District Administration - January 2012 - (Page 26)

Finding the Perfect Fit emphasis on strategic planning and quality control comes from the district’s use of the services of American Productivity Quality Controls (APQC) to align district resources and student learning. The Urban Teacher Teachers identified as suitable for a general setting do not always do well in an urban setting. Pressures of poverty, lack of resources, bureaucratic inertia and whipsaw reform efforts create a revolving door of teachers that exacerbates the lack of achievement of students. The attrition rate is high in urban districts and creates unstable environments for students. This rate is as high as 50 percent in the first five years at high-poverty schools, including urban, suburban and rural, and about 20 percent in all urban schools. Many large urban school districts use teacher selection methods developed by Martin Haberman at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In essence, Haberman believes that teacher selection is more critical than teacher training. You simply can’t train teachers to work in an urban setting if they don’t have certain personal characteristics to make them stick it out in the long term. Pulling no punches, Haberman distinguishes between “Star” teachers, who believe that all students can learn, and “Quitters,” who leave urban schools, not because they don’t have adequate teaching skills or lack content knowledge, but rather that the challenges of the urban setting are a continuous drain on their commitment. Haberman says that Quitters cannot reach diverse children in urban poverty because, at bottom, they do not respect and care enough about them to want to be their teachers. The students sense this and respond in kind by not wanting them to be their teachers. Haberman’s Star Teacher Selection Interview identifies the best teachers for urban settings. The interview is administered online as just one part of a comprehensive selection process, but teacher candidates must make it through this screen. Candidates must also produce a writing sample and provide a demo lesson in person, by Skype or video, so that screeners can judge actual practice too. Next is a structuredinterview based on Haberman’s Star Teacher interview. The interview assesses an array of mindset competencies, including persistence, response to authority, approach to atrisk student populations, professionalism, fallibility, teacher burnout, problem solving and critical thinking. By studying teachers who were rated highly by their supervisors in an urban setting, as well as those who were not, Haberman identified key teacher qualities. By investigating the ideologies, predispositions and abilities of the “Star” teachers, he identified teacher beliefs or characteristics that would predict success in an urban setting. The Haberman Foundation claims that 97 percent of teachers placed using the Star Teacher Selection Interview are rated satisfactorily in their first year by administrators and peers. Terry Grier brought the Haberman approach to the Houston Independent School District in September 2009. He readily admits that it is not foolproof, as some teachers who fail the screen might be effective teachers, but he believes it is the best instrument to determine the values and beliefs of teachers in urban settings. Like Morrison in Reno, Grier makes it clear Gallup’s ReseaRch of successful TeacheRs So u rc e : Ga llup Cons ultin g E d u c a tio n P r a c tic e 26 January 2012 District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - January 2012

District Administration - January 2012
Contents
Letters
News Update
Conversations
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Finding the Perfect Fit
Kansas City Plots Next Steps
Seeking Savings in Special Ed
K12 Guide to Audio/Visual Solutions
Equipping Teachers to Infuse Technology
Flipped Classrooms Gaining Ground
Buying in Bulk
Online Identity Management
Going Mobile
Student Counsel
Online Edge
New Books
New Products
Product Focus
Professional Opinion

District Administration - January 2012