Finding the Right School Fit

Nearly 50% of teachers will leave the profession before their 5th year.  This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it was just ineffective teachers leaving the profession but attrition from schools is happening at essentially the same rate across all skill levels.   This not only is a significant brain and skill drain on the profession but it is extremely costly as well.  It is estimated to cost the system $5 billion a year and means that approximately 600,000 teaching positions across the United States need to be filled every year.   If 50% of the top talent were leaving the profession in the medical or legal fields by year 5, we would have a national crisis on our hands.

However, it turns out that it doesn’t need to be this way in education.  According to a recent report put out by The New Teacher Project (TNTP) called the “Irreplaceables”, 75% of top teachers leaving their schools said they would have stayed had their top need been addressed.  To resolve this issue, TNTP recommends that schools and district implement strategies to achieve “smarter retention” of top teaching talent.  While effectively implementing these strategies would make a significant difference, this type of philosophical and behavioral change has previously proven difficult to implement across the system.   However, what if our energy was focused on getting teacher fit right on the front end?  Would this positively impact retention and teacher effectiveness?

In so many aspects of our lives, there are mechanisms to make sure that we are making smart decisions based on what we want and need.  Consumer reports help us make the best decision when purchasing a car or an electronic product.  Yelp helps us pick the right place for us to eat.  Match.com helps us find the right mate.  However, teachers don’t have the same luxury when picking a place to work.  There isn’t one place for them to go to understand the full landscape of their options and determine the best places to apply based on their skills and values.  Currently, the best option for teachers is to cobble together their options through multiple web searches and word of mouth.  In the past, this issue wasn’t as much of a problem because there were relatively few options given that hiring was largely centralized at a district office.  However, with the increasing trend towards decentralized hiring due to the growth of charter schools and shifting district policies, teachers have significantly more choices on where they work.  This also increases competition for talent so schools have a similar need to locate and differentiate talent.  This is a great advancement for education but it creates a new information and access problem. 

Haystack EDU is the solution to this problem for both teachers and schools.