Muy interesante los artículos pero quisiera que el Profesor Brunner explicara qué se entiende exactamente por apoyo del Director al profesor. Gracias de antemano.

Uno de los documentos incluidos en el Informe se refiere precisamente a este punto. Dice lo siguiente.

Even with the best pre-service education, though, most new teachers enter the classroom unprepared for the demanding task of helping young people learn. What novice teachers desire most are conditions that promote collegiality, continuous learning, and support from the principal, according to Susan Moore Johnson, director of the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

The project’s researchers studied a random sample of 486 first- and second-year teachers in California, Florida, Massachusetts, and Michigan and found that new teachers have limited opportunity for interaction with experienced colleagues, receive little guidance, and yet are expected to shoulder the same teaching load and perform as well as veteran teachers.

In Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools, a report by Johnson and her project team, the authors stress the importance of a comprehensive school-based induction program for new teachers as a strategy for promoting interchange with colleagues and a shared commitment to schoolwide learning. Successful induction programs, according to the report, are not add-ons but are integrated into the professional practice of the school. They are conducted by a cadre of experienced classroom teachers, not just one-on-one mentors, and they depend on additional resources, both money and time—including release time for experienced teachers and staff developers and stipends to new teachers for additional training.

Strong principals are essential, according to Johnson. “Someone has to understand the needs of new teachers, the complexity of the school, the difficulty of teaching, and also recognize how to hand off this responsibility to more experienced teachers,” she says.

Much depends on when and how the new teacher is hired. In a random survey of teachers in their four-state study, Johnson and her colleagues found that almost two-thirds of new teachers are hired less than a month before the start of their teaching duties; among them, approximately one-third are hired after the school year has begun. The study revealed that most hiring practices give new teachers little opportunity to interact with prospective colleagues and students and to learn about the culture of the school.

To avoid this bind, the Chicago Public Schools is issuing preliminary enrollment projections in February and final enrollments at the end of June. What’s more, the district is guaranteeing that principals will not lose any positions should actual enrollment be lower. “Nobody likes to tell a teacher on October 1 that his job is eliminated,” said chief executive officer Arne Duncan in a statement this past fall. “Today, principals are hiring earlier, the pool of candidates is better, and ultimately the quality of teaching will be better as well.”

Apart from hiring problems, Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania points to the cost, both educational and financial, of high teacher turnover. About 40 percent of teachers leave the profession in the first five years, according to Ingersoll, mainly due to lack of support from administrators, poor student discipline, low pay, and lack of involvement in school decision making. The “revolving door” is especially prevalent in urban, rural, and low-income communities, which lose an average of more than 20 percent of their teachers annually, according to Ingersoll. “We’re really not going to meet the No Child Left Behind standards for a high-quality teacher unless we deal with turnover,” he says, while acknowledging that some turnover is necessary or even desirable. “You want some people to leave so you can get fresh blood in there.” Nor do most school districts assess the real financial costs of teacher turnover, Ingersoll claims. Using industry models, a 2000 study by the Texas Center for Educational Research concluded that the average cost to Texas education systems of teachers leaving the profession amounts to approximately 25 percent of each leaving teacher’s salary and benefits. The estimated total cost of teacher turnover in Texas for the 2003-04 school year is $478 million. And even this figure does not take full account of costs related to termination, recruitment and hiring, substitute salaries, learning-curve loss, and training.

As a barrier to recruiting, retaining, and motivating new teachers, seniority—the third rail that most schools boards and unions have refused to touch—is getting increasing scrutiny in labor agreements. Beyond formal seniority policies, schools often reward senior teachers with perks such as prized course assignments, larger classrooms, and time off for conferences.

“Schools are fairly top-down places,” observes Ingersoll. “Particular teachers have more power and more influence, and that provides a carrot for retention. But it’s lousy for the incoming teacher, who gets assigned to the least attractive schools.” Moreover, he says, beginners are more often assigned to teach courses out of their field. In the Elk Grove Unified School District, where the school board and teachers union have achieved a high degree of harmony, seniority rarely comes into play. “I can’t say I’ve experienced anyone consistently receiving the easiest or the most difficult classes on purpose—no matter what their level of experience is,” says teachers association president Maggie Ellis.

Me parece muy interesante, creo que en cualquier ambiente profesional las relaciones interpersonales son muy importantes a la hora de ver resultados. No he leído todos los artículos, cuando termine vuelvo a comentar.
Muchas gracias.