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Will there be a teacher brain-drain? When Greg McGann, a respected, child-centered Principal at Whitehouse School left our district, parents where up in arms. How could this happen? Why would such a rare gem of an administrator feel the need to find employment elsewhere? Why, indeed? Are teachers next? Will there be a slow brain-drain of quality teachers who will see fit to leave our district, or is such talk just fear-mongering? Let's think about it. Our teachers are being told, in effect, that their own judgment in the assessment of children in their classrooms is not up to snuff. Bubble tests are needed to point them to the trouble spots. Funds for classroom consumables have been reduced. Teachers expert and experienced in one area of instruction have been abruptly ordered to take other positions in the district with which they have little interest or expertise. Other teachers have been inexplicably saddled with extra lunch or dismissal duty. Classroom schedules have been wildly rearranged to eliminate important instructional time in favor of character education and other forms of babysitting. Teachers are better paid in many other neighboring districts, and that assumes that our teachers are paid the level on the salary scale that correlates with the years they have actually taught, rather than the years on the scale they agreed to accept in order to be hired. It is routine for teachers to be overruled on matters in which they are expert, all on the whim of an administrator who has other ideas. Programs for literacy, math, assessment and character-building fly all about like so much wind-whipped refuse on a dead-end street. Our good teachers soldier on and bear the burden without so much as a peep. They are professional, yes, and they also fear repercussions from above. Will we have a brain-drain of good teachers? No one knows for sure, but would you work in this atmosphere for long? |
