Audit Report on the Department of Education’s Utilization of the Absent Teacher Reserve Pool

The audit determined whether the Department of Education’s (DOE’s) efforts to assist Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool teachers in finding permanent positions were effective and how teachers in this pool are being utilized.

Teachers for whom there is no full-time teaching position in their current building for the upcoming school year are considered to be in excess. Excessed teachers include those from closing or phasing out schools, those returning from reassignment, and those who are in excess from their home school due to changing conditions at the school (e.g., budget reductions). Excessed teachers who do not find a permanent position at a school by the start of the upcoming school year are placed in the ATR pool. The cost of these ATR teachers, who continue to receive their full salaries and benefits, is charged at least partially to the central DOE rather than the individual schools. These teachers are assigned to schools across the City and perform a variety of jobs, such as substituting or performing administrative work. As of March 1, 2011, there were 1,219 teachers in the ATR pool.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

The audit found that teachers in the ATR pool are primarily assigned to schools and that most of them appear to be working in teaching and teaching-related positions. In addition, DOE has made a number of efforts to assist teachers in the pool in finding permanent positions at schools. However, auditors were unable to determine whether DOE has been effective in its efforts because the agency presently does not formally or centrally track and maintain the data needed for such an assessment to take place.

DOE records indicate that 95 percent of the teachers in the pool as of March 1, 2011, have been assigned to work in schools; the remaining 5 percent have been assigned to non-school locations. Responses from a survey of principals and administrators revealed that 73 percent of the sampled teachers are reportedly working in teaching and teaching-related positions.

DOE has provided online workshops, teacher recruitment fairs, and one-on-one recruitment consultations to teachers in the pool. DOE has also attempted to add incentives and remove disincentives so that school administrators would be more inclined to offer permanent positions to teachers in the ATR pool. However, DOE is significantly hindered in evaluating the effectiveness of these efforts because the agency does not collect and track the data needed for such an evaluation. For instance, DOE does not track all applications made by the ATR teachers nor does it assess which of its efforts are most effective in helping teachers find permanent teaching positions.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make two recommendations. DOE should:

• Collect sufficient data and assess whether its efforts are effective in helping teachers in the ATR pool find permanent positions.
• Maintain and track sufficient data on teachers who leave the ATR pool to assist the agency in developing initiatives and strategies to help teachers remaining in the pool find permanent positions.

Agency Response

DOE officials agreed with the recommendations, but contended that they already capture, maintain, and analyze data which they believe meet the intents and purposes of the recommendations.

In its response, DOE officials also contend that the audit is critical of DOE’s policy of ‘mutual consent hiring.’ Contrary to what DOE officials state, the audit bureau has no position on DOE’s current policy. The report recommends that DOE collect and analyze data to guide its decisions in order to improve the success of students and schools. Much of the basic data needed to make decisions related to the ATR pool has not been collected. For instance, DOE officials provided the audit team a list of 20 events to assist teachers in the ATR pool in finding permanent positions. In describing their efforts, DOE officials use the headline ‘The Department’s Extensive and Successful Efforts to Assist Teachers in Finding Permanent Positions.’ However, it is unclear how DOE officials made the determination that their efforts are successful as the audit found that the effectiveness of DOE’s efforts to assist teachers in finding permanent positions cannot be determined because the data needed for such an assessment is not formally collected or analyzed by DOE.

Further, expending ‘extensive’ resources without understanding how effective those resources are in leading its employees to permanent positions is not a cost-effective data-driven strategy. In this current time of limited resources, DOE needs to provide a targeted strategy that uses resources efficiently and effectively and should not make decisions based on unsupported assumptions.