BUSINESS WEEK, DECEMBER 10, 2001

Going to the Head of the Class Workers from battered industries turn to teaching

After getting laid off in March from his job as a marketing executive at Blue Martini Software Inc. (BLUE ), a faltering Silicon Valley startup, Patrick D. Bernhardt seized the chance to switch into a field he always had wanted to try: teaching. Within a month, he landed a job teaching computer science at John Muir Middle School in San Jose, Calif. Bernhardt is pleased with the move, despite a 50% drop in salary and a summer training stint. He must also go to evening classes three times a week for the next two years to qualify for a teaching license. "This is the hardest thing I've ever done, but the sense of satisfaction is great," he says.

The 24-year-old Stanford University graduate is one of thousands around the country who are turning to teaching as the recession tosses more people into the job market. The trend is especially pronounced in such high-tech hot spots as Silicon Valley, where the slump started earlier and typically affects more college-educated workers, who can qualify to be teachers. "We've benefited from the downturn," says Toni Patterson, assistant superintendent of staffing at Wake County school district in North Carolina's Research Triangle. "Even spouses who had left teaching are coming back after their significant others have been laid off." A rush of applicants has slashed the county's vacant teaching posts to 38, down from 100 last year.

A BOON. Indeed, the economic woes of Corporate America are proving, at least temporarily, to be a boon for education, which has been plagued by teacher shortages for years. Nationwide, the teaching labor force expanded by 2.8% in the 12 months ending in October, even as the recession drove down the national labor force by 0.7%, says Ron Bird, chief economist at the Employment Policy Foundation in Washington. That jump is helping schools enjoy an expanded pool of qualified workers after years of struggling to compete with higher-paying jobs in technology and other sectors.

The newfound interest in teaching may not be enough to end the chronic shortfall of educators, however. The U.S. still must hire more than 2 million new teachers in the coming decade to replace aging baby boomers and to handle an upsurge in immigrant children, according to a 1999 study by the Education Dept. The projections were made before the new applicant boom, but it's unlikely there will be a steady stream of new teachers over such a long time period, experts say.

In fact, education experts fear worse: "Once the economy turns around, all these people are going to bail," frets Carlos Ponce, chief human-resources officer for the Chicago public school system. Experience suggests he may be right: Studies show that turnover can reach up to 60% among those who make a mid-career switch to teaching. If too many new applicants bolt for the first corporate job that comes along, the resulting turmoil could leave schools worse off, worries David Haselkorn, president of Recruiting New Teachers, a nonprofit outfit in Belmont, Mass.

PEANUTS. To hang on to the newcomers, schools need to boost pay. Although most teachers receive good benefits and don't work during the summer, starting teachers earn only about $28,000 a year and must wait years to reach the average salary of $42,000. What's more, teacher salaries have risen by just 2.9% a year since 1990, barely more than the rise in consumer living costs. Big pay hikes aren't likely, though, given the recession-induced squeeze on state and local budgets, which pay for the bulk of education expenses. "Because the pay is so low, I've done everything from construction work to custodial work during the summer," says Michael Kerr, a second-grade teacher who earns only $32,000 a year in pricey New York City.

Credentials present a formidable hurdle for many career-switchers, too. Most states allow those who didn't get their BA in education to teach on a temporary basis, but usually they must be certified within a year or two. Bernhardt, for instance, took several one-day classes last summer, then taught a summer-school course under the guidance of a regular teacher. The evening classes he is taking at a nearby college cover pedagogy and other subjects he needs to be a qualified teacher. New teachers usually have to pay for the extra learning out of their own pockets--$3,000 in Bernhardt's case.

For the moment, though, schools are also the beneficiaries of a sort of September 11 effect. As people grope for ways to do something meaningful, some turn to teaching. Bank Street College of Education in New York saw a record turnout at a recent open house for people looking to make a mid-career change. "I'm getting numerous e-mails from people saying they need to rethink their lives and are wondering about teaching," says Jon Snyder, dean of Bank Street's Graduate School of Education.

Some school districts are becoming adept at helping recruits make the transition from other professions. San Jose, for example, has a program that provides coaching and mentors to working adults with BAs who want to become teachers. If they pass a test, the district works with a nearby college to arrange the courses applicants need to get certified. "Becoming a teacher in California isn't easy; there are millions of forms to fill," says Jennifer Long Bauer, a 26-year-old former dot-commer in San Jose who's teaching seventh and eighth grade now. San Jose's Teaching Fellows program "guides you along."

Most economists think the jobless rate will continue to rise next year even if the recession is relatively mild. This creates an opportunity for schools to reach out to people whose first instinct is to go to higher-paying fields. The trick for educators and school districts will be making teaching so rewarding that the newcomers stick around when more lucrative jobs beckon once again.

By Pallavi Gogoi in Chicago

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Press Release from 2001 Campaign

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San José Unified School District Creates New Program to Attract Outstanding Professionals to Teaching

Launches San José Teaching Fellows

San José, CA (February 7, 2001) – San José Unified School District has launched the San José Teaching Fellows program, an effort to mobilize the community’s most outstanding citizens to commit to teach for at least two years and improve education for the students who need it most in our urban public schools. 

San José Teaching Fellows is a highly selective program that will recruit, select and train 75- 100 professionals to become teachers in the district’s most challenged schools this fall.  This Fellowship includes a regular teacher’s salary, intensive training, on-going support, and enrollment in a credentialing program with the potential option to pursue a Master’s degree. 

“We are looking for high-achieving individuals who believe that all children deserve an excellent education and who will work relentlessly to ensure that their students meet high academic expectations,” said Katie Malachuk, program manager for The San José Teaching Fellows.  “We want people who will work to level the playing field for all students in this community.”

Fellows will be chosen through a highly selective process that includes a sample teaching lesson, participation in a group discussion on an education related topic, and an individual interview.  Once selected, Fellows will participate in a six-week summer training institute that involves teaching summer school under the guidance of an experienced teacher as well as attending classes on the theory and practice of teaching.  Upon entering their classrooms, Fellows will have access to a network of support and professional development -- including a credentialing program, mentors, regular meetings with other Fellows, a newsletter and opportunities to observe and be observed by experienced teachers.

We are very excited about this program and its potential to expand our teaching force by tapping into the talents and energy of our community,” said Dr. Linda Murray, Superintendent of San José Unified School District.

San José Teaching Fellows is an innovative solution to help districts fill annual teacher vacancies as well as improve student achievement.  It is being developed by The New Teacher Project, which is organizing similar programs in approximately 10 other cities, including Washington D.C., New York, and Denver.

The New Teacher Project is a national non-profit organization based in New York that consults with school districts, state departments of education, universities and other entities to enhance their capacity to effectively recruit, select and develop new teachers effectively.  Believing that there is no single factor that has a greater influence on student achievement than teacher quality, The New Teacher Project uses an integrated approach that consists of aggressive recruitment, rigorous selection, intensive pre-service training and on-going support in the first years of teaching.

San José Teaching Fellows will launch in early March.  For more information, visit www.sjteachingfellows.org

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San Jose Mercury News

February 12, 2001 Monday

Front Page

San Jose Schools Seek Teachers From

Outside Education

BY KATE FOLMAR

Confronted with an ever-deepening teacher shortage, San Jose schools plan to draw from a new pool of prospective instructors: high-achievers in other fields who are hungry for more meaningful work.

San Jose Unified wants the Bay Area's best and brightest to forsake six-figure corporate salaries in favor of devoting two years to some of California's neediest children. And if the experiences of other cities are any indication, the school district could get more takers than it can handle.

In March, the district will launch the San Jose Teaching Fellows program with the aim of giving urban education the cachet of Ivy League admission and the allure of Peace Corps service. It hopes to recruit and train 75 to 100 new teachers -- about half the district’s annual new hires -- to place in classrooms this fall for at least a two-year stint.

Weary of drafting legal memo after legal memo? Help a kindergartner read her first book, the program suggests. Sick of crunching code? Teach a student how to wire a circuit.

No teaching experience is required. But aspiring instructors should plan on spending six weeks teaching summer school under the eye of an experienced teacher and learning about education theory and practice.

The starting salary for teaching fellows is the same as that of any other new, emergency-credentialed teacher in the district -- just under $36,000. Advanced degrees fetch a few thousand dollars more.

While the 33,000-student district usually plucks newly minted instructors from education schools and teacher job fairs, the Fellows program ``taps a market we've never tapped before: the mid-career people who want to make a change,'' said San Jose's human resources director, Cheryl Petermann.

She already confronts the state's drastic teacher shortage and the Bay Area's stratospheric housing costs by recruiting from as far away as New York and the Philippines. Frequently, new hires do not have the requisite formal training and must get emergency credentials.

``These people have already gotten money; they'll be in it for service,'' Petermann predicted. ``We expect that if they're from this area, they'll already have a place to live, and that's a major thing for us. I'm trying to get a jump on all my other human resources friends in the valley and do this before all the rest of them do.''

The school district has signed a one-year, $170,000 contract with The New Teacher Project to put the Fellows program together. The project is an outgrowth of Teach for America, the decade-old non-profit group that recruits talented, recent college grads to spend two years in the toughest urban and rural schools.

The New Teacher Project targets a different group -- young to mid-career professionals -- and promises to teach school districts its recruitment and training secrets, so that district employees can continue the efforts without outside help.

New Teacher programs exist in 14 school districts nationwide, from New York City to Baton Rouge, La. San Jose will be the second California participant, behind Compton.

In San Jose, the program hopes to recruit a diverse batch of instructors and place many of them in downtown schools serving scores of poor children and immigrant families. The district particularly needs teachers who are bilingual or have backgrounds in math or science, said Superintendent Linda Murray.

``Here in the heart of the Silicon Valley, there are a lot of people who have that talent base,'' she said. ``We want people who really want to do a service for the children who most need good teachers.''

The program's advertising runs contrary to the way many educators recruit. Rather than tell potential applicants how great a school district is, or how much test scores are improving, the New Teacher Project uses blunt slogans and stresses how tough the job is.

In New York, advertisements declared that four out of five students in the neediest schools couldn't read to standards, and challenged applicants to do something about it. In the inner city of Los Angeles County, the catch phrase was: ``The children of Compton deserve a Beverly Hills education.''

``School districts always tell us, `Hey, this sounds great, but there's no way you're going to get people making $150,000 a year to quit their jobs, make $30,000 and deal with discipline problems,' '' said Michelle Rhee, CEO of the New Teacher Project. ``And we say, `You know what, these people are out there.' ''

The numbers back her up.

Nationwide, the project gets about five applicants for every opening. In New York City, more than 2,000 people, including a speechwriter for mayor Rudolph Giuliani and a Viacom executive, applied for 250 openings. Some school officials have told project consultants that the rejected applicants are better than many of the new teachers the schools recruit on their own.

The ideal recruit is an ``intelligent person who has no education background or training,'' said Katie Malachuk, the San Jose program manager. ``We're trying to find people who are great critical thinkers who can quickly assess a situation and its needs, people who are achievement-oriented and results-focused.''

In short, they're looking for people like Joey Vickery.

She's a new teacher with the program at Jefferson Elementary in Compton, a school district so troubled that the state seized control of it in 1993. A communications and Latin American studies double-major from the University of Nebraska, Vickery dreamed of joining the Peace Corps, but health troubles prevented that. Instead, she spent four years in Long Beach selling industrial adhesives, sandpaper and respirators -- a job she ``absolutely hated,'' with a $50,000 salary.

Now, $18,000 a year poorer, Vickery and her husband can't afford to eat out much, travel abroad or buy a new car. The new teacher didn't have reading texts in her classroom until last month. Vickery just got her school its first photocopy machine by begging businesses to donate one. She has taught a student who couldn't read a word in September to read books by himself.

Teaching is ``the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,'' Vickery chirped. ``I'm totally insane, and I find myself spending every free minute of my outside life learning about new programs and trying to get things donated.''

One other thing, she hastens to add: ``I love it.''

The San Jose Teaching Fellows program will begin recruiting in

March. The application deadline is April 23.