It should not come as a surprise that a shortage of good teachers, if not already here, is just over the horizon.
Exhibit A is the fact that from 2009-10 through 2013-14, the numbers of students admitted to colleges of education in Alabama dropped 3,547. From 7,802 in 2009 to 4,255 in 2013.
Superintendents deal with this situation almost daily. Chuck Marcum is superintendent for the Roanoke city system and believes the decline of college students deciding on education as a career is the biggest threat education faces.
Last summer Andalusia city system superintendent Ted Watson ran out of elementary teacher applicants for the first time in his career. At the end of the 2014-15 school year, he had eight teachers with 255 years experience retire.
Resignations are also quite an issue. For example, in the last four years the Butler County system lost 107 teachers. About twice as many resigned as retired. Mobile County is the largest system in Alabama. They had 376 retirements and resignations last year.
The issue of resignations is not new. For years, about one-half of all new teachers are gone by the end of five years. Reasons abound. A teacher has their first child, a spouse is relocated by their job and many just realize a teacher’s life is not for them.
“I certainly believe the political climate we now have is impacting us a lot,” one superintendent told me. “You can’t demonize teachers and schools like we’re doing without having a huge impact on the profession.”
These words ring true in light of a recent survey of more than 700 teachers in an Alabama school system who said that only eight percent of elected officials in the state value what they do.
And who can blame them? The legislature passes the Alabama Accountability Act that allows money destined for public education to be used for scholarships to send students to private schools that do not have be accredited, we pass a bill to have charter schools and says teachers in them do not have to be certified and the governor appoints someone to the state board of education who worked to stop his local school system from having the money they need to build new facilities.
The irony is that these same political leaders are the ones shouting loudest that we need better teachers at the same time their actions discourage young people from going into education.
Let me start by saying as a teacher of 30 plus years I have loved teaching and working with the students that I have been blessed to work with. Yet as I talk to my colleges I believe the problems of education can be found in three areas. 1. What little respect there has been for teachers has been lost over the years. Teachers are not treated like professionals. Every decision they make is questioned by parents, the public, administration, and by govermental agencies. Education has long been the political football. Everyone feels they know what’s best for education and how it should be done because they were a student once upon a time. I have been in the hospital before but that does not make me qualified to be a doctor. I was told recently in a teacher training class, “Before I try to find out why Johnny is having problems I need to look at myself and ask what is wrong with me.” This is an insult to teachers who have given their lives to helping and would try any way to help a student changing what they do on a daily bases to help the varriaties of learners that are in their charge. This is no different than the parent who has a child that has a failing grade and believes that it is the teachers fault not their child who does nothing to earn the grade. As an educator I can not use my profesional opion for anything. If after working with your child for several weeks I dicide that he is haveing a problem reading I must do 6-8 weeks of standardized testing to prove what I knew all along. 2. There is one way to teach and every teacher should teach in that way. Like an assembly line each part must have the same thing done to it and in the same way to turn out the correct product. If it is true that students have different ways of learniing then does it not seem resonable that teachers have different styles of teaching. The way one teacher teaches may be effective for them but not effective for another teacher. Yet teachers are asked to be cookie cutter teachers. If teacher X has a colorful bulletin board that is full of information and has an attractive appearance, than teacher Y must also have a bulletin board in like manner. We must all introduce our lessons in the same way, present in the same way, and end in the same way. 3. There is a great lack of communication from the top to the bottom. A teacher will be told in one meeting that standardized test scores are not our end results but that we need to educate the student. In the next meeting standardized test scores will be flashed up on the wall and those conducting the meeting have a problem with the test scores. The state superintendent will say we are not focusing on standardized test scores. At the local level administration is concerned because it is a reflection on the local school when the results are made known. Results of testing are given to the public without regard of the whole picture. How many students are in my class are special needs students, how many come from homes where they have been between mom and dad multiple times only ending up living with the grandparents. The number of students that go home to empty houses and no one who would help reinforce what they have learned that day. Like any profession there are good teachers and bad but those that stay in the profesion due so because they love teaching. Those that leave, leave because of those things that are out of their control. Not once have I talked about pay that’s a whole different matter.
Tom, thanks for expressing this so well. In fact, I think this deserves its own spot on this blog.