Heckuva Job, Eva!

We need more charter schools because they're so darn good for kids:

More than a third of the staff members at a Harlem charter school run by the Success Charter Network have left the school within the last several months, challenging an organization that prides itself on the training and support it offers its teachers.

The unusually high turnover at Harlem Success Academy 3 and the network-wide issue of teachers quitting mid-year led the founder and chief executive of the Success Charter Network, Eva S. Moskowitz, to express concern in an October newsletter.

“This is not a ‘gig’ ” she wrote, informing staff members that by breaking their commitment to the schools and families midyear, they were acting unethically.

At Harlem Success Academy 3, 22 of the school’s 59 administrators, teachers and classroom aides left between the end of the last school year and the beginning of this one, according to the school’s records. Some took jobs at other schools, some moved to new cities and some said they quit out of frustration with the school’s tightly regulated environment.

The loss of more than 30 percent of its teachers distinguishes the school within its network of six other schools, where turnover is less common. At Harlem Success Academies 1 and 2, the attrition rates were about 19 percent between June and this month. And at the network’s two Bronx schools, few faculty members left.

Yeah, look, this is just a small problem. 'Cause at the other schools, only 1 in 5 teachers left. Very stable...

Charter schools have generally experienced relatively high teacher turnover. From 2008 to 2010, charter schools’ average attrition rate was 25 percent and district schools’ was 14 percent, according to state data.

This isn't a bug - it's a feature. Geoffrey Canada keeps telling us it's good to have closing schools schools that fail, and teachers who flee the first chance they get. Kids apparently thrive in this sort of world.

Or not...

(h/t Leonie Haimson - hey, which one of your 1,000 URLs should I link to when I give you props?)