New Teacher Project, announced today, to reshape HR protocal

Memphis city school officials have heard of the casualties.

A highly qualified teacher sends an application into the Memphis City Schools human resources department, and never hears back. The application gets lost somewhere in the mound of certificates and licenses that thousands of applicants send in for consideration. Impatient, the candidates seek a job elsewhere - often in neighboring Shelby County schools or a private school.

"We're always behind the eight ball because the system we have is highly inefficient," said Michael Goar, the human resources director for the district. "Our system is antiquated. It's completely paper based. And as with any paper system, despite our good intentions, we lose paperwork."

It's a tough pill to swallow, but urban school officials such as Goar are learning the teacher shortage in their districts has more to do with hiring inefficiency than candidates' reluctance to teach in poor or troubled schools.

But there's about to be sharp change in the way Memphis schools hire teachers. School officials will announce today a new initiative to revamp hiring practices and reshape the human resources department to keep highly qualified candidates from falling through the cracks.

The New Teacher Project - fueled by a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education and another $600,000 from the school district, the Hyde Foundation and Partners in Public Education - is the second major reform initiative the district has launched this year. The district snared the New Leaders for New Schools program in February to begin aggressive training of principals.

"We feel there are two key components to improving student achievement: good leadership and quality teaching," said Memphis Supt. Carol Johnson. "Once you have good principals in place, you have to have good teachers."

Officials with The New Teacher Project will spend the next two weeks finding kinks in the hiring and recruiting process. The next three years will be spent fixing those kinks. The project is doing similar work in Washington, New York and Cleveland.

"We're seeing higher-caliber teachers being hired and because it's more efficient we had schools start the school year with fewer vacancies," said Kaya Henderson, a New Teacher Project executive who oversees the human resources reform component.

In Memphis, much of the project's work will focus on improving technology for recruiting, hiring and application processing. Officials are looking at ways to offer online applications and make the hiring process more transparent so principals can see who's in the candidate pool for openings they have at schools.

"You know it doesn't sound very interesting when you talk about revamping human resources. People want to talk about curriculum and students, but what we do has a direct effect on the classroom," Goar said. "Without a good teacher, what good is a textbook?"