and retaining the best teachers in Wake County public schools. This second Wake Task Force on Teaching Excellence was comprised of a committee representing higher education, business, public schools, agencies and statewide policy makers. Chaired by Dr. Dudley Flood, education consultant and Trustee with Wake Education Partnership, and Jay Silver, attorney with Kilpatrick Stockton and Board member with Wake Education Partnership, the Task Force completed its report in March 2005.
In addition to its secondary research, the Task Force also conducted a Teacher Congress and an Administrator Review in November 2004 to engage more than 120 Wake County teachers, principals and administrators in reviewing the recommendations, offering feedback and establishing priorities for our community. Participants in both the Congress and the Review, representing the range of WCPSS employees, discussed the following question: “Looking at the overarching themes in the recommendations, what do you need to be the best and most satisfied educator you can be?” Input from these meetings directly impacted the final recommendations presented in this report. Finally, the broader community—including parents, business people, elected officials and representatives from community-based organizations— discussed the report at the eighth-annual Wake Education Summit in April 2005.