March 30, 2007 | Volume 4, Issue 1
Recruiting and Retaining Teachers
What the City of New York Can Do for Adult Education
The issue of adult literacy and education has not been at the forefront of policy makers’ minds, but it is an issue that must be addressed. This paper discusses better ways of recruiting and retaining talented adult educators, funding adult education programs, and improving their quality.
The American education system is in crisis, and the education of adults is suffering as much as that of any other age group. On the national, state, and local level, adult education is an afterthought to education policy makers. Although it is important to focus on students in grades K-12, we must not do so to the neglect of the 1.5 to 2 million adults in New York City who lack adequate literacy.1 According to the Literacy Assistance Center in New York City, 36% of adults can sign their name, but cannot write a simple sentence.2 This group is diverse—composed of immigrants, parents, skilled workers, and high school dropouts. Although their inability to read or write may not hinder their everyday activities, it excludes them from advancement in society. Further, that such a large portion of New York City’s eight million residents lacks basic reading and writing skills makes it difficult and more expensive for the city to provide services to its constituents. However, to develop methods to improve adult education in New York City, we must first understand how and why problems with adult education have persisted.
One reason adult education is often neglected is because too often adult educators are not respected. The service they provide is crucial to many New Yorkers, but rarely are adult educators appreciated by society. During the summer of 2006, I spoke with the leaders of nine adult education programs in New York City. These programs took many forms—from those offered by smaller community-based organizations (CBOs) that concentrated only on adult education to bigger programs that offered adult education and many other social services. Despite the differences between them, most adult education programs in New York City face the same issues, though they are all determined to fulfill their mission to meet the educational needs of New York City’s adults.
Obstacles Faced by Adult Education Programs
The problems faced by adult education programs are generally three-fold. For most adult education programs the primary problem is funding. While programs sponsored by universities and the city’s Department of Education (DOE) tend to have more stable sources of funding, most CBOs do not. Still, some programs have found innovative ways to obtain funding through grants and other means.
When facing a decrease in funding, programs often respond by decreasing staff size and switching full-time teachers into part-time positions. Programs also become more reliant on volunteers, who are used as tutors, conversation partners, teaching assistants, receptionists, and in some cases, teachers. Decreases in funding also damage the ability of programs to pay for classroom space. In spite of increasing demand for classes, many of these programs do not have enough classrooms to meet current demand. At the same time, even programs that do have access to space struggle to pay rising rent costs in New York City.
Funding is not the only problem facing adult education programs, which also cite a lack of respect for adult educators. Unlike teachers at the K-12 level, adult educators often are not required to receive certification to teach adults.3 Further a number of adult educators enter the field with degrees in education, but they are often centered on the K-12 level. In fact, few universities even offer degrees in adult education. Many local universities offer degrees in literacy or Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), but those degrees are also often designed for K-12 teachers and not for adult educators. The lack of a specific degree or certification in adult education makes it difficult for the field to appear professional; this appearance is enhanced by the fact that a majority of adult educators teach part-time.4
Adult education may lack any standardization well into the future. Unlike the K-12 levels, there are no specific guidelines for how programs should be structured, the qualifications for educators, or the number or types of students that should be enrolled in a class. Given that adult education students are primarily at a program on a voluntary basis, it is difficult to formulate stringent curricula or requirements for adult education classes. Furthermore, because adult students come from a multitude of backgrounds with extensive life experiences and particular knowledge bases, adult educators are expected to adapt their curricula to their students’ needs in a way not required in K-12. Additionally, many programs are encountering an increase in the number of recent high school dropouts in their programs because these adolescents believe it is easier to get a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) than to finish high school.5 Instead of hiring more teachers and having classes divided into more levels, adult education programs often opt for larger, more age-diverse classes. Given these factors it is very difficult to find any standardized model that fits the different needs of all students.
Profile of a Typical Adult Educator
The majority of adult educators do not work full-time; they work a couple hours a day at multiple program sites. Although, on average, most adult educators can earn about $21.00 per hour at a site, as part-time employees, they are usually not offered health or retirement benefits.6
Most adult educators also have not studied it, since very few universities and colleges offer degrees and certifications in adult education.7 Though many have bachelor’s degrees, they do not have to be education-related. Nonetheless, the lack of a background in education is not a barrier to teachers being effective in the classroom. Teachers who come from outside the field bring different perspectives and comprise a broad knowledge base. Regardless of whether the teacher studied education in college, most adult educators have experience teaching English in the United States or abroad.
Many adult educators are bilingual, a powerful asset given the diversity of the student populations they serve. According to K.C. Williams, the Program Director of the Forest Hills Community House, their staff and teachers can speak seven or eight languages.8 Aside from allowing teachers to communicate with their students, bilingual skills also enhance the teachers’ appreciation of the cultures and backgrounds of their students.9
Obstacles to Hiring Quality Teachers
Many programs have more problems retaining teachers than recruiting them and this lack of stability is one reason why many teachers in adult education programs do not initially plan it for their careers. The nature of the position requires individuals to commit to part-time work, so it is difficult for teachers to feel connected to their program and to develop strong relationships with their colleagues. In spite of these barriers, many teachers manage to become excellent educators in their field, though there exists no systematic way to create such results.10
Hiring uniquely qualified teachers is also problematic because the majority of individuals who apply for the positions have limited experience teaching adults. While many may have taught students at K-12 levels, teaching K-12 students is different from teaching adults. Unlike for students in K-12, enrollment in adult education classes is optional, for the most part. Adult students also often come into the classroom with different and more pronounced problems than younger students in areas such as unemployment, marriage, and childcare. Due to these factors, adult students’ attention spans may not be longer than children’s. The expectation that teachers will also be peers of their students, effectively making them counselors, friends, and confidants, further complicates teaching. This has proven too great a burden for some teachers.
Blueprint for a City-Sponsored Program to Recruit Adult Education Teachers
New York City should form an initiative to help adult education programs recruit quality teachers. Considering the diversity of New York City’s residents and adult education programs, recruits for a city-wide program can come from a variety of places, but some groups should be specifically targeted for recruitment.
Schools of Educations, Department of Education
Fordham University and Columbia University’s Teachers College are the only New York City schools that offer higher degrees in adult education, but the majority of universities in the greater New York area offer degrees in literacy or TESOL. Even though most of these programs are geared towards teachers looking to teach at K-12 levels, graduates gain useful knowledge of how to teach people whose first language is not English. With additional training in teaching adults and classroom teaching experience, many of these graduates are excellent candidates for adult education positions. Currently, over 1,000 students have matriculated into the TESOL programs at universities in the greater New York City area.11
Many teachers are not happy teaching within the bureaucratic system of the DOE and would appreciate a less stringent environment. According to the Mayor Management Report of 2005, 64.4% of teachers in DOE have been teaching for five or fewer years.12 Because teachers in DOE are already certified to teach, they could contribute greatly to the cause of adult education. Further, under the Office of Adult and Continuing Education (OACE), New York City can utilize the existing adult educators serving within the DOE.13
Another target group is composed of the paraprofessionals, the teacher aides in K-12 classrooms, within the DOE. The Bilingual Pupil Services Program, which the DOE uses to turn bilingual paraprofessionals into teachers, is another great resource for all levels of education.14 This group may be especially useful to adult education, where many students are not fluent in English.
Teacher Corps programs, Volunteer Corps programs
In the last decade, to remedy the shortage of teachers, schools at the K-12 level have sought to recruit teachers through unconventional means. A consortium of programs have formed to target specific populations: Teach for America targets recent college graduates, Teaching Fellows targets second-career or career-changers, and Troops to Teachers targets retired military personnel. These programs have been successful in recruiting people who may never have considered teaching as a career. Furthermore, according to studies done by various research groups, teachers from these teacher corps programs are highly effective and sometimes surpass teachers who went through the traditional certification route.15
Programs such as AmeriCorps or Peace Corps are good places to look for adult education teacher recruits because many alumni of such programs have had experience teaching English, either in the United States or abroad. In fact, other education programs have begun looking to alumni of these volunteer corps programs for potential teachers. One example is the Peace Corps Fellows Program at the Teachers College of Columbia University, which caters to Peace Corps alumni. According to the College, over the last twenty years graduates of the Peace Corps Fellows Program had a 92% retention rate after three years of teaching. This is 40% higher than the rate of teachers who graduated from traditional programs.16 The dedication that AmeriCorps and Peace Corps programs require makes their alumni great candidates for any job that requires similar devotion, such as teaching.
Retirees, Members of the Arts
Retired baby boomers are quickly becoming prime targets for adult education programs. Many of these individuals may be at retirement age, but are still active and wondering what they can do to fill their time and give back to their communities. Senior citizens’ desire to volunteer has led to the creation of programs like Experience Corps.17 There is an additional benefit to attracting retirees because they have useful experience and knowledge to impart to adult students that the students might not get otherwise.
Although it is a common joke that prior to teaching most adult educators wanted to be performing artists, it is true that many in the arts community look for part-time positions in adult education.18 Because this is the case, looking at struggling artists as potential adult educators is a contentious issue. According to Linda Avitabile, Program Director of Highbridge Community Life Center, members of the arts community can be especially effective teachers because of their ability to make the classroom experience lively and entertaining for students.19 Most other programs believe that teachers should be hired because teaching is their goal, not because they needed to find a part-time job while hoping to make it to Broadway. These competing visions suggest that members of the arts should be a group that the city cautiously considers.
How to Recruit Quality Teachers
Although there are specific groups that the city should consider targeting, getting people to commit to becoming adult educators may be more difficult than recruiting teachers for grades K-12. As a result, the city must do a few things to help recruit quality teachers for the city’s various adult education programs.
Explain what adult education is and why it is important
A broad publicity campaign should be used to inform the public about the lack of literacy in the city—not just at the K-12 levels—and how it affects the city. The campaign will be most effective if it is followed by forums where participants can discuss what can be done and hear about success stories from adult education. Thereafter, a citywide recruiting drive will be more effective in targeting specific groups.
Consider the criteria for an adult educator
The existing criteria for adult educators vary as much as the programs that hire them, but according to program directors, there are certain characteristics that are typical in ” great” teachers. They love to teach, care about their students, relate well to their students, and are aware of their needs. In effect, great teachers understand that their students are their biggest assets because student experience and enthusiasm are necessary for teachers to create the environment that is most conducive to learning. Because of this, great teachers also understand that the experiences students bring to the classroom are as important as their own. Therefore, they encourage suggestions and criticism. They should be patient and adaptable given the variability in their students and classes. And while it is important for teachers to be able to teach the specific subject matter of the course, great teachers also teach practical things like organization and time management..
Provide incentives to attract teachers
While philanthropy may be enough of a reason to join a cause initially, for many people, it is not enough to sustain their participation in the long run. That is particularly true for adult educators since most of the recruitment targets are not necessarily looking to teach. As a result, any program that the city offers must have incentives for people to stay committed to teaching, particularly in their initial years of participation. Such incentives may come in the form of awards, scholarships, or stipends.
A City-Sponsored Program
After identifying who should be targeted and how, the city can begin to recruit adult education teachers. The program should probably start off small, perhaps with an initial recruiting class of 20 or less, before expanding as the city sees fit. The city should expect any program that it sponsors to support the teacher recruits for a minimum of five years. Any city-sponsored program should have five elements.
Classroom/Field training, Mentorship
Classroom training will require teacher recruits to learn the necessary theoretical and practical pedagogy of TESOL and literacy from either a local university or through a series of intensive city-sponsored seminars. Classroom training and seminars should be one to two years long and held on a regular basis. To further encourage recruits, the city should help pay all or part of their tuition costs. The city should also compensate speakers for participating in seminars.
Student teaching is an essential part of any city-sponsored program to recruit adult educators. The in-field training experience can begin as early as six months or as late as a year into the classroom training. In order for recruits to get the most authentic experience possible, they should be paired with an adult education program participating in the city-sponsored program. This is beneficial for both the teacher recruits and their sites: while the teacher recruits gain the necessary in-field experience, their sites will have student teachers to assist them at minimal to no cost. This is already being used by Riverside Language Program, where graduate students in TESOL actually pay to have the opportunity to serve as interns for seven weeks.20 During their time at their sites, the teacher recruits will be expected to teach as well as observe fellow teachers. To compensate the teacher recruits, they will be paid by the programs via federal work-study grants if they are eligible or, instead of being paid, earn extra credits towards the completion of the program. After the teacher recruits successfully finish their education, their sites will be expected to hire them on a full-time basis.
During the teacher recruits’ time in the program, they should not be expected to teach in isolation. It is important that they receive support and feedback from their universities and sites. At the same time, each teacher recruit should be paired with a specific individual who has more expertise in the field. This role is best served by fellow teachers at the program site with whom the new recruit can form a rapport and from whom the recruit can receive suggestions and advice.
Certification
One of the biggest concerns in adult education is a perceived lack of respect for the field—it is imperative for any program sponsored by New York City to end with an official certification. Such a designation can be created by the candidates’ educational institution after a thorough evaluation in conjunction with the adult education programs. The evaluation should assume the form of a hands-on exam, teaching demo, or portfolio rather than the typical written exam. Using a hands-on exam or portfolio helps allay the fears that current educators may have about meeting the new standards.
Length requirement
As in any other program, to ensure participants are dedicated, there must be clear expectations of them. To help retain the cities supply of new adult educators, it should require teacher recruits to stay with their program sites for a minimum length of time. This requirement could be as little as one year to as much as three years. The requirement must be explicit in the application process, so that parties involved recognize that the teacher recruits will be expected to repay the city for their tuition if they breach the contract. This ensures that programs will have reliable teachers for a minimum period of time.
How to Retain Quality Teachers
Although the primary purpose of any city program or initiative is to recruit teachers, the city must simultaneously offer support to help adult education programs retain these teachers in their programs, since recruitment means little if programs cannot support these teachers once they are in the field. There are a few strategies the city can use to achieve this.
Improve programs
While it is generally accepted that adult education does not have enough funding, many programs have excelled with the limited resources they do have—it is possible to make programs better under the current fiscal constraints. New York City can support programs by first making sure they are interacting with each other. One way to do so, as suggested by one program director, is to create an Internet mailing list for programs so that they can interact with one another easily.21 The city can also encourage programs to exchange best practice strategies so that programs can be run more cost-effectively.
By sharing information and best practices, programs should become better at balancing the number of teachers available and the number of classes required in order to maximize the impact of full-time teachers. The city can help programs hire full-time teachers by offering incentives to do so. One program director pointed out that she wished there were something similar to the DOE‘s structure that provided a price floor for teacher wages, if such a structure existed, most community based organizations would no longer be able to afford teachers.22 This does not mean that there are no solutions. In the past, the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) has been willing to give programs additional monetary support if the programs used full-time teachers.23 While that is no longer the case, it is an option that the city should consider for programs with students who good advancement.
More than just monetary gain, however, the city must ensure that once teachers are hired by programs, they have the ability to grow within those programs. Teachers may have the capabilities to become administrators, coordinators, or program directors in the future. Therefore, programs must allow their teachers enough freedom to explore and expand their horizons so that they are motivated to work hard and remain in adult education.
Provide health care
Because of the rising cost of health care, many part-time teachers are not able to afford health insurance without assistance. In addition, programs have less incentive to hire full-time teachers because they would then have to provide benefits. Forest Hills Community House Director, K.C. Williams, calculated that health insurance and pension costs for a full-time teacher in her program cost nearly $10,000 per year.24 To lower prices, several program directors suggested that the city negotiate a discounted rate with an agency, such as the Freelancers Union, to provide health insurance to adult educators.25
Find more space
Rent in New York City is not cheap. If rent rising while funding is decreasing, even the best programs struggle to find enough money to avoid relocation. As an alternative, classes often end up in rooms that may not have been designated for classroom purposes. The city can negotiate with DOE to use schools after-hours for adult education classes at a discounted rate. Because night-time classes are the most convenient for students at some programs, it makes practical sense to utilize K-12 schools after-hours, especially since public schools already have the basic utilities necessary for classroom sessions.26 For other programs, it may make more sense to negotiate with churches, where space may not be utilized during the week.
Increase quality of teacher/staff-development opportunities
While staff and teacher-training events hosted by the Literacy Assistance Center and DYCD are useful, more can be done to ensure that the time spent at staff development is spent on more than just theoretical topics. During staff development sessions, teachers should be able to interact with their counterparts from other programs and to discuss what works and what does not work for them. Simultaneously, they should work on practical exercises and skills that can be transferred back to their classrooms. Teachers should be given the opportunity and time to observe their fellow teachers in action, as this will give teachers more insight into their own teaching techniques. Furthermore, the city should provide a centralized resource center for teachers to utilize, such as the ones provided by the libraries.
Funding an Adult Education Initiative
In any discussion of new initiatives, the primary issues tend to revolve around cost, which divides into two parts. The first part is a question of why we should fund it, and the second is how we can fund it. The answer to the first question lies in the costs incurred by not funding adult education. There are over 1.5 million adults in New York City who are inadequately literate—almost 20% of the city’s population. Illiteracy breeds many additional problems for the city, such as increased amount of time and money that has to be spent to provide services to the citizenry. Adult educators are the first line of defense in combating illiteracy in the adult population. However, as long as they and their field are neglected, the city accepts adult illiteracy as a fact of life. By supporting an initiative to recruit more adult educators, New York City can prove that it is committed to providing its citizenry with the resources necessary to enfranchise those with opportunity to reengage education. At the same time, the city should acknowledge the importance of adult educators, offering them a compliment that has long been unpaid.
In determining how the city should fund such an initiative, there are a number of options. The first places the city can look are the federal and state governments, as well as City Council, where money is already appropriated annually for programs. The city can also form an alliance with AmeriCorps so that AmeriCorps can provide education awards to help teacher recruits pay their tuitions, similar to what it already does for teacher recruits in Teaching Fellows and the City University of New York’s Teaching Opportunity Program. There are the businesses, corporations, and foundations that regularly donate money to various causes, including current adult education programs and teacher recruitment programs for K-12. Given the right incentives, such as tax deductions, they may be willing to participate as sponsors in the program.
In the end, New York City needs to ask itself what it values for its citizens. Finding ways to support those adults who wish to reengage education should be a priority that results from this introspection: more than ever, the city needs to make literacy a reality for all New Yorkers.
1 Literacy Assistance Center, http://www.lacnyc.org/support/needs.htm, (16 Aug 2006).
2 Ibid.
3 John P. Sabatini, et. al., Teacher Perspectives on the Adult Education Field: National Survey Findings About an Emerging Field, http://www.literacyonline.org/products/ncal/pdf/TR0002.pdf, Pg. 4, October 26, 2000 (January 25, 2007).
4 Ibid.
5 Robert Wedgeworth, The Number of Functionally Illiterate Adults in U.S. is Growing, http://www.literacyvolunteers.org/downloads/ProLiteracyStateOfLiteracy%2010–25-04.pdf, Pg. 6–7, October 25, 2004 (January 25, 2007).
6 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Teachers—Adult Literacy and Remedial Education, http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes253011.htm (January 25, 2007).
7 John P. Sabatini, et. al., Teacher Perspectives on the Adult Education Field: National Survey Findings About an Emerging Field, http://www.literacyonline.org/products/ncal/pdf/TR0002.pdf, Pg. 8, October 26, 2000 (January 25, 2007).
8 K.C. Williams, Program Director, Forest Hills Community House, interviewed by author, New York City, July 2006.
9 Bureau of Labor Statistics, Teachers—Adult Literacy and Remedial Education, http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos289.htm (January 25, 2007).
10 Linda Avitabile, Program Director, Highbridge Community Life Center, interviewed by author, New York City, August 2006.
11 Ibid.
12 City of New York, Mayor’s Management Report, Final Fiscal Year 2005, http://home2.nyc.gov/html/ops/downloads/pdf/2005_mmr/0905_mmr.pdf, pg. 34, (16 Aug 2006).
13 New York City Department of Education, Office of Adult and Continuing Education, http://adultednyc.org/ (January 25, 2007).
14 New York City Department of Education, Bilingual Pupil Services Program, http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/Employees/Paraprofessionals/BilingualPupilServices.htm (January 25, 2007).
15 William A. Owings, et. al., Supervisor Perceptions of the Quality of Troops to Teachers Program Completers and Program Completer Perceptions of their Preparation to Teach: A National Survey, http://www.azed.gov/troops2teachers/downloads/OldDominionStudy.pdf, August 29, 2005 (August 10, 2006).
16 Columbia University Teachers College, Peace Corps Fellows Program, http://www.tc.columbia.edu/pcfellows/default.html (August 5, 2006).
17 Experience Corps, http://www.cssny.org/exp_corps/ (January 25, 2007).
18 Linda Avitabile, Program Director, Highbridge Community Life Center, interviewed by author, New York City, August 2006.
19 Ibid.
20 Phyllis Berman, Executive Director, Riverside Language Program, interviewed by author, New York City, August 2006.
Riverside Language Program, http://www.riversidelanguage.org/openhouse.html (March 3, 2007).
21 John Lyons, Program Director, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, interviewed by author, New York City, July 2006.
22 Be Jensen, Program Director, YMCA ELESAIR Project, interviewed by author, New York City, July 2006.
23 Ibid.
24 K.C. Williams, Program Director, Forest Hills Community House, interviewed by author, New York City, July 2006.
25 John Lyons, Program Director, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, interviewed by author, New York City, July 2006.
26 David M. Herszenhorn, ” City Educators Eliminating Night Schools For 14,000,” New York Times, August 11, 2006, B4.