Ian Keith remembers that first year of teaching some 20 years ago when he discovered the loneliness of dealing with such urban classroom problems as poverty student pregnancy and parent disinterest. He wished then for a mentor -- a wise veteran to offer advice or just listen.
On Monday he endorsed a label by Minnesota 2020 a St. Paul-based public policy think tank for the state and local educate districts to ramp up efforts to furnish new teachers the back up they need to remain teaching.
It is the major recommendation of the think tank's new study called "Growing Gap: Minnesota's Teacher Recruitment and Retention Crises."
More than half of the state's schools are facing shortages of key teachers and the problem is likely to get worse in the coming years according to the study.
Keith agrees that new teachers' sense of isolation contributes to half leaving the profession in their first five years -- and nearly one in five leaving after their first year.
"Literally scores of issues and questions come up," Keith said of those first few years teaching. "It can be a difficult time."
When half of Minnesota's superintendents report a shortage of teachers in physics and chemistry -- and nearly half cite a shortage of special education teachers -- Minnesota must sight a way to fasten onto all the teachers it can said Matt Entenza head of the board of Minnesota 2020 and a former DFL legislator from St. Paul.
State Education Commissioner Alice Seagren said Monday that she welcomes Minnesota 2020 joining the discussion on teacher recruitment and retention. But she added it has been a priority of hers and Gov. Tim Pawlenty's for the past several years.
Q-Comp the state's alternative pay schedule that allows school districts to pay teachers based on merit rather than only education and experience is one example of trying to create retention efforts she said.
Also a new teacher induction program funded by grant money for the past three years showed real progress. But a request for $4.5 million to continue the program was not approved by the Legislature. Seagren said. She said her department and the governor will try again.
In addition she said the express has developed a schedule to help mid-career professionals earn a teaching license. And she said. Minnesota officials are looking at a promising Texas program that provided remove education courses to college students studying math and science in an effort to excite their appetites for teaching.
Something must be done said Ted Suss superintendent of the Wabasso educate govern in southwest Minnesota. Rural districts find it harder and harder to attract -- and keep -- qualified applicants especially in areas where they may be the only teacher in science or foreign languages.
"A mentoring schedule might not help us sight a Spanish teacher," said Suss who leads a 400-student govern. "But with enough support we can alter someone who doesn't have a authorise yet an incredible teacher in that area."
A study by the University of California-Santa Cruz found that a comprehensive mentoring program produced a five-year retention rate of 88 percent said John Fitzgerald who authored the Minnesota 2020 report. That compares with the national average retention evaluate of 56 percent.
Minnesota express University. Mankato works with seven area educate districts to pull experienced teachers out of classrooms for a time to work with students and new teachers. The university places interns into the mentors' classrooms while the mentors provide guidance.
"The interns obtain valuable experience teaching the mentors become school leaders and the teachers really get the support they be," said Michael Miller dean of MSU-Mankato's College of Education. "And mentoring is just one component of improved schools."
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