Mentoring new teachers puts proven tools into their hands

When I have a problem, I like to go to someone who has had the same problem and knows how to deal with it, someone I can quiz until I get the answer I need.

Many new teachers feel exactly the same way. Keeping up to thirty distractible young people on task for six hours a day takes skill and expertise, the kind of skill and expertise not usually taught in teacher college. There are plenty of days that new teachers question just why they ever got into teaching in the first place.

One Oregon high school teacher might not be teaching today if it weren’t for her state’s new teacher mentor program. Erica Wherry teaches at Forest Grove High School, and when she started out, she didn’t feel prepared for the challenges of the classroom:

Like many new teachers, I was assigned an overwhelming number of classes and students. I had to learn how to transition between Advanced Placement students, students who spoke limited English and students with severe learning disabilities. I knew very little about how to plan lessons or deal with behavioral problems.

An education degree often does little to prepare teachers for the realities of the classroom, which is why nearly 27 percent of new teachers in Washington opt out of the profession within the first five years.

What a waste of time, money and a passion for teaching kids!

What turned Erica’s job around was Oregon’s new Beginning Teacher and Administrator Mentor Program. The program’s goals are to increase student achievement and retain new teachers by having a veteran teacher visit the new teacher’s classroom and provide them with feedback on a regular basis. Erica tells how her mentor, Scott, helped her:

After one particularly tearful meeting, Scott spent an entire day teaching me how to find resources and make lesson plans that engage my students at all ability levels. That one day changed me from a struggling new teacher with struggling students to a much more effective and happy teacher. I immediately saw a positive change in my students' attitudes and scores in class.

Washington has recently begun a small, pilot mentorship program whose results have been promising. When added to national research supporting the value of teacher mentorships, it becomes clear that that if the most important thing we can give our students is a good teacher, then we need to help struggling new teachers get the support they need to be confident and effective in the classroom and stay in the profession.

The first version of the education reform bill which passed the legislature this winter included a new career ladder for teachers with mentorships on its bottom rungs. Unfortunately, in the legislature's hesitancy to enact sweeping changes, that provision was scaled back to “consideration of how to establish a statewide beginning teacher mentoring and support system.” This is slow progress, but we’ll take it.

Because of the state’s budget problems, Oregon’s new teacher mentor program could take a seventy five percent cut next year, even though it saves school districts millions of dollars per year in reduced teacher turnover costs. Instead of cutting effective programs' funding, Oregon should invest its education dollars in programs proven to save money.

Washington can look to Oregon’s success with teacher mentorships when planning its own program. The state's pilot program is a good start, but all new teachers need the support that comes from a mentor. With class sizes increasing in our schools for at least the next two years, the sooner they start the better.