Flawed teacher transfer and hiring policies caused Milwaukee Public Schools to lose quality teachers to surrounding districts and private schools. An analysis by The New Teacher Project pinpointed the policy barriers to effective teacher staffing and established the foundation for systemic reforms, many of which were ratified within weeks of the study’s publication.
In 2006, The New Teacher Project (TNTP) embarked on a national series of studies of teacher staffing issues in urban public schools. Building from its Unintended Consequences report, which showed how well-intentioned teacher transfer and hiring policies can in fact cripple the ability of urban schools to hire high-quality teachers, TNTP sought to explore these challenges further and produce data-driven, objective analyses that would serve as catalysts for local reform. Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) was among the first districts with which TNTP partnered, along with the school systems of Chicago, IL and Portland, OR.
In Milwaukee, teacher hiring is Topic A. The district implemented a progressive school hiring committee process nearly a decade ago, yet other school staffing policies prevented the hiring of many high-quality teachers. Recognizing that teachers are the backbone of any effort to improve student achievement, Milwaukee Public Schools offered to provide access to its hiring data, its teachers and its school principals for the purpose of identifying flaws in its staffing policies and practices. With funding from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago, TNTP collaborated with the district and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (MTEA) in 2006 and 2007 to conduct a comprehensive study of the school system’s teacher hiring patterns and recommend actionable reforms.
Spotlight on Staffing
To pinpoint barriers and a path toward improved teacher hiring, TNTP closely examined Milwaukee’s teachers contract, interviewed school and district staff, and surveyed MPS teachers and principals. These investigations revealed that while Milwaukee was relatively progressive in some respects, it also unintentionally kept high-quality teacher candidates from joining the city’s public schools.
For years, most schools in Milwaukee have implemented a school committee hiring process giving school-based staff—including principals and teachers—the ability to interview prospective candidates for many vacancies, as opposed to “slotting” teachers into positions by central Human Resources. This process has proven to be extremely popular: TNTP’s surveys (returned by more than 2,000 teachers and about 100 principals) found that 94 percent of teachers hired through school interview committees reported being satisfied with their new positions, compared with 51 percent of teachers placed by HR. Importantly, having a say in the staffing process improved outcomes: Of teachers hired into high-poverty (and ostensibly more challenging) schools by committees, 80 percent described their school as a “good fit,” compared with 49 percent of those placed by central HR.
Yet despite such positive results, rigid teacher transfer and hiring policies prevented the district from utilizing the school hiring committee structure to its full potential. District policies gave interview preference to teachers already within the system, delaying interviews for new hires until well into the summer, when surrounding districts and schools had already completed much of their hiring. In addition, the school hiring committees only functioned until June 30. Partly because of this structure, a full 40 percent of positions in MPS were filled through assignment by central HR in 2006, giving schools and teachers little or no input into staffing decisions for almost half of all teacher hires.
TNTP’s analysis elucidated the negative impact that the district’s late hiring timeline had on its efforts to bring high-quality new teacher hires to public schools. Nearly two thirds (63 percent) of MPS principals surveyed by TNTP reported that the late hiring timeline had cost them promising teacher candidates.
TNTP’s analysis—which not only issued clear observations but also straightforward, realistic recommendations to move up the hiring timeline, expand the school committee interview process, streamline and strengthen communications from central HR, and give teachers and principals more of a say in building school instructional teams—struck a nerve. An editorial published by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel noted that, “both [district] management and the union should sign on to implementing the report’s sensible recommendations.” District and union leadership listened to TNTP’s observations. “They’re raising legitimate issues about getting the most qualified teachers where they’re needed the most and keeping them there,” MTEA President Dennis Oulahan told the Journal-Sentinel.
Within weeks of the report’s release, the district and the union moved to negotiate a new contract encompassing many of TNTP’s recommended reforms. The contract moved up the beginning of the hiring period by two months to March 1, and gave high-need schools with weak records, as well as any school filling positions in shortage subject areas, the chance to begin interviewing new applicants at the very start of the hiring period. In short, Milwaukee’s new contract ensured that public schools with the greatest needs would have an edge in teacher hiring—therefore giving more students at these schools better chances to succeed.
The New Teacher Project’s analysis of Milwaukee Public Schools is part of TNTP’s ongoing series of studies of urban school staffing policies. Other studies have examined teacher hiring patterns in Chicago, IL and Portland, OR. For more information, click here.
