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Public Affairs coverage from our award-winning staff |
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Hiring Practices Pay off for Local Charter
Produced by Eilee Heikenen-Weiss on Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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Noble Street College Prep/Lorena Gomez |
Teachers working at charter schools typically work longer hours than teachers in regular public schools. And they often do it for less pay. So maybe it’s no surprise that some national studies find Charter school teachers leave their schools at a higher rate than other public school teachers. But at one of Chicago’s largest charter school networks, teacher turnover—which can hurt schools--doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Most people don’t get into teaching for the money. But at least there’s job security, right?
METZ: Everyone is touchable here at Noble. That sounded creepy, but you know, everyone can be asked to not come back.
Expectations for teachers at Noble Street College Prep are clear. Show up for a meeting late, and you’ll get more than just a dirty look.
FARHAN: We get mulligans for being late to meetings. Even if you’re 30 seconds late, you get a mulligan.
Get enough mulligans, and you loose bonus pay. On the other hand, get students to score well on achievement tests, and your bonus pay goes up.
On average, Noble Street College Prep teachers make about 47,000 dollars a year compared to 65,000 at CPS high schools.
Betheny Gross is from the Center on Reinventing Public Education. She’s keeping an eye on charter turnover across the country.
GROSS: We do see attrition rates that are higher than what you see in traditional public schools.
15 percent higher, according to one researcher. Some experts blame higher turnover on age. Charter teachers are often younger, and that comes hand in hand with mobility. At Noble Street College prep, if you average it out, teachers here are nine years younger than those at CPS high schools. But even with this younger staff, administrators say turnover’s not a problem. To get to the heart of why, you have to start at the beginning…hiring.
LERMAN: He emailed me and asked me for 10 references. Ten!
Joanne Lerman teaches history at Noble Street.
LERMAN: For about a month, almost everyday afterschool, I knew that at around 3:30, I would get a call from Bill Olsen…
OLSEN: The way you talk about it sounds so stalker-ey. It sounds very stalking.
Hiring is not a laughing matter for principal Bill Olsen. Olsen says one of the reasons his school has low turnover is because of its thorough hiring process. Olsen won’t hire anyone unless he sees them teach a sample lesson—even if he has to fly them out for it. It’s rigorous a process, but the school routinely gets hundreds of applicants for a single opening. So why all the clamor to work here?
FARHAN: When you order books for your classes, you get them in a week here. And I think anyone that’s taught in a public school system—I wouldn’t need to further explain how amazing that is.
The support Asma Farhan talks about extends beyond material items for class. Teachers here say they value the opportunity to grow, have input in school decisions, and follow a clear discipline system. Over 60 percent of those teaching here in 2004 still teach at one of Noble Network’s seven schools. Chicago Public Schools was not able to provide comparable information, but a forthcoming report from the Chicago Consortium on School Research finds that a typical CPS school looses around half of its teachers over five years.
At any school, most dedicated teachers would tell you managing work and family can feel like a balancing act. Noble Street College Prep is no exception, especially if you have a newborn—like Farhan.
FARHAN: Well it’s difficult, right? Like, I want to be great at both things. So I’d say right now, my life is high hopes, little sleep.
What would it be like at a different school? I’d be getting home earlier, but I don’t know if I’d be more stressed out. When I ask Principal Olsen about the tradeoffs of working here, he sees it differently.
OLSEN: It can start to be counterproductive if start to think about, “Oh, I’m giving up this to be a teacher or I’m giving up that to be a teacher.” Because if you start to think that way, you might not like it so much.
But the Noble Network has a couple of other incentives up its sleeve. It’s looking for ways to increase pay, and will open a daycare for staff members’ children in the fall.
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mark, logan square // Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 1:07 PM
seems like this is a solid effort to improve education in chicago, and a good supplement, while we work to continue to improve the public schools.
an important note that is often not addressed in the discussion of education reform and improvement is that schools cannot, no matter how good or committed the teachers and staff, overcome a dysfunctional community. without parental and community support in educating children, schools can do only so much and often become little more than babysitters.
it's sad, but when large portions of a community are made up of single mothers ill-prepared to raise children, unless this is addressed and changed, the schools in these communities will continue to do poorly.
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Mario, Ravinia, Highland Park // Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 7:24 PM
Seems we are going on the right
track to 21st Century on education.
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Eric Skalinder, Chicago // Friday, March 13, 2009 @ 11:47 AM
Why perpetuate a false comparison between Noble Charters and CPS schools?
The valid comparison is between CPS selective enrollment schools and Noble Charters which are also selective enrollment.
In a story where a direct comparison is made between Noble Network and CPS I would expect a news organization like Chicago Public Radio to be aware of - and, more importantly, to note - the major and differences between open enrollment neighborhood schools and selective enrollment schools.
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Rod Estvan, Chicago // Friday, March 13, 2009 @ 3:19 PM
Eric makes a good point on comparisons. But Noble Street is really not a selective school like CPS's top tier Payton, Young, or Northside Prep, but it is not equalivant to many CPS general high schools either. Even a selective high school like Jones Prep would not be comparable because it has only 50.6% low income students whereas Noble Street has 86% low income. The common factor Noble Street has with CPS selective schools is that enrollment requires involved parents. You must apply to both Noble Street and to CPS selectives. But Noble Street has no admissions test and the CPS selective high schools do.
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