New AFT Report Addresses Challenges for Hard-to-Staff Schools  

The Learning First Alliance (LFA) – a permanent partnership of 18 leading national education associations that includes the American Federation of Teachers – applauded AFT’s efforts to address the challenge of attracting and retaining qualified teachers in hard-to-staff schools. The AFT’s new report, Meeting the Challenge: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools, calls for policies and programs that have proven effective, including: strategies to maintain safe and orderly schools, more and better professional development, better recruitment and hiring practices, and district and state policies.
“For far too long, our most vulnerable students – poor and minority youth in cities, suburbs and rural areas alike –have been least likely to have fully qualified teachers and administrators,” said LFA executive director Claus von Zastrow. “The Learning First Alliance’s members are committed to changing this equation. In fact, in 2005, LFA members including the AFT created a joint framework for ensuring the neediest students access to the best teachers and best school leaders.”
Entitled A Shared Responsibility: Staffing All High-Poverty, Low-Performing Schools with Effective Teachers and Administrators, the June 2005 Framework outlines major areas that require action to improve the ability of high-poverty, low-performing schools to attract and retain effective staff. These areas include effective school leadership, better working conditions, incentives for teaching in hard-to-staff schools, improved hiring practices, greater policy coherence, and adequate, equitable funding based on student needs. The Framework is available on-line at http://www.learningfirst.org/publications/staffing/.
“The AFT and LFA reports attest to the public education community’s widespread support for specific actions to attract and keep great teachers and leaders in high-poverty, low-performing schools. Policymakers can take advantage of this consensus to make the kinds of changes that improve student learning,” von Zastrow said.
Founded in 1997, The Learning First Alliance is a permanent partnership of 18 leading education organizations working together to improve student learning. The Alliance members are: The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, American Association of School Administrators, American Association of School Personnel Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American School Counselor Association, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Association of School Business Officials International, Council of Chief State School Officers; National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of State Boards of Education, National Education Association, National Middle School Association, National PTA, National School Boards Association, National Staff Development Council, National School Public Relations Association and Phi Delta Kappa International.

— Teachers of Color