Anisa Kintz

Re-envisioning Education and Democracy

Public Intellectual Essay

April 26, 2002

The Demise of the American Education System:

Who Will Teach Our Children?[1]

The supply of elementary and secondary school teachers has grown to around 3.1 million in recent years. This is definitely good news. However, when examined alone, this number can lull us into a false sense of security. In schools throughout the country, teachers are retiring or moving on to other more lucrative jobs, school enrollment is increasing, and class sizes are getting larger. Looked at individually, these are all serious, yet potentially manageable problems. Together, however, they create a much larger disaster: an alarmingly increasing dearth of teachers in public schools. Some demographers predict a national need for two million new teachers over the course of the next decade.[2] While a shortage of qualified teachers is not new, the magnitude of the current problem is staggering. Many schools are resorting to stopgap measures in an attempt to slow the process. In numerous districts, under-qualified teachers are being hired, classes are being consolidated, rural schools are being merged, and many substitute teachers are being asked to take classes for an entire year rather than on the normal day by day basis.

These solutions are temporary, however, and can only slow the increasing severity of the problem. A comprehensive examination of the issue needs to be made, and long-term solutions found. This requires the input of teachers and students as well as the usual administrators and policy-makers. It is important to look at the current measures being taken and find a means of improving upon them and exploring a more far-reaching answer.

In order to create change, the contributing factors must first be understood. One of the largest issues leading to shortages is the increasing number of teachers eligible for retirement. In Iowa, for example, seven percent of current teachers are eligible to retire and within a decade that number will have reached forty percent.[3] One explanation is a graying workforce. An entire generation, the baby boomers, is aging and retiring, and many are being offered early retirement packages and pension plans as a result of increased school accountability requirements and raised teaching standards.[4] “In Texas, recent state reforms that enhanced the retirement program for teachers and administrators resulted in a substantive increase in teacher retirement rates and added fuel to an existing educator shortage.”[5] This is a story being heard throughout the country. Often teachers’ unions are working to enhance the programs that are inadvertently leading to early retirement and the growing shortage.

Another disturbing factor is an increasingly low retention rate of newer teachers. Some research indicates that as many as fifty percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first three years of employment.[6] Seventeen percent of new teachers in Iowa leave the classroom within their first year.[7] For example, many teachers, when asked, cite dissatisfaction with low salaries and inadequate support from school administrations as being large spurs to switching professions. Young, newly trained teachers are often well qualified in other areas and have no trouble getting more lucrative jobs with private businesses.

The national population is growing which in turn means a steadily increasing number of students in primary and secondary schools. Many of the states experiencing the largest growth are unable to produce the number of new teachers needed to address the shortage. (e.g. Florida, California, Nevada, and Texas) Some states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, historically produce more teachers than they require, but encouraging new graduates to relocate is a challenge.

Urban schools are experiencing perhaps the greatest difficulty retaining educators. An increasing minority, low-income and limited English-speaking student population is another contributor to teachers opting for jobs that are perhaps better paying and less demanding. Many feel they are given limited support and inadequate training to deal with the rigors of teaching in such environments. Even teachers who are not leaving the profession altogether are at least leaving the urban schools. “In schools where 75 percent or more of students meet poverty guidelines, on average 22 percent of faculty members are underqualified.”[8]

Though urban schools are hard-hit, rural areas are facing their own problems resulting from the shortage. Many small rural schools are facing closure as administrators in the smaller districts are increasingly unable to hire teachers to staff their schools. As a result, more and more schools may be forced to merge, increasing class size and resulting in still another incentive for older teachers to take advantage of early retirement plans when offered.

Across the nation, states are implementing emergency measures in an attempt to at least halt the growth of the shortages. There are many good examples. South Carolina has created two programs to deal with the issue; one aimed at enticing new teachers to enter the field and another to retain educators on the edge of retirement.

The Critical Needs Certification Program (CNCP) has identified a list of critical subjects and critical needs districts in which they will accept people with a bachelor’s degree or higher in any of the critical needs subjects under a temporary license. Those with a degree in fields other than those designated as critical will be allowed to teach in critical needs districts. A pre-service seminar is to be completed before the first year of employment begins. There are three required graduate courses to be completed over the course of three years, during which the student must be employed as a teacher in one of the designated areas. At the end of the three-year program, the teacher may apply for professional certification. Seventeen districts and twelve broad subject areas have been identified as being in critical condition throughout the state.[9]

The Teacher and Employee Retention Incentive (TERI) Program is the second program created for South Carolina in an attempt to alleviate shortages. It is a short-term measure, allowing for participation for no longer than five years. Retired teachers are allowed to return to classrooms, still drawing full pension, and receiving an additional salary of which the maximum is $25,000. [10]

In Kansas, Wichita State University’s College of Education has created an Alternative Teacher Certification Program which allows students to be provisionally certified and employed in Kansas public schools while taking courses and undergoing teacher training. The program is designed for shortage fields at the middle and high school levels. Students are required to have a substantial background in one or more of the identified fields, usually a bachelor’s degree with a major in one of these areas.

The students will teach a full class schedule while in the program and will be advised by a team of professionals, including a fully certified educator who teaches in the same building as the student and will act as a mentor. They will become fully certified in at least one teaching field at the end of the two-year program. A master’s degree is also available in curriculum and instruction if the student completes twelve to fifteen additional credit hours.[11] The district, university, and student each make a commitment to the program, with the hopes that the teacher will continue to teach in Kansas after completion.

Policy makers in Iowa are looking at a number of potential solutions, but some of these attempts are meeting resistance from current teachers and unions. Some legislators want to allow for potential loans to students who commit to specializing in shortage areas. [12] Others are proposing an alternative licensing program similar to those already mentioned as being in place in other states. The state’s largest teachers union, however, which represents 32,970 of the Iowa educators, is loudly critical. They claim the program would cut out the classes in which you learn extensively how to be a teacher. Sixty-three percent of educators surveyed want new teachers to be required by the state to pass competency tests.[13]

Other strategies have been tried, all with mixed results. Many states have created mentor-type systems in which experienced staff members are paired with new teachers for at least the first year. Others have included increasing salaries or providing other perks in an attempt to retain new teachers for more than a few years. Some provide state-funded scholarships to encourage high school graduates to pursue careers in teaching, while some provide programs for education aides currently employed in schools to gain full teacher certification. [14]

A more innovative approach is funded by the Kellogg Foundation and run by the Intercultural Development Research Association’s Alianza project. It creates opportunities for teachers certified in other countries to enroll in and graduate from U.S. teacher certification programs. This project produces qualified bilingual and ESL teachers for participating districts. The field of bilingual education is sorely deficient in numbers of qualified educators.[15]

All of these programs have short-term merit, yet in reality they are not succeeding in being anything other than temporary stopgap measures. One critic accurately referred to them as “band-aid solutions”. A major fault with these programs is the lack of effective coordination with other efforts. Many states are attempting to attract teachers from other places by enticing them with higher salaries and bonuses, but this only serves to further the problem in the area from which those teachers migrate. Many places look upon the issue as a battle for qualified teachers, attempting to outdo the others. This can be seen in a rather paranoid sounding statement made in an article by the ISEA, “A number of states have significantly boosted salaries and are offering signing bonuses and other special perks to lure Iowa teachers and teacher education graduates.”[16]

Another obstacle is information. A very few number of programs actually do follow-up studies to measure their effectiveness. Even fewer compare this information with similar programs and initiatives in an attempt to redesign and improve. Surveys conducted to assess the full extent of the problem are insufficient as they are generally focused on one specific reason for attrition instead of the range of issues. They are prone to focusing on limited areas, such as urban or rural schools, and fail to compare the information with a sufficient number of other studies. So in reality, we are lacking a comprehensive attempt to explain the reasons behind the shortage, and are restricted in constructive solutions as a result. Perhaps part of this problem is that only limited venues exist in which these research efforts can be shared.

Many schools are content to place an educated adult in the classroom, without full consideration of the abilities and background needed to be an effective teacher. One study of an alternative certification program found that “while content knowledge was an important characteristic, other personal qualities were also considered critical to producing successful outcomes for pupils.”[17] While a large number of people might say an under-qualified teacher is better than none at all, this also begs examination.

Who, if certified educators are lacking, is being given the incredible responsibility of teaching our children? And they really are “our” children, regardless of whose specific nuclear family they belong to. The community is perhaps a part of the problem. We hear statistics such as “the supply of elementary and secondary education teachers has grown to an estimated 3.1 million,”[18] and feel relieved by the large number, failing to educate ourselves about the flip side. A large number of community-supported programs have been implemented to encourage students to go into various fields (e.g. girl students and science and mathematics), yet there is limited attention paid to helping students explore education as a possible profession. Many scholarships are offered in return for pledges to specialize in specific areas upon reaching college, but education is often not among these.

In the current crisis, we have an incredible opportunity. There is a glaringly large amount of issues that need attention within the field of public education and this may be the perfect time to attempt the creation of comprehensive change. With the retirement of a generation and the gaping need for new educators, the opportunity is present to restructure the way teachers are trained and the importance accorded the profession by communities. The low retention rate very obviously speaks to a lack in the ability of education to be a field in which people feel they can make a lasting career. Lack of teacher support, competitive salaries, and overall respect and appreciation contribute strongly to this belief.

Current measures have potential if the programs could be linked, and collaboration between districts and states established. The shortage is nationwide, and needs to be regarded as such, rather than simply creating temporary solutions on a state by state basis. As a national community, data needs to be collected, the full extent of the problem ascertained, and a plan formulated to address each of the issues surrounding the shortage. It is essential to include teachers in this process, and give adequate weight to their needs and experience. These strategies, coupled with the creation of mechanisms to monitor progress and assess results of initiatives, will be a much-needed step towards improving our education system as a whole.