Teacher turnover
The City created lousy Progress Reports, and got hammered in the press. The UFT went after them. Then national test results came out, and the City looked bad. So what does Bloomberg do? Investigate? Fix the problems? Nah. He goes to war against “bad teachers.” And today the UFT hit back hard, blaming the City for not being able to keep good teachers. (we should have hit them for driving out new teachers before they even have a chance to get good.)
lets publish the school by school turnover numbers
So here we go. We’re talking about high turnover. But we use the DoE’s data. Let’s ask our own DRs to ask our own Chapter Leaders for the data: how many teachers left each school since last year? Let’s get our own data, relying on our own people. And lets publish the school by school turnover numbers – in the New York Teacher and on the web. Get the TO for last October and this one, turn it in to Central, and report the numbers.
I note here the semi-passing of the UFT’s “Grapevine” – a website devoted to getting teacher comments about schools, so those thinking about transferring could get prior info. The intention was good, but decentralized information… you never really knew what you were reading, and it didn’t catch on. Edwize and the UFT front page dropped the links, and it remains on the UFT webpage, but hard to reach, and called …Open Market Transfer – School Comments.
JD2718 
I am a college student and I agree that the teacher turn over state is large, but a result of many things wrong within the NYCDOE. Even though there seems to be a shortage of teachers and high turn over rates, I am considering teaching secondary history but afraid to so because I hear that there isn’t a need for history teachers in the NYCDOE. Can anyone tell me if there is any truth to this?
There is need, every year, for every license. But there is more need in some than in others, and social studies is not the top of the list.
Many new teachers end up in horrible schools their first year, and I am concerned that this is part of the reason that first year attrition is so high. (there are other reasons, too. A big one: some people shouldn’t be teachers. Another big one: some people don’t really want to be teachers)
Go in with eyes open. Try to do background work on the schools you apply to (insideschools.org is a good place to start. I don’t know that the reports on the DoE’s website are useful, but you could try). Talk to teachers, if you know some.
And then brace yourself for a ‘challenging’ first year. Get past that and life gets easier (and having survived a year well makes you more attractive for transfering. Surviving two years well, even more so)
Good luck.
Thank You!