Overview

Back in 1987, Arizona teacher Kathy Wiebke remembers, new teachers were left on their own as they greeted the incoming Class of 2000.

"It was: 'Here's the key to your room, here's the Xerox machine, here's the books. Now go at it,'" recalls Kathy Wiebke, who works in Paradise Valley.

Wiebke's colleague Ellen James, a new teacher that year, was assigned to a portable classroom on the outskirts of campus. Though her colleagues were a "great resource, very supportive," James describes her first-year experiences as terribly isolating.

"It was a whole lot of learning from mistakes," she says.

Bridgeport, Connecticut teacher Mary Lou Weiner agrees. She still gets butterflies when she recalls her first year of teaching 20 years ago.

"There was no support," says Weiner. "It was just me and 36 fifth graders. The one in the last seat, near the cast iron heater, had a mustache."

It's not that other teachers weren't friendly. There simply was no system in place for Weiner to share, vent, or cut through that feeling of isolation in her classroom.

Most new teachers today still feel isolated. And whether they stay in the profession for the long haul depends a great deal on their ability to "sink or swim" during their vital first year. Fortunately, several factors are pushing an alternative to sink-or-swim induction.

First, classrooms, schools, and communities have all changed. Teaching, driven by new information technologies and the challenge of adapting instruction to the needs and learning styles of students from widely diverse backgrounds, has become incredibly more complex. Parents, meanwhile, have higher expectations, and those expectations are matched by increasing demands from business, media, and political leaders.

There's also an urgent need to hire — and retain in the profession — more teachers. By 2007, the United States will need 2 million new teachers. The ongoing effort to reduce class sizes is also forcing school communities to think far more seriously about the importance of attracting and keeping caring and committed teachers.

Recent studies have found that interest in teaching among college freshmen is now matching the all-time highs experienced in the early 1970s. Many states are working to reinforce this trend, by offering incentives to attract new teachers. But one pressing question remains: What will we do to keep new teachers once we get them?

Stopping the Revolving Door

More than half of new teachers currently leave the profession within five years. Among the many reasons: little on-the-job support. New teachers often get the most challenging assignments. They enter school systems with a dream-like vision, only to come face-to-face with harsh, unexpected realities.

But not all school districts leave new teachers isolated and inadequately supported. Some districts are actively nurturing and mentoring new teachers. A recent U.S. Department of Education study found that new teachers who participate in new teacher induction programs are nearly twice as likely to stay in the profession as those who don't.

As members of the teaching profession, we shape the lives of students who pass through our classrooms. But we also shape the profession itself — its culture, its knowledge base, its standards for practice, and even its future.

We can best impact that future, in all sorts of positive ways, by nurturing new educators. With intensive support, studies tell us, new teachers consistently demonstrate higher levels of professional competence, greater success in working with children, and increased job satisfaction.

Research has also demonstrated what common sense has told us all along: that a critical predictor of student success is teacher quality.

A Tennessee study has found that students who had good teachers three years in a row scored significantly higher on state tests and made far greater gains in achievement than students with a series of ineffective teachers.

Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University has found that the strongest predictor of student performance on national assessments is the state's percentage of well-qualified teachers — educators who are fully certified, with majors in the subjects they teach.

A qualified teacher in every classroom — a teacher who is licensed and teaching in field — is an essential prerequisite for increasing student achievement. By helping new teachers become experienced, by giving them support and encouragement, we significantly enhance teacher quality, teacher retention, and, ultimately, student success.

How and Why the Association Can Help

Our Association is at a crossroads. We can either stand by and let others get their hands into our profession or take control of the situation ourselves. With 2.7 million members — most of whom were once new teachers — our Association is ideally suited to help the profession become stronger.

All across America, new teachers are actively seeking support. They can find some support on the Internet and other support from informal get-togethers with other new teachers. But what new teachers really want is help from their more veteran colleagues.

"When we help our new teachers be the very best, we're showing the public that we have high standards," says Erma LaPierre, a veteran teacher in Massachusetts involved in the Weymouth Teachers Association mentoring program. "Many of us are slated to retire within the next 10 years. Without a new teacher induction program, the things we've all learned and done will just leave with us."

Chris Guinther, an NEA member active in Missouri's Francis Howell School District, agrees: "Establishing new teacher support is our way of continuing excellence in our profession. When new teachers see our members associated with that excellence, they want to be a part of our organization. That makes for a stronger union, a stronger voice for teachers, and improved education for our students."

Next: The New Teacher