Abstract
Strategic investments in organizational leadership within the education sector can reap significant dividends in attracting and retaining quality teachers. These investments include comprehensive cultural competency training for all school administrators, teachers, and staff as well as the inclusion of these groups in creating a collaborative organizational culture. Such investments are particularly important in inner-city schools, where research reveals that cultural incompetence and the absence of a collaboratively developed organizational plan contribute to high levels of teacher attrition and substantial difficulties in attracting new teachers. Because scholarship has already recognized and identified the problem of attracting talented teachers to the low-income and urban districts, this paper takes the next step to suggest novel evidence-based solutions to the problem. Central to this approach is the school administrator’s responsibility to build an organizational culture that ensures equity, educational rigor, and opportunities for meeting teachers’ and administrators’ work-related needs. Building this culture requires: (a) delivery of empirically-supported cultural competency training; (b) self-assessments of management style to create an approach designed to enhance employee satisfaction; (c) creation of a shared vision and organizational leadership plan designed to make the work environment more attractive and satisfying to current and prospective teachers; and (d) development of a flexible yet practical service delivery framework that enables employees’ workplace needs to be met. In creating this culture, we argue that inner-city teacher attraction and retention rates can be dramatically improved.
Presenters
Sean RaticanAssistant Professor, Business Management, Kent State University, Ohio, United States Kathleen Cripe
Associate Professor/Chair of Teacher Education and Leadership Studies Department, Teacher Education and Leadership Studies department, Youngstown State University, Ohio, United States Crystal Ratican
Associate Professor, Teacher Education, Youngstown State University, Ohio, United States Susan Miller
Research and Evaluation, Educational Research and Design, Ohio, United States Kenneth Miller
Youngstown State University
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Organizational Leadership, Teacher Recruitment, Job Satisfaction, Employee Retention, Organizational Culture
