July Newsflash
Teacher vacancies persist at schools run by Edison, Victory
Six weeks before school opens, schools that are run by Edison and Victory, two for-profit school management companies, have many more teacher vacancies to fill than most other Philadelphia public schools. One middle school still has to find 19 teachers.
Many of the schools that were turned over to education management organizations (EMOs) last year were known for high teacher turnover before the management change. The takeover triggered a new round of staff turnover in 2002, with a doubling of the teacher turnover rate at schools newly managed by Edison, Victory, and Universal.
The School District’s teacher vacancy list, now posted on the Internet, indicates that this instability has continued at many Edison and Victory schools this year. The overall vacancy rate at schools run by Universal is somewhat lower than for Victory and Edison.
Schools run by Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, Foundations Inc., and the District’s Office of Restructured Schools have much smaller numbers of vacancies to fill by September.
Noting the history of high teacher turnover
at many privately managed schools, District spokesperson Amy Guerin
commented,
" This is the point of our teacher
recruitment and retention campaign. We’re trying to fill
all the vacancies in this system, particularly at the schools that
are more challenged."
Betsey Useem, who analyzes teacher quality issues for the Philadelphia Education Fund, observed, "The EMO schools had to rely on so many new teachers last year that it’s not surprising you would have higher attrition rates this year."
But positions still vacant in July are likely to again be filled by inexperienced teachers new to the system. Schools with high turnover often have a harder time implementing a coherent academic program since many staff members have no history of working with each other.
A Notebook review of the vacancy list found that of the various outside managers, Edison has the largest total number of teaching positions still open – 121 positions at its 20 schools, or an average of six per school.
For Victory’s six schools, the average number of vacancies per school is seven. At Rhodes Middle School, after news of a decision to turn management over to Victory, there were 27 open positions as of late May. Now 14 teaching jobs are still vacant.
One year after it experienced 80 percent turnover in its 32-person teaching staff, FitzSimons Middle School, also run by Victory, has 19 positions to fill for this fall. Two large Edison-run schools, Tilden and Alcorn, each have 16 teaching positions still vacant.
In contrast, the District’s 20 restructured schools have a total of 41 vacancies to fill, or an average of only two teacher openings per schools.
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Vice President Jerry Jordan said the union is hearing about many veteran teachers now departing the schools managed by Edison and Victory after a year that he described as "chaotic" at many of those schools.
Jordan maintained that management at these schools is an issue. "Private managers don’t have the kinds of supports that need to be in place to help new teachers be successful," he stated.