According to a report issued by Consortium on Chicago School Research in June 2009, about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left four years later, while the typical high school had seen 54 percent leave by 2006.
A research team lead by Elaine Allensworth examined the factors associated with high mobility rates, including teachers’ background characteristics, school structure, students’ characteristics, and workplace conditions.
The researchers noted workforce conditions such as principal leadership, teacher collaboration, student safety all influence stability.
Further, the researchers pointed out that in elementary schools, teachers’ perceptions of parents as partners in students’ education are strongly tied to stability; in high schools, teachers tend to leave schools with the highest rates of student misbehavior.
The data includes personnel records from about 35,000 teachers in 538 elementary schools and 118 high schools.
The researchers went on to affirm that while some teacher mobility is normal and expected, high turnover rates can produce a range of organizational problems at schools, such as discontinuity in professional development, shortages in key subjects, and loss of teacher leadership. Previous research also indicates that schools with high turnover are more likely to have inexperienced, ineffective teachers.
Janice Hypolite was a first-hand observer to the high-rate of student misbehavior.
Author, Janice M. Hypolite wrote Disorder In The Classroom (or a Firsthand Account of Substitute Teaching in the Chicago Public Schools System). Hyplolite said the book offers a glimpse of student behavior based on her own experiences in the classroom from October 2007 to February 2009. "Because of this, I felt motivated to write the book and I deal with the subject matter with humor," she said.
She said her teaching experience catapulted her to document the daily events in the classes she taught. "After substitute teaching for about year, I decided to write the book. I thought that the experiences that I had in the classroom were noteworthy and truly unbelievable," she said.
Teaching all day can be overwhelming when the students exhibit discipline problems. Hypolite said along the way, there were people who encouraged her to write. "I have only written one book. It is something that I always pondered, but never got around to doing. I am still getting used to the title of author. In my career as an accountant, I had to write a good deal on the job. So, between school and on the job, I found that I had the knack to write. Many times people would comment on it," she said.
Although writing is Hypolite’s primary endeavor, like many authors, she manages to balance her life with other pursuits. "In addition to writing, my interests are my family and exercise. I have two daughters and five grandchildren. Needless to say, they are my life. I have a membership at a health club, which I don’t go to as often as I should. But, I also like to walk and jog, which I’ve been doing for about 30 years," she said.
Perhaps overcoming the fear of water when she was a teen-ager was instrumental in giving her the inner-strength to cope with the demands of teaching in a tough school district, later on in life."I had a fear of the water when I was in high school. So, when my children were very small, I joined the YMCA. At the time, I was in college full time. So, I went there and took swimming lessons. I learned how to float facing down and on my back. One day, I will complete the lessons and learn how to swim the full length of the pool," she said.
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