Will paying teachers more solve retention problems in the Charleston County School District? Only if starting salaries enter the six-digit range, writes Peter Smyth, former math principal of the Charter School for Math and Science. Even then they may leave for districts where teaching conditions are more conducive to learning. As Smyth says, " Low pay is just part of a culture that has become more and more unattractive."
What do teachers want? Here are some of his thoughts.
- Teachers need to know that those in charge get that the student-teacher relationship is the most important building block of what schools do. In schools, teaching is built on that personal connection.
- Teachers want to teach in places that actually support teaching. Support at the least means that those in charge have teachers’ backs.
- Teachers need administrators who understand good teaching and what that takes to pull off. Administrators need to act on this understanding.
- Teachers need resources and especially time to build, reflect on, and polish lessons. Good lessons, like good teachers, are created, not born. It’s a hard job, and teachers need support to create and own those lessons.
- Teachers need meaningful opportunities to build and refine their craft. Teachers need to be allowed to grow in their profession and should be rewarded for that growth.
- Teachers need those who evaluate them to be expert, or at least (minimally) competent in evaluators’ own teaching, not expert at checking off boxes.
- Most of all, teachers need leadership that asks “What can I do to help your teaching?” Sadly the answer from teachers is too often “Get out of the way.” District and school leadership has a sole mission: to support good teaching. “Support” is an active word.
Time to bring back the original meaning of "Principal." That was the "Principal Teacher." Preferably, that person should have taught in that same school, not in some district in Massachusetts or Arizona.
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