CURMUDGUCATION: Teacher "Shortage" Reflections

CURMUDGUCATION: Teacher "Shortage" Reflections:

Teacher "Shortage" Reflections

Assembling my recent post on teacher shortages gave me a lot to reflect on, but since the piece was already a gazillion words long, I saved that reflection for another post. Here is that post.

In no particular order, here are some of the things that jumped out as I did my national tour.

Spin Is a Thing

I deliberately searched through general press coverage. I didn't dig deep for True Facts, and I stayed away from direct reporting by teachers' unions. So what I found yesterday was a better reflection of what people are saying than what is necessarily true. I don't have to tell you those aren't always the same. Statements about shortages fell largely into these categories--

* OMGZ!! We have barely any teachers and we must must MUST certify anything that moves as a teacher right after we invite as many Teach for America folks we can find into the state.

* Look at that teacher shortage! It's proof that the people who run our state suck with a sucky suckiness that really sucks.

* We want to have good schools. We are paying attention to what's happening, and we're trying to make smart, responsible choices about how to handle things.

The third group seems to lack a certain sense of dramatic crisis mode in their press coverage. The other two, not so much (and I say that knowing that group two includes people who share many of my concerns and allegiances about education).

I suspect that this relates to how some of the results came in. Many people expressed amazement that Ohio is not talking about teacher shortages; that may be because charters really have increased demand or it may be because running for president is easier if you don't have one more education 

The Substitute Shortage

One of the surprises of my look into state by state teacher shortages was the widespread reporting of a substitute teacher shortage. I knew we had a problem in my region. I didn't realize it was a problem everywhere.

Several writers have tried to parse out the problem and offer solutions, but I don't find anybody doing any serious research on the issue. So until that turns up, let me fill the void with more speculation and anecdotal evidence. You're welcome.

One writers specifically singles out the ACA as NOT a problem. Many folks were worried that districts would cap substitute hours to avoid having to pay health care costs, thus effectively reducing the number of total sub-hours available. But that shortage-by-Obamacare assumes a pool of subs who wanted to work all the time, and that may not be a safe assumption in any markets. So maybe a culprit, maybe not.

That same source also suggests that greater absenteeism is a culprit--iow, we need more subs. Can we get teachers to miss less school? The writer suggests that an increase in in-service training is the problem. And so we can chalk up the sub shortage as another side effect of the reformster movement.

Fewer people in the teacher pipeline also seems a good bet. Fewer people coming out of teacher programs means fewer people "auditioning" for jobs in school districts.

I would bet we are losing some of those as well. Here comes an anecdote.

When I came back to my area, I started out as a sub. I was single; I sank my nest egg into a mobile home in a trailer park. Back then (early 80's) a day of subbing paid $50. Two days of work paid my lot rent, and after that it was all gravy (well, spagetti and generic sauce, anyway). I couldn't have supported a family on sub pay, but I could live independently. But in thirty five years the going sub rate in my region has gone up about thirty-five dollars. If it had kept pace with inflation, the sub 

The Substitute Shortage

Duncan Gets a Pass

Catalyst Chicago has been reporting on Chicago education for twenty-five year, operating as "an independent news organization that serves as a watchdog and resource for school improvement in Chicago." While they do offer plenty of space to features like guest writers plugging the awesomeness of reform, their news coverage is pretty balanced-- they do not appear to have any requirement that their reporters never cover bad news about charters.

But last week Catalyst ran the fluffiest piece of fluffery ever in Maureen Kelleher's paean to Arne Duncan. Surely this is not going to be the narrative that anyone pushes about Duncan as he approaches his post-federal earning years.

First, Kelleher flashes back to Duncan's elevation to the head job of Chicago schools (he was successor to Paul Vallas). Duncan's big success-- adopting a tracking method for freshmen. On the other hand...

Duncan also championed expanding school choice and lent new urgency to the work of transforming struggling high schools -- initiatives that drew heat from the political left. These efforts had more mixed results.

No kidding.

Next we move on to Duncan's career as Secretary of Education in, perhaps, some parallel universe.

Duncan has encouraged states to innovate around accountability systems, offering waivers from No Child Left Behind’s rules.

This is true in much the same way it's true that a mugger encourages you to put your hands up and offers to take all of your cash. To talk about the waiver program as if it was a mild suggestion, even a favor, to state systems, is to miss the whole point. States, over a financial barrel, and looking at the unachievable goals of NCLB (100% above average by 2014), had a choice about accepting 

Duncan Gets a Pass