Traci Edwards, principal of Jefferson Elementary School, was determined to make the school a place where all students would succeed. Located in a low-income community, Jefferson had long been known as a stable and safe school—but not as a school whose students scored well on standardized tests. In fact, Jefferson had recently been put on the state's list of low-performing schools, raising concern among parents and district administrators.
Because Traci believed that student learning depended on having outstanding teachers, she did her best to recruit excellent candidates and support them in their early days of teaching. New teachers attended the district's orientation program, and each novice was assigned a mentor on the Jefferson faculty. But in spite of these supports, many of the new teachers who had initially seemed so talented and dedicated left within a year or two, saying that they were exhausted, discouraged, or disillusioned.
This turnover took a toll on the students, on the teachers who stayed, and on Traci. It also interfered with the school's improvement efforts. Three years earlier, Jefferson had adopted new goals and a schoolwide curriculum for both math and literacy. This change meant that all teachers needed to start coordinating what they taught instead of choosing what to teach with little regard for the plans and practices of their colleagues. If everyone worked together, Traci believed, the students would develop essential skills, knowledge, and confidence during their six years at Jefferson.
But each year, the coming and going of new teachers disrupted the staff's progress toward establishing shared purpose and practice. The 1st and 3rd grades, staffed mainly by veterans, carried on much as they always had; Traci feared that many of these teachers did not believe in schoolwide change. Most of the new teachers were assigned to the 2nd and 4th grades, where they worked long and often anxious hours to prepare for the next day, never seeming to get on top of the workload.
Despite the time and resources committed to school improvement, Traci saw little evidence of increased instructional continuity at Jefferson. Without that, she wondered how students could meet higher standards. Meanwhile, she spent much of each fall troubleshooting with the new teachers—and much of each spring recruiting their replacements.
Two Generations of Teachers
Many school leaders experience challenges similar to those faced by Traci Edwards. To make substantive improvements in teaching and learning, a school must draw on the professional knowledge and skills that experienced teachers have accumulated and refined over the years while also capitalizing on the energy and fresh ideas of new recruits. These two vital resources, however, often operate in different pockets of the school.
As principals attempt to better organize their staff for success, they often have difficulty bridging the divide between independent, sometimes complacent, veteran teachers and inexperienced, often distressed, novice teachers. As we consider solutions to this problem, it is helpful to recognize that many schools have within them two distinct generations of teachers.
During the last 35 years, the distribution of the teaching force by years of experience has undergone a generational shift (see fig. 1, p. 14). The last great period of teacher hiring occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1971, more than half of the U.S. teaching force (57 percent) had fewer than 10 years of experience. Fifteen years later, in 1986, this cohort of teachers still represented the largest portion of the teaching force (45 percent); relatively few new teachers were being hired. By 2001, this cohort was approaching retirement. For the first time in three decades, the proportion of new teachers began to grow. This newest cohort would soon become the largest segment of the teaching force.
Figure 1. Generational Shift in the Teaching Force
The U-shaped distribution of teachers shown in the 2001 national data is now apparent in many districts and schools. The valley between the two peaks in the distribution shows the effects of low teacher turnover rates and declining student enrollments in the 1980s. During these years, schools hired few new teachers and paid little attention to the induction of those they did hire. In many schools today, this valley has become a yawning generation gap between veteran and new teachers.
The Retiring Generation of Teachers
When the cohort of teachers now preparing for retirement entered the profession in the late 1960s and early 1970s, public service was respected and long-term careers were the norm. Throughout society, individuals were expected to pursue just one career—for example, engineering, accounting, or law—and many even dedicated themselves until retirement to a single employer, such as General Electric, Aetna Insurance, or The New York Times. In fact, those who entered teaching at that time were the first cohort to make teaching a lifetime career (Grant & Murray, 1999). Most began teaching right after college, having completed a traditional teacher preparation program. Women and people of color found that the teaching field welcomed them, whereas other professional fields, such as banking and law, presented social barriers to entry. As a result, public schools attracted a talented and committed cohort of new teachers at relatively low expense.
On the job, these teachers have expressed similar preferences. Most of them have chosen to focus their careers on becoming better teachers within the classroom instead of seeking administrative positions beyond it (McLaughlin & Yee, 1988). As a group, they prize the privacy of their classrooms and rely on their colleagues primarily for social support (Johnson, 1990). The egg-crate structure of schools, with each teacher working alone in a classroom, reinforces these preferences and discourages the development of specialized roles for teachers. The job descriptions for a 30-year veteran and a novice teacher are virtually identical.
The New Generation of Teachers
Members of the new generation of teachers enter the workforce in a different context. Fields that once excluded talented women and people of color—such as technology, law, business, medicine, and finance—now actively recruit them. In contrast to public education's low pay and static career path, many of these fields offer high pay, well-resourced workplaces, and opportunities for rapid advancement. The choice to enter teaching today is no longer automatic or obvious.
Earning a traditional teaching license is increasingly becoming optional, and today's recruits follow multiple routes to the classroom, such as alternative certification programs or appointments by charter schools. Some entrants have prepared through lengthy university-based teacher training programs with yearlong internships in professional development schools; others have had only six weeks of preservice training in a fast-track program.
As society's career patterns change, young people now routinely anticipate having several careers over the course of their working lives. As one new teacher we interviewed said, “I'm a work in progress. I can't tell you exactly what I'm going to do.” Of 50 new Massachusetts teachers studied by the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, only 3 were entering teaching as a first career and planned to remain in the classroom full-time until retirement (Peske, Liu, Johnson, Kauffman, & Kardos, 2001).
Moreover, many new teachers today are career switchers. Our random-sample surveys of teachers in six states show that between 33 percent and 48 percent of those entering teaching today come from another line of work rather than straight from college (Johnson & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, 2004). Therefore, the conventional image of the new teacher as a young, fresh college graduate fails to fit a significant portion of those entering classrooms today.
Teachers who enter at midcareer often bring with them expectations about their workplace formed on the basis of their experience in other settings. Both they and their younger counterparts tend to be surprised by the isolation of a classroom, expecting instead to learn from colleagues and work in teams. They also hope to have varied responsibilities and gain increasing influence over time but quickly realize that the egg-crate school—with its separate classrooms and uniform teaching roles—does not encourage this kind of growth.
Challenges and Opportunities for Principals
School leaders can act to bridge the generation gap and build integrated professional cultures in which new and experienced teachers collaborate regularly and share responsibility for the success of their students and colleagues (Kardos, Johnson, Peske, Kauffman, & Liu, 2001). The first step is to understand the makeup of the faculty. Many principals are surprised when they chart the experience levels of their teachers and see the large separation between the cohorts of new and veteran teachers. Once the patterns of experience within the faculty become clear, the principal can employ a number of strategies to integrate the work of new and experienced teachers.
Treat the hiring process as the first step of induction. Hiring new teachers as early as possible and building in-depth information about the school into the hiring process can both develop novices' understanding of how the school works and increase veteran teachers' investment in the new recruits (Liu, 2004). One teacher we studied experienced this kind of information-rich process, interviewing with the school's search committee, observing classes, attending the school's math exposition, and interviewing with the principal. She said, “The entire process of how they worked impressed me.” In most schools, unfortunately, hiring happens in late summer or even after the school year has begun, and new teachers start their work unprepared for their classes and without having met any other adults in the school except for the principal (Liu, 2004). This approach not only limits the exchange of information among prospective colleagues but also conveys to new teachers the unrealistic expectation that the principal will be their primary source of information and support, not experienced teachers.
Assign new teachers to work alongside experienced teachers. Usually, new teachers are assigned to teach whichever classes or grades are still open after experienced teachers have stated their preferences. This approach may result in new teachers being bunched together in certain grades or courses, as they were at Jefferson. Instead, the principal and faculty should deliberately plan to mix new teachers with veterans across grades or courses. That way, during routine grade-level or departmental meetings, the novices can tap the veterans' knowledge and the veterans can get energized by the new teachers' enthusiasm.
Schedule time for new and veteran teachers to meet. Deliberately coordinating teaching assignments means little unless the school allocates time for shared planning, observations, and feedback. In schools where grade-level teachers rarely confer because they have different planning times, teachers must exchange precious information in the lunch line or while passing in the corridor. Other schools purposely arrange time to ensure that the teachers who should meet together can do so, thus making joint work and professional exchange not only possible but also likely.
Provide more than one-to-one mentoring. When it works, expert mentoring by experienced teachers effectively supports new teachers in their work (Ingersoll & Kralik, 2004). Research has provided increasing evidence, however, that one-to-one mentoring frequently fails because of inappropriate matches, too few mentors to go around, or lack of mentor training. We have found that having a mentor in itself has no statistical relationship to new teachers' job satisfaction, whereas working in a school with an integrated professional culture is strongly and positively related to job satisfaction (Kardos, 2004). Recently, Smith and Ingersoll (2004) found that new teachers who experienced both one-to-one mentoring and a comprehensive induction program had a higher retention rate than new teachers who only had mentors.
Develop school-based induction programs led by experienced teachers. New teachers focus intently on their schools and their classrooms, seldom raising their heads to see what is happening in the district. Thus, the best induction programs have a substantial school-based component. Principals should not take sole responsibility for induction; with the demands of their job, they cannot provide all the guidance that new teachers seek. Instead, expert teachers should organize the induction program, drawing on the knowledge of their colleagues and thus further integrating the work of new and experienced teachers.
At one high school in Massachusetts, two veteran teachers are released from one daily class to organize a schoolwide induction program. They meet monthly with the school's 35 new teachers, visit novices' classes to offer feedback, and arrange for them to observe experienced colleagues (Johnson & The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, 2004). The school's program systematically draws on the extensive craft knowledge of experienced teachers. For example, as back-to-school night approached, veteran teachers throughout the school e-mailed advice to the group of novice colleagues about what to expect and how to respond to anxious parents.
Organize ongoing professional development on the curriculum. A school's or a district's adoption of a new curriculum usually includes a period of intensive professional development, during which teachers try the new approaches and discuss what they have learned. All too often, however, that time of sharing and learning is a one-time event. Accepting the reality of ongoing turnover in today's schools, principals can build continuity through regular curriculum refreshers and updates. Having such sessions led by experienced teachers reinforces norms of collaboration and encourages the school to regularly adapt the curriculum to current realities.
Encourage teacher leadership and differentiated roles. New teachers today repeatedly state that they hope eventually to assume roles that extend their influence beyond the classroom—for example, as instructional coaches, curriculum coordinators, cluster leaders, department heads, or induction coordinators. One teacher we interviewed explained, “People want the chance to move up and to have different experiences and different opportunities.” Although such roles have only begun to emerge in public schools, they provide the chance to further integrate the work of new and experienced teachers. Schools augment their capacity for continual learning when they give veterans explicit responsibility and the authority to assume leadership roles, especially those that involve advising new teachers. These roles are valuable, not only in the support that they immediately provide for less experienced teachers but also in what they signal to new teachers about the promise of a differentiated career in teaching over time.
Toward a Learning Organization
The retiring generation of teachers is relatively uniform, having prepared in traditional university-based programs, entered teaching directly after college, and committed to work in the classroom long-term. In contrast, the profile of new teachers entering schools today varies much more widely. This cohort includes first-career and midcareer entrants, those who prepared in traditional programs and those who prepared in alternative programs, and many who do not plan to make a long-term commitment to classroom teaching. To ensure that these two cohorts work together, schools must become more flexible and collaborative workplaces.
Much has been written in the last decade about the importance of schools becoming learning organizations. Many schools, however, continue to function without practices or norms that sustain ongoing development for all teachers. The impending retirement of many veteran teachers and rapid turnover rates among new teachers threaten to disrupt any schoolwide improvement that has taken hold.
Bridging the generation gap among teachers can provide support for new teachers, leading to higher retention rates. Simultaneously, it can ensure that before they retire, experienced teachers will bestow a legacy of skills and knowledge on the school and on their successors.
