Staffing for a New Education System

The workforce is adjusting to societal and economic changes. Today’s teachers will continue to demand—and should expect—significantly higher salaries. And fewer will make a career of teaching if it takes 12 years to raise their salaries just $10,000. Even the notion of “career” seems to be different for Generation Z, members of which seem to change jobs and career paths more frequently. More and more people are also placing a premium on work-life harmony. Most teachers I know are happy to put in a full, hard eight hours a day, but increasingly begrudge having to spend time after dinner or on weekends doing schoolwork.

The education bureaucracy has been getting away with adding to the tasks and responsibilities of teachers, expecting them not only to teach academic content, but also handle discipline, counsel students, communicate with parents, fulfill monitoring duties, plan lessons, make copies, substitute for absent colleagues, and do a host of other jobs.? Summer vacations and additional days off feel inadequate to balance the extra hours and stress of the typical workday.

In addition, while I only have anecdotal evidence to support this claim, I believe the ability to “make a difference” is simply not enough to offset the personal and financial costs of choosing to become a teacher.? Most young educators still believe in public service, but want to be paid well for it—as they should be. Education leaders must find ways to reward public service with more money. ?

Given the workforce changes, current recruitment and retention practices are inadequate. ?Districts can no longer just raise salaries or offer stipends for hard-to-fill positions. It is past time to make systemic changes to the way we staff our schools.?

The main indicator of success for the NES staffing model is not the percentage of positions filled, or the percentage of teachers retained, or the number of days it takes to fill an open position.? Instead, the main indicator is whether every students has high quality instruction every day.

Borrowing heavily off the work I did for Third Future Schools, the Houston Independent School District’s (HISD) staffing model for our New Education System (NES) schools is based on fundamentally different design principles. [Eighty-five of our 273 schools in HISD are NES schools. The first group of NES schools were historically underperforming campuses. We then had a second group of schools that voluntarily chose to participate. These are known as NES-aligned schools. All schools in the NES receive additional resources and intensive support. Next year, we will have more than 100 NES schools.] Unlike typical measures of success for many staffing models, the main indicator of success for the NES model is not the percentage of positions filled, or the percentage of teachers retained, or the number of days it takes to fill an open position.? Instead, the main indicator is whether every student has high-quality instruction every day.

When high-quality instruction is what’s most important, one has to staff schools differently. The school could not employ substitute teachers generally. ?It would have to staff and operate in a way that maximized the probability of an employee stepping in to fill a vacancy and delivery quality instruction right away.? It would have to hire more effective teachers from the start.? And it would have to have a staffing model that aligned with an entire system focused on raising the quality of instruction and providing effective instruction every day – meaning, it would have to be aligned with the evaluation system, the instructional feedback and coaching model, and the professional development system, among others.

Described below are the six most important reform elements of the HISD staffing model that align with NES human resources principles:?

1.???? Differentiated compensation

We use what I call the “hospital model” compensation plan in our NES schools.? That means salaries are based on the relative value that an employee brings to the school and their ability to help the District accomplish key goals.? So, for example, a 6th grade reading or ELA teacher will make significantly more than an elective teacher in middle school.

This type of compensation plan combined with rigorous performance interviews will raise the probability of hiring effective instructors right from the start and minimize teacher turnover during the school year.? With the hospital model, teachers receive an additional incentive payment for stronger performance and achievement results.? Teachers who are low progressing or whose performance is unsatisfactory are not invited back to teach the following year.

2.???? Eliminate non-instructional tasks

In the NES schools, discipline is handled by the administrators as are most meetings with families.? The District supplies the curriculum maps, daily lesson plans, lesson objectives, demonstrations of learning, PowerPoint presentations, differentiated assignments and activities, answer keys, unit exams, and other resources.? Other employees make copies for the teacher and grade after-class or homework assignments. (Teachers grade the demonstration of learning every day during class.)

We believe this aspect of staffing will become the most important part of the employee value proposition once a teacher reaches a minimum threshold of base salary (probably $80,000).? The goal is to allow the teacher to focus on instruction and enjoy better work-life harmony.

3.???? Hire Teacher Apprentices

Teacher Apprentices (TA) have bachelor’s degrees and are working on attaining the teacher certification.? They are paired with an effective teacher and help in the classroom.? We employ one TA for every 100 students in the NES schools. When a teacher of any subject is out, a TA will step in.? Since the lesson and materials are already prepared, and the TA knows the instructional model and the students, the TA provides quality instruction almost as well as the regular teacher.? Again, Teacher Apprentices help ensure students have high-quality instruction every day.

4.???? Create the Learning Coach position

In the NES system, a Learning Coach is an educator whose primary job is to support students during differentiated instruction.? When students show in a demonstration of learning at the end of a lesson that they are doing work at an accelerated or proficient level, they leave the classroom and go to the “Team Center” for more challenging work. Learning Coaches in the Team Center guide students in their higher-level assignments. In addition, Learning Coaches are the primary support for teachers and complete many tasks teachers used to do: taking copies to and from the copy center, performing most of the monitoring duties, addressing issues with student behavior, teaching small groups of students, and sometimes stepping in for an absent teacher.? We hire one Learning Coach for every 75 students in the NES schools.

5.???? Engage community consultants

Students in the NES schools have an elective period every day.? They also enjoy a “Dyad” class twice a week.? These are classes that expand student experiences in the arts and athletics such as photography, martial arts, dance, graphic design, yoga, and spin.? All Dyad classes are taught by community members who are paid $30 an hour.? Eventually, many elective courses will also be taught by consultants.

6.???? Expand the reach of the most effective teachers

Next year, HISD will allow distinguished, core-content teachers to volunteer to teach up to 50 students at one time.? They will receive a stipend to do so and will have a Teacher Apprentice support them.? In this way, the most effective teachers will positively impact more students.

The NES staffing model does absorb a greater percentage of the budget, mostly because of the Teacher Apprentice and Learning Coach positions.? Other parts of the model—using consultants for electives, eliminating the need for substitutes, and expanding the reach of effective teachers—will amount to savings if done correctly.? Differentiated compensation or a pay-for-performance model can also be implemented with only a modest increase in revenue.? We will be able to expand the staffing model in HISD next year even if we receive no revenue increase from the state and without decreasing the fund balance.? As with all major reforms, effectively investing in change requires a willingness to stop paying for less effective programs and operations and a commitment to funding the district’s priorities.