If you are a teacher educator, your heart sinks when teachers of one to three years’ experience lose their jobs due to lack of school funding.  Many of these teachers will receive their jobs back because of the signing of the “EduJobs” bill by President Obama on Monday. What impact will this have on the quality of teachers in the public schools?

“The status quo is exactly what this $10 billion will perpetuate,” scoffed Minnesota representative John Kline on Tuesday.

“Schools will continue to operate on ‘last hired, first fired’ policies that ignore student achievement when deciding which teachers to keep in the classroom.” He continued: “These dollars are not targeted based on jobs at risk or student needs. This is nothing more than an across-the-board inflation of state spending”[Education Week, August 12, 2010]

If the Congressman really knew the kinds of teachers who will be re-hired this fall because of this bill, his fiscal sensibilities would be comforted.  The newest teachers in the profession are the hope for change in schools at risk.

If we judge teachers as products of industry, their appreciation in value tends to increase sharply in the first three years of their careers.  One rationale for 3-4 years to make tenure is that the craft of teaching is perfected in the classroom. Teachers know this intuitively, but even the crude measures of the test scores of their students, show a sharp incline in the first three years of teaching and over the first five years of teachers who receive alternative credentials.  If we eliminate the jobs of teachers early in their careers, we are releasing them during a period when their value to the school is growing exponentially.

The cycle of releasing early career teachers and later hiring novice teachers when the budget permits it is a drain on the human resources of a school. As Linda Darling-Hammond has observed, “Schools that hire a parade of novices and short-term teachers must constantly pour money into recruitment and professional support for new teachers, without reaping benefits from the investments. Like filling a leaky bucket, these schools are forced to repeat this waste of energy and resources over and over again”(The Flat World and Education, 50).

Eliminating the job of the early career teacher would be like a major league baseball team grooming a star pitcher for three years and then releasing him without any compensation.  The next pitcher they bring up through their farm system would have the same learning curve, before they had to release him again. At least the major league club can make a trade and salvage their investment.

So the rehiring of teachers who were released this past spring is just sound fiscal management and not perpetuating any of the systemic evils Congressman Kline deplores.

But if we value teachers for their energy, their collaborative spirit, their eagerness to incorporate new methods and technologies, then these re-hires are —- priceless.  These teachers were hired during a very competitive market, they have the optimism often depleted by long careers, they were prepared with the most recent digital technologies, and they have been educated in the most recent standards for K-12 achievement.   They are a valuable resource for schools committed to reform.

Salvaging the jobs of early career teachers is one of most prudent investments the federal government can make in education.  No budget move can do more to grease the wheels of school reform. Now, eliminating the jobs of certain Congressional representatives, that’s another matter!