Great! Mentoring sounds like an excellent practice, one that other professions do all the time. If this decreases the teacher defection rate from 40% to 1% it would be insane not to do it.

Obviously, it can't actually do that, but this is what you imply.

But, surely schools can just choose to practice mentoring on their own, right, coordinating it with other schools, because it's such a good idea? Why does the legislature's allocation of such a comparatively small amount (something like $4000/school) affect whether something this important gets done?

I think that teacher union contracts get in the way.

In the private sector, mentoring is quite popular and successful. Mostly with professionals, who are salaried. In most companies, the best and brightest are tasked with helping with professional development. The long term results are quite rewarding - people are groomed for new responsibilities and the companies typically grow. Most mentors take on the role as an extra duty that becomes part of their job. They typically are not given extra pay to do this.

Teachers on the other hand are in an interesting profession. On one hand, most teachers are rightfully considered as working professionals. On the other hand, they are union members with strict work rules - contracts state number of in-class days, working hours during the school day, number of parent meetings required, in-service days, etc. In other words, almost like a typical hourly wage earner. Yes, these work rules are all negotiated and part of their contracts.

Funding is necessary over an above normal teacher pay, since mentoring requires working extra hours outside their contract.

At some point, teachers and their union champions will have to address this conundrum in their negotiated contracts. The private sector has more flexibility to implement mentoring because strict work rules don't impede this valuable employee professional development.

Teachers are professionals in some respect, but not when their contract work rules prevent improvement within their profession.

I suppose the counter is that perhaps the private sector should compensate professionals who are mentors. Well, in a way they do. There are better opportunities for promotion and perhaps even higher pay scale. Faster than seniority might allow.

Teachers on the other hand get their step increases via length of service, regardless of how helpful they might be to their peers.

There are many teachers who do help their peers, so don't get the wrong idea about my criticism above. It's just difficult to put together a good mentoring program statewide by relying on the generosity of the few good teachers who do more than what their contract permits. At some point, though, these teachers who are so helpful may resent a few of their fellow teachers who punch out at the end of the school day when the bell rings.

Well said Mike.

Here in the Medford School District the mentoring was partially funded by a federal specific grant. It also ended the very effective at risk reading program. I don't have the correct name, but basically almost 18 experienced and tenured teachers were removed from the classroom under the guise of mentoring new teachers.

Effective reading programs were gutted and discarded in favor of this latest flavor-of-the-month from DC and Salem. Almost $1.5MM in salries are still being spent but no longer are involved in direct interaction with students. This is insanity foisted upon Oregon via the federal dept of education.

Hopefully Paulie Brading (who has a far better understanding of the issue) will weigh in on the subject.

<h2>As a member of OSEA, I can see how one might interpret a union contract to preclude mentoring. I also know union memebers have the opportunity to let their negotiating team know what kinds of things they would like to see in the contract. A lot of creativity can be built in. That said, the current funding crisis is going to have more to do with teachers leaving the classroom than lack of mentoring.</h2>