Differentiated Staffing - qualifications-based titles as means to improve teacher recruitment and retention

School Administrator, Jan, 2001 by Arthur E. Wise

She believes, for instance, the states should develop teaching certificates worthy of displaying on an office wall, as other licensed professionals are inclined to do. Right now, that credential would likely have to be a college diploma or an unadorned sheet of paper that serves as a state teaching license.

On the matter of alternative titles, Lease thinks a distinction should be made between the person who might be lacking a single course toward their master's degree in their subject area and the individual who is teaching totally out-of-field. She doesn't believe it would be fair to withhold the title of "teacher" from the former. However, the person who has no background in the subject or in teaching probably deserves a different title.

Lease once observed a high school band director assigned to teach English classes "who did not have a clue" about what he was doing. Experienced teachers took pity on him and his students when they developed lesson plans for his use. She also knows of teachers being hired on emergency licenses and quitting four weeks later, unable to adjust to the realities of the classroom.

Recognizing Expertise

Some experienced educational leaders think the time may be right, in these days of a serious shortage, to revisit differentiated staffing within the teaching profession-the idea that individuals with differing levels of expertise and different titles can enhance the effectiveness of other staff.

Lois Harrison-Jones, former superintendent in Richmond, Va., and Boston and deputy superintendent in Dallas, believes strongly in the potential of differentiated staffing as a way to address the poor quality of instruction often given to students at risk of failure. In a system that differentiates the status of the classroom teacher, those with greater expertise and experience can improve the effectiveness of less experienced colleagues.

"Using this approach," says Jones, associate clinical professor of education at Howard University's Graduate School of Education, "ancillary personnel can be employed to provide individual instruction to students, bring a different form of content knowledge and/or relieve the teacher of mundane, noninstructional tasks. By choice, this would create a two-tier structure within the teaching ranks.

"This structure would do much to support and restore dignity to teaching as a profession," she adds.

The long-range solution to the crisis over the supply of quality teachers is to consider everything from new and improved recruitment strategies to more realistic preparation programs, improved working conditions and compensation and alternative forms of certification, Jones says.

While no states currently offer differentiated levels of teaching certification, several states are cracking down on the assignment of unqualified staff to classroom positions.

Florida now requires school districts to disclose which individuals in each school are not fully licensed to teach or cannot show significant expertise in the subject they are teaching. Texas has passed a similar regulation, requiring districts to disclose which staff are teaching out-of-field.