April 29, 2008
Study Finds New School Staffing Policies Benefit New York City Teachers, Urges Schools and Teachers Union to Address Costly Problem of Salaried Teachers Who Cannot Find Jobs
By June, Schools Expected to Pay $81 Million in Salary and Benefits for Small Percentage of Teachers Who Have Not Found Full-Time Positions Despite Months of Searching
NEW YORK, NY—According to a new policy brief by The New Teacher Project, a national non-profit organization, school staffing policy reforms adopted by New York City in 2005 have given teachers and schools better choices and more flexibility in the teacher hiring process. However, in honoring the will of teachers and principals in all hiring decisions, the new staffing system has also created a pressing new problem: the emergence of a small pool of teachers—mostly tenured—who cannot find jobs in new schools many months after losing their previous positions. Under the current contract, these teachers continue receiving full salary and benefits even if they never secure another full-time position, at a cost projected to reach $81 million by June 2008. Troublingly, many appear to have difficulty finding positions because of a lack of engagement in the job-search process or a history of poor performance.
The current policy does not effectively address what to do with teachers in this situation. The New Teacher Project calls for a reasonable solution to this dilemma that respects the needs and service of teachers as well as the integrity of the new staffing policies and the real resource limitations of the city’s schools.
“Mutual Benefits: New York City’s Shift to Mutual Consent in Teacher Hiring” is the fourth in an ongoing series of studies of urban school staffing issues by The New Teacher Project (TNTP). In this analysis, TNTP focuses on staffing policy changes implemented after the ratification of the 2005 teachers contract between the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and United Federation of Teachers (UFT). This contract replaced rigid staffing rules that often gave teachers and principals little or no input over teacher placements with a more open policy that required the “mutual consent” of both teachers and principals in all hiring decisions.
“Mutual Benefits” analyzes 18 months of data on the job-search and hiring patterns of “transfer teachers” (those voluntarily seeking positions in new schools) and “excessed teachers” (those who lose their positions due to budget cuts, enrollment changes or school closings). It finds that the mutual consent-based staffing system has yielded positive results for the vast majority of teachers. Specifically, the study finds that the system has:
- Earned strong teacher support: Mutual consent policies prioritize school fit and teacher and principal choice in the staffing process. In a 2007 survey, 87 percent of transfer teachers and 82 percent of excessed teachers agreed that it was important whether the principal of the school where they sought a new position wanted them to work there.
- Successfully facilitated thousands of transfers: Over the course of two hiring seasons, the system enabled over 7,500 transfer and excessed teachers to secure jobs at new schools.
- Yielded satisfying placements: Nine out of ten transfer teachers and eight out of ten excessed teachers described their new mutual consent positions as satisfying.
- Resulted in positions that teachers plan to keep: Just 9 percent of teachers who transferred between schools in 2007 reported that they were considering transferring again this year.
- Provided fair and equal access to vacancies: The new policy showed no evidence of disadvantaging more senior teachers, teachers from closing schools, or excessed teachers, all of whom were hired by schools at rates similar to those for other teachers.
- Not disadvantaged high-poverty schools: In addition to giving schools greater choice in teacher hiring, the system has not spurred an exodus of teachers from high-poverty schools.
“The evidence tells us overwhelmingly that New York City’s mutual consent-based staffing policies are working well,” said Timothy Daly, a co-author of the study and president of The New Teacher Project. “What’s surprising is that so many districts stick with more restrictive staffing policies despite the fact that teachers like those in New York City have so strongly embraced this more open approach.”
“Mutual Benefits” shows that the ramifications of the mutual consent system were especially dramatic for the more than 4,100 teachers excessed in 2006 and 2007. Under the new contract, excessed teachers were no longer centrally assigned to positions, as they often had been in years past. Instead, they interviewed with principals for jobs like all other teachers. The vast majority of excessed teachers were hired by principals for mutually consensual positions at new schools; unfortunately, a relatively small subset of excessed teachers appears unable or unwilling to find new positions.
The study documents the characteristics and job search patterns of the 235 teachers excessed in summer 2006—9 percent of the 2,742 teachers excessed that year—who despite widespread job opportunities and significant job search support still had not secured new positions as of December 2007 (a year and a half later). The data indicate several trends in the characteristics and job-search patterns of this subset of teachers:
- They remained unselected despite thousands of vacancies: Over 14,000 teaching positions were filled during the period when these 235 teachers did not find jobs.
- They remained unselected though large numbers of their excessed colleagues found positions: Over 1,000 teachers excessed in 2006 found mutual consent positions, across all license areas and seniority levels (approximately 1,000 more were reabsorbed by their former schools).
- They were generally less active in their job searches than other excessed teachers: Nearly half did not apply to even one vacancy through the city’s online job posting system. Even more declined to participate in district job fairs or job search workshops.
- They were more likely to have a documented history of poor performance: By September 2007, unselected excessed teachers from 2006 were six times as likely to have received a prior “Unsatisfactory” rating as other New York City teachers.
- They were not inherently disadvantaged by the mutual consent system: Data suggest that a teacher’s placement prospects were not negatively influenced in any significant way by characteristics such as seniority or having come from a closing school.
Making matters worse, the pool of unselected teachers grew in 2007, when over 1,400 teachers were newly excessed. Of these 2007 excessed teachers, 430 still had not found positions as of December 2007—six months into their job search. Initial data suggest that these 430 unselected teachers are similar to the 2006 group in their characteristics and hiring patterns.
The costs of this policy structure are considerable and will only grow annually, as more teachers enter the reserve pool. By the end of the current school year, the NYCDOE will have paid an estimated $81 million in salary and benefits to the more than 600 teachers excessed in 2006 and 2007 who remain unselected. In addition, some teachers—at least 30 so far, and potentially 51 more by June—have been granted tenure while serving in the reserve pool, affording them even greater job security and benefits for what could be decades of service, even if they never find a full-time position—indeed, even if they never apply for another position.
Ariela Rozman, CEO of The New Teacher Project, urged the New York City schools and the United Federation of Teachers to put aside politics in the interest of finding a reasonable solution. “Teachers are the bedrock of our schools, and New York City must continue to do everything possible to attract and retain the best,” said Ms. Rozman. “Teachers who are excessed deserve ample time and support in finding new jobs, but unlimited time at full salary is not a reasonable or sustainable policy. Under the current policy, it is not clear that teachers have an incentive to engage in an aggressive job search. Finding a solution requires flexibility and realism from both the NYCDOE and the UFT.”
A return to forced teacher placement, while seemingly a simple solution from a logistical and fiscal standpoint, would corrode the effective staffing process now in place, according to the study. More worrisome, a return to slotting would mean that unselected teachers would likely be placed disproportionately into hard-to-staff schools with high turnover rates. Instead, ”Mutual Benefits” suggests that unselected excessed teachers be placed on unpaid leave after a reasonable period of time in the reserve pool, with the ability to return to teaching at their previous salary level if they are able to secure a full-time position within a certain number of years.
“It is critical that any new policies ensure that excessed teachers are treated with respect and fairness,” said TNTP’s Rachel Grainger, a co-author of the brief. “It is also vitally important that all teachers engage actively in the job search process. The NYCDOE and UFT should work together to find a fair and reasonable way forward. Sustaining an open and efficient school staffing system is clearly in the interest of teachers and principals, but ultimately it is most important to students, whose education depends so much on who stands at the front of their classrooms.”
Click here to download a copy of the full Mutual Benefits policy brief.
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About The New Teacher Project
The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of outstanding individuals who become public school teachers and to creating environments for all educators that maximize their impact on student achievement. TNTP has published two major studies on teacher hiring and school staffing in urban areas: Missed Opportunities (2003) and Unintended Consequences (2005). The organization has also played a critical role in bringing high-quality teachers to urban classrooms, having worked with more than 200 school districts and trained or hired approximately 28,000 teachers since its inception in 1997.
As part of its ongoing series of studies of urban school staffing policies, The New Teacher Project has previously examined district staffing procedures in Chicago, IL; Portland, OR; and Milwaukee, WI. In these studies, TNTP called for an enhanced teacher voice in school-based hiring, early hiring timelines to ensure that urban districts compete for top talent, and substantial staffing supports for schools serving low-income students and families. These analyses are available at:
http://www.tntp.org/publications/other_publications.html
TNTP has partnered with the New York City Department of Education on a number of educational initiatives, such as the New York City Teaching Fellows program. Currently, more than 8,000 Teaching Fellows who were recruited, selected and trained by TNTP are teaching in classrooms across New York City. Nearly all of these teachers are active UFT members. In some cases, they serve as chapter leaders or in other roles within the union.
The NYCDOE also partnered with The New Teacher Project to launch and manage an Internal Hiring Support Center to maximize placement opportunities for excessed teachers. This Center operated from May through October during the 2006 and 2007 hiring seasons. Funding for the Internal Hiring Support Center was raised by The New Teacher Project in 2006. In 2007, the NYCDOE covered the majority of its costs.
Funding for the writing and publication of this policy brief was provided independently by The New Teacher Project.
