'Public Advocates' Group Suing Over NCLB Teacher Loopholes & Lack of Enforcement
Sometimes it is easy to forget the Department of Education has to take flack from both sides. Here is a good example. Ask any teacher or administrator out there and they would attack NCLB and its Highly Qualified Teacher requirement for being unreasonably harsh, but there are those out there that will always attack for being not tough enough.
This is also an example of political language causing problems. Who doesn't want a "highly qualified" teacher in their child's classroom? But, just because a teacher has yet to meet the HQT demand does not mean that person is a bad or unqualified teacher. If schools could easily comply, this language would not be a problem. However, when the requirement is a difficult to achieve goal which will take years to comply with, such as HQT, the language causes schools problems when they physically cannot meet it, despite their best efforts. But, because of the language, groups like Public Advocates can garner press attention and play on the emotions of parents. That seems to be a big part of what is happening with this lawsuit.
On a related note, there was a really interesting article in the NY Times (registration required) about teacher turnover with the retirement of the babyboomers and the high dropout rate of young teachers.
And, just to show you this is a not just a New York and LA problem:
In Kansas, Alexa Posny, the state’s education commissioner, said the schools had been working to fill “the largest number of vacancies” the state had ever faced. This is partly because of baby boomer retirements and partly because districts in Texas and elsewhere were offering recruitment bonuses and housing allowances, luring Kansas teachers away.
“This is an acute problem that is becoming a crisis,” Ms. Posny said.
The turnover rates are pretty astounding:
“The problem is not mainly with retirement,” said Thomas G. Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. “Our teacher preparation system can accommodate the retirement rate. The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom, and we keep pouring in teachers.”
The commission has calculated that these days nearly a third of all new teachers leave the profession after just three years, and that after five years almost half are gone — a higher turnover rate than in the past.
All the coming and going of young teachers is tremendously disruptive, especially to schools in poor neighborhoods where teacher turnover is highest and students’ needs are greatest.
According to the most recent Department of Education statistics available, about 269,000 of the nation’s 3.2 million public school teachers, or 8.4 percent, quit the field in the 2003-4 school year. Thirty percent of them retired, and 56 percent said they left to pursue another career or because they were dissatisfied.
The federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools and districts to put a qualified teacher in every classroom. The law has led districts to focus more seriously on staffing its low-performing schools, educators said, but it does not appear to have helped persuade veteran teachers to continue their service in them.
Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a group that helps urban districts recruit teachers, said attrition often resulted from chaotic hiring practices, because novice teachers are often assigned at the last moment to positions for which they have not even interviewed. Later, overwhelmed by classroom stress, many leave the field.
It would be great to put a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom, but first perhaps we better put our effort to just putting a teacher in every classroom.
The critical problem with finding highly qualified teachers and the high turnover rate is that teaching just does not pay. I know that when I was growing up, I had excellent teachers. Now, I'm not certain whether they would pass muster under the threshold currently in place, but certainly there were qualified as they helped mold me into who I am today.
Money unfortuneately is the root of the problem. I think Justin is dead on as far as retention and goes but does not go far enough. The problem is money. How can a teacher support or help support their children making only $26,000 per year. It's hard to do and sooner or later the highly qualified teachers won't be teaching. And who does this hurt: our kids.
I would love my children to have a highly qualified teacher in their classrooms (when they reach that age)as per the federal requirements. But the way its going with more and more money going to Iraq, it will never happen.
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Thanks Kenny. Gov. Bill Richardson would certainly agree with your assessment that teachers are not being paid enough. That is why he is proposing a "minimum wage for teachers" as part of his presidential platform. I am sure more info can be obtained at his website.
I don't know how I feel about this. While teaching does not pay well to start, a retiring teacher today will probably be earning at least $60,000, which is not that bad. Also, teachers get pretty nice retirement packages, benefits packages, and of course summers off (so the $26,000 you speak of is a 9 month salary).
The big push that is coming is merit pay. Even some liberal presidential candidates like Barack Obama are pushing merit pay. While this might not affect the initial salary a teacher is paid, it might help over time (at least for the teachers deemed to be worthy).
Also, there really is a perception problem on teacher pay (of course that is not a problem from the Union's perspective). Teacher salaries are perceived to be low in comparison to other professions, but to other related professions it is not that bad in comparison. But, as they say, perception is reality, and if we are losing potential teachers in among college students, that is a pretty big problem.
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