Teachers and the growing number of districts desperately seeking them can now tap into a cyber-matchmaking service courtesy of the U.S. Department of Education.
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| The The National Teacher Recruitment Clearinghouse offers job search strategies for teachers. |
Launched on the World Wide Web late last month, the new National Teacher Recruitment Clearinghouse is a one-stop shopping site for information on who is hiring what kinds of teachers, as well as tips for effective headhunting and different ways of getting the credentials needed to work as an educator.
The service was an immediate hit, having been visited by an estimated 60,000 people in the first three days after President Clinton announced it in his weekly radio address on Aug. 26.
“This will transform what has been a hit-or-miss process into a more efficient, effective exchange of information.” Mr. Clinton said.
Not ‘Redundant’
Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley first floated the idea of creating a federal “job bank” for teachers two years ago. But a “job fair” is a more appropriate metaphor for the service that finally materialized last month. Rather than provide a new central depository for job listings and résumés, the site is a portal through which visitors can link to Web sites created by school districts, state education departments, and teacher-recruitment programs.
From Troops-to-Teachers and Edison Schools Inc. to the Private School Employment Network, organizations have been creating their own Web-based recruitment tools. In the coming months, Education Week plans to launch its own online job bank.
“We thought it was important not to be redundant,” said David Haselkorn, the executive director of Recruiting New Teachers Inc., the private group that won the $350,000 Education Department grant to start the venture.
Within days of the clearinghouse’s inauguration, some 40 more agencies and organizations got in touch with his group to add their links to the site, he noted.
The Belmont, Mass.-based RNT brings to the project 15 years’ experience helping both people interested in teaching and school systems hoping to improve their recruitment strategies.
“Districts that are hot-footed to recruit teachers are traveling all over the country, and going to job fairs, and even to foreign countries,” Mr. Haselkorn said. “This gives them a tool to address both the quantity and quality issue simultaneously, and in a way that’s more efficient and cost-effective over time.”
