Follow AAE on:

Subscribe to RSS Feed:

New Study Released on Attracting Best and Brightest to Teaching Profession
posted by: Alix | September 20, 2010, 07:11 PM   

Today, McKinsey and Company released a thought- provoking study entitled, Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top-Third Graduates to Careers in Teaching.



The study outlines a current crisis in education today- the inability to attract high performing students to the education profession. The study shockingly reports that over half of American teachers will be retiring in the next ten years. Not only will we be losing our current teachers, only 23 percent of incoming teachers come from the top third of their graduating classes, and in low performing schools the number goes down to 14 percent.

The study used Singapore, South Korea and Finland as case studies in the global effort to attract top tier teachers to the profession. Among these three countries, the teaching profession is considered extremely competitive due to the ethos that considers attracting excellent teachers a top national priority. As a result, the teaching profession in these countries continues to attract 100 percent in top third of performers.

In conjunction with this cultural commitment and respect for the profession, the case study countries have a professional working environment; merit and bonus pay; as well as a commitment to professional development and teaching as a career, rather than a job.

The study's research suggests that improving compensation and other needed means of promoting professionalism are critical to attracting this highly desirable top third group.

Among the recommendations is a call to the U.S. government to pilot a new strategy to attract top-third educators, whether it is by a marketing campaign or increased federal funding for scholarships. Merit pay and performance bonuses can be used as means to not only attract new educators, but to retain them, as documented by the case study foreign school systems.

Professional development is also a factor in increasing professionalism and a shift toward the perception that teaching is a prestigious career. In the case-study nations, hundreds of paid hours are devoted to professional development, focusing on advancing teaching skill, and schooling them on emerging methods of education.

It remains clear that measures need to be taken to attract students to the shrinking population of American teachers, and good ones at that. The investment in certain reforms could yield an enormous return both economically and socially.

This study will undoubtedly be debated by reformers and policy makers in the coming months. The full text of the survey can be read here.

What do you think of the findings?
Comment below.

Comments (4)Add Comment
Could we fix the teacher-education classes?
written by s.f., October 18, 2010

Yes, the teaching profession SHOULD attract the best and the brightest, but the best and the brightest want to learn and to be challenged. Unfortunately, teacher education classes scare away prospective teachers by insulting their intelligence and common sense. I was a Merit Scholar (not to brag, just to point out that I was in the top tier). The education classes I took (at a highly-rated school) were pointless. Professors treated us like children, read the syllabus aloud to us, had us copy definitions, showed us how to use a xerox machine, folllowed every current fad, assigned textbooks that referred to education philosophers third-hand (no primary sources at all), ...
I was very frustrated to be stuck in these education classes when I wanted to be in classes with academic content. Shouldn't teachers Know things to teach the students?
I stuck with it, because I was certain I wanted to teach, but many smart people I know took one or two classes and then switched majors to something with real academic content.
I advise everyone who wants to get into teaching to get a real major and then certify to teach, since that would minimize the nonsense of education classes.
...
written by Jay Thompson Rolla, MO, October 12, 2010

The criteria for what is considered "the best and brightest" is jaded, truncated, and incomplete. I know many teachers who had excellent grades in school who couldn't engage a student if their life depended on it!
There is such a thing as having the ability to connect with students, passion for teaching, and the ability to be an effective, engaging communicator. How do you quantify these qualities when they are not even addressed in these kinds of surveys?
class size
written by Bruce, Florida, September 20, 2010

The average class size in South Korea is more than twice as large as in the US. It's no wonder South Korean teachers are paid so much better than US teachers (as measured by teacher salary to per capita GDP). With our small class sizes, there's no real way we're ever going to get paid more. There simply isn't the money to double teachers' salaries and still have small classes.
Let's follow these leaders...
written by jill.n, September 20, 2010

The teaching profession SHOULD attract the best and the brightest. And it should reward them for their difficult efforts. If other countries can attract the "heads of class" to stand in front of the class we be staging the country for an emergence of better-prepared students.

Submit a comment
 (not published)
smaller | bigger

security code
Write the displayed characters


busy