The first stage of an initiative to encourage municipalities to improve their teacher workforce planning and human resources management for mathematics and physics teachers
The teaching profession in Israel lacks effective personnel management and long term planning, which are vital for retaining excellent teachers in the teaching profession; providing them with professional development; identifying and filling position openings, and integrating new teachers into schools. However, in Israel teachers are typically treated as if supply was much greater than demand, and as if each teacher could be replaced at a moment’s notice. Ineffective human resources management is particularly damaging to the teaching of mathematics and the sciences, where there is a growing shortage of suitable teachers and strong competition for mathematics and science graduates from academia and hi-tech.In the US, the need to improve management of human resources in public education has been recognized by several organizations, including The New Teacher Project (TNTP). TNTP found out that it is difficult to deal with personnel management on the school level and that it is preferable to do so on a municipal level. TNTP developed a methodology for improving human resources practices, of which the first stage is to map the personnel needs of a city and then engage its policy makers in addressing them. In New York City for example, they showed that the need for mathematics teachers was so great that even if all graduates of mathematics department in NYC universities would join the teaching profession, many more teachers would still be required. As a result, the city decided to embark on a local campaign to attract career changers and offer them attractive training opportunities.
After a long process of searching for a similar option in Israel, the Trump foundation approached Dr. Solly Natan, the outgoing Head of the Central District of the Ministry of Education, known for creating higher standards for teaching in her district, and Dr. Shlomit Kaminka, Chair of the Professional Committee for Accreditation in Human Resources in Israel. We have asked Natan and Kaminka to explore together opportunities for the improvement of personnel management for mathematics and physics teachers in Israel.
They plan to approach two Israeli municipalities with the proposal to execute a mapping process which will expound current and expected demand and supply of mathematics and physics teachers. During the mapping process Natan and Kaminka will examine municipality data in order to recognize trends in the teaching resources of the city, such as the number of teachers employed every year; the average duration of employment; the average age of retirement; the nature of personal contracts; how many teachers transfer between schools, teach in more than one school, and leave or retire each year. They will also use municipal data to assess sources for future potential teachers in the city, such as mathematics and science high school graduates, university and college students in the surrounding areas, and potential candidates for career change.
Following the mapping at municipal level, they will assess the workforce in each of the city’s schools in order to ascertain the personnel needs and shortages for each one. It is expected that this mapping will generate an appetite among the municipalities for improving their teacher workforce planning and their human resources management for mathematics and physics teachers.
* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 66