A new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) finds that leaders in the charter sector hire teachers based on their fit with a school’s mission, not just their individual characteristics and talent, as a way to build strong schools. The report, Managing Talent for Coherence: Learning from Charter Management Organizations, details how some CMOs have created personnel systems focused on hiring, developing, and rewarding teachers who best suit their approach and mission.
“As reformers continue to push public education away from compliance-driven human resource policies and toward performance-driven approaches, they need to ask not only how they can hire and reward effective teachers, but also how they can build talent management systems…and create coherent work environments that develop and support their performance,” write the authors of the report.
The CMOs in the study used three broad strategies to find and develop their teachers:
- Recruiting and hiring for fit. CMO leaders sought out teachers with the skills they valued, used focused recruitment messages to communicate their mission and expectations for teachers, and watched candidates teach and interact with members of the school community.
- Intensive socialization on the job. Teachers were continually socialized toward the school’s particular goals and strategies. This was largely done through teachers and principals watching each other work and constantly sharing information about the schools’ expectations.
- Purposeful pay and career advancement opportunities. Exceptional teachers were given chances to work as staff developers or start new schools. Some CMOs use flexible, performance-based compensation rather than traditional step-and-lane models. The promotions and rewards were often determined by a combination of student performance and the professional judgment of leaders, rather than by hard-and-fast performance metrics or assessments.
Most CMOs are non-unionized, which gives them flexibility to try more creative approaches to hiring and compensation. As a result, the authors acknowledge that not all of these practices can be easily transferred to traditional school districts and union contracts. However, there are a few things districts could do to develop a more intentional, coherent approach to personnel management. For example, districts could:
- Press schools to decide what skills and values their teachers need to be successful
- Help to create recruiting messages that communicate those priorities
- Build relationships with different training programs that deliver the right teachers
- Incorporate demonstration lessons and other assessments into the hiring process
- Develop classroom-based teacher supports aligned to each school’s values and practices
- Provide career opportunities and financial rewards for teachers who exemplify the type of teaching the district wants, beyond raising test scores
To read the full report, please visit http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/csr_pubs/500
