Teacher turnover spin

It has become common knowledge that in a large number of NSW public schools, there's a high rate of teacher turnover and many teachers burn out within five years and leave the profession. This has been reported in the media so many times I wonder when they're going to say something fresh. Well, when The Sydney Morning Herald rehashed it a few weeks ago, on the front page no less, my jaw nearly dropped when I read the following sentence (paraphrased from memory):

The average length of time a teacher stays at these schools is just over a year, causing massive educational disruptions for the students.

Wow, the poor students! Did the writer never pause to consider the bleeding obvious? That it's the students who are causing the massive educational disruptions for themselves? That the teachers eventually give in to the fact that the students won't learn and try to find some other students who will?

High staff turnover in a school is a symptom of a deeper problem: that noone really "owns" the school and takes responsibility for the problems that occur within it. The problem spirals: a high turnover means the school is not gaining teachers with experience in dealing with its problems, which makes it even harder for the new lot of staff to cope. When the people who have been there longest are the senior students, they'll act like they own the school and nobody can really do anything about it.

Sure, some teachers have successes with some of the students, but that's generally using a standard of success that would be laughed out of town in any good school. A friend of mine teaches at a crappy school where a science teacher was reduced to giving the whole class a merit award simply because they were quiet for five minutes.

Students that are so opposed to being in the classroom should be made to do supervised labour in the school grounds or the local community. That way, they'll either learn some relevant skills or they'll come to realise that being in the classroom isn't so bad.

Flogging the idelogy that all kids are basically good and receptive to learning, only to be disrupted by these selfish teachers who won't stick around, won't solve any problems.