Large study says great teachers get little respect

Jay Matthews:

The fourth-grade teacher was by any measure a star. Fidgety students behaved in her class. Test scores were high. She had come to the low-income neighborhood school to make an impact. In her class, she did. But few of her supervisors or colleagues seemed to care.

"School leaders gave her little recognition," says a new research study on how schools treat great teachers. They "failed to take advantage of her instructional expertise and stymied the sort of team-building and collaboration that had helped her boost performance among students and fellow teachers at other schools for decades."

So this summer, she left for another school that wanted her talent. She told the researchers that when she resigned, the principal "just signed my paperwork, and didn't even say a word. . . . It made me feel like he couldn't care less, not about me and not about this school."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 7, 2012 1:05 AM
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