Another school year, another teacher shortage. This isn’t a TUSD problem or a Tucson-area problem. One estimate says that Arizona has 1,000 fewer teachers than it needs. Another, which seems high to me, says that Maricopa County alone has 1,000 teacher slots to fill. Either way, it’s a big, statewide problem. Emphasis on “statewide.”
Why the shortage? Low pay, low funding for support and supplies, too many students in each classroom. And let’s not underestimate the importance of the anti-teacher, anti-“government school” rhetoric that makes teachers feel less valued. Why go into, or stay in, a low paying, stressful job if everyone keeps telling you how much you suck? Arizona teachers are leaving the profession or moving elsewhere to teach. Fewer college students are choosing teaching as a profession.
I keep hearing from some quarters that teachers are underworked look at all those vacations they get!—so they don’t deserve more pay, and the reason there are so many bad teachers is because the union won’t let districts fire them. Now, I’m not an economist and I don’t play one on The Range, but it seems to me there are a few basic economic flaws with both those arguments.
If teachers are underworked and overpaid, people should be lining up to get one of those cushy jobs. Districts should be fighting applicants off with a stick. That’s the way the marketplace works, right? People gravitate toward the most attractive jobs. And once prospective teachers land their jobs, after they get through popping champagne corks and celebrating their unbelievable good fortune, they should hold onto those jobs until retirement forces them out the door.
So why aren’t college departments of education turning away students who want to sign up? Why aren’t districts getting more applications than they can handle? Why do young teachers leave the profession in such high numbers?
I can only think of two possible answers. One possibility is, people who consider teaching and reject it, or leave the profession once they get a job, are idiots. They don’t know a good deal when they see it. The other possibility is, teaching is a low pay, high stress job, and unless people have the initial desire to teach, then find they get enough joy in the classroom that it balances out all the problems that go along with the job, they aren’t likely to go into the profession in the first place or stay there once they land a job.
And what about all those bad teachers who stay in the classroom year after year? Why don’t we get rid of tenure protections and make it easier to fire them? To do that effectively, we need people waiting in the wings to take their places. What value is there in creating more job openings by, say, weeding out the bottom five or ten percent of teachers if we can’t even fill the openings we already have?
Going back to my rudimentary understanding of economics, it seems to me that the best way to get high quality teachers in the classroom is to attract lots of applicants for open jobs. The more people applying, the more choice districts will have, and the more likely they’ll be able to reject the poorer prospects and hire the better ones. How do you get more and better applicants? Simple. Improve pay and working conditions. If the job is more attractive, more and better quality people will apply. Even if we don’t try to cull the herd by removing the weakest teachers—and deciding who they are is more difficult than it looks—we’ll end up with a stronger group of teachers. The weaker teachers will gradually fade away, leaving a well paid, well supported cadre of dedicated, capable teachers in our classrooms.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2015.
Your lack of understanding economics aside, the real problem is that after all the whining and gnashing of teeth that the unions and NEA promoted, they have convinced our youth that teaching is a waste of effort. They have chosen to go do something else.
It was a double edged sword that you used. Now what?
Is there such a severe shortage of charter school teachers?
With a state government openly hostile to public education and constant cuts in funding, it’s no wonder why there is a teacher shortage in Arizona. That won’t get fixed until the antipathy and hostility toward public education and educators from legislators ends.
Looks like teachers have figured out why there is a teacher shortage here:
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2015/07/17/tusd-teachers-surprised-by-unions-sanchez-statements/
Rudimentary understanding of economics is an understatement.
Applying more labor isn’t the solution. Apply more technology. The old model of teacher to students is no longer relevant. If there are a 1000 teachers to few, redefine the processes so 2000 less are needed.
psssstt…Charter schools don’t run buses, bus monitors, crossing guards and free breakfast and lunch programs.
They educate. I am betting many teachers have gone to where children ARE being taught.
In our neck of the woods, the charter school is advertising for teachers as well as public schools. This, in spite of having all the charter holder’s kin and kith employed, as well as teachers who are missing necessary pieces for the certification they need for the jobs they would rather have in the public schools.
Try plopping your kid down in front of the computer for 6 hours and see how long that lasts. Public schools educate the whole child, I suppose because society tends to like ‘whole’ adults somewhere down the line.
Charter schools churn teachers even more than public schools, since they take many, many uncertified teachers. Even the royal BASIS bunch churn teachers. And BASIS is constantly begging for teacher improvement fund money, but gosh forbid if you ask where it goes and what it does. There are only do many relatives the charters can hire.
I miss be a minority cause I want to teach in AZ. Science especially. Looking for a job. National ‘board Certified teacher.
I want to teach in a PUBLIC school in AZ. Charter no thanks, I’ve seen the destruction of the education system in Chicago. National Board Certified teacher looking to teach science. Pay cut yes, stress cut, double yes plus no snow!
AZ state legislature eliminated tenure and seniority two years ago. That action stifled many teachers voices across the state. Some small town districts are using this to eliminate quality educators who go to the wrong barbecue on Sunday, vote for the wrong political party, are NEA members or might have a different perspective than the conservative administrators. Educators are divided we have no union (AEA is a education association with little to no teeth) or legislators who will speak out for the teachers behalf. Nor are legislators concerned with finding consistent revenue streams to fund public education. According to the AZ auditor generals report, a garbage man who works for the city of Tucson starts out at a higher rate of pay and better benefits than many school districts across the state. ALEC, The Goldwater Institute and the Koch Bros. are decimating public education (read the Goldwater Institutes stance on education that can be found on their website) because education is one of the largest businesses/employers in the nation and they would like to control the financial resources for their own benefits. Teachers with multiple years of teaching experience are financially punished (most districts will start an experienced teacher of twenty years at the seven year mark on the pay scale) if they decide to leave their school district in order to relocate to a new school district. Does this happen to employees who work in the financial, business. IT, construction, health care or insurance industries?
How much money would districts save if all districts that pay into the state retirement system were to create one insurance consortium (combine all state employees, fire, police highway patrol into the consortium) for all state employees?
If we redirected maintenance and operations (M&O) funding from after school programs like sports (corporate, professional sports teams, and community donations would fund after school activities) back into the classroom many school districts would have millions of dollars to channel into the classroom and to hire more teachers and or increase their rate of pay.
Eliminate exorbitant salaries payed for by AZ tax dollars for superintendents ($280,000 plus benefits TUSD), state college/ university coaches (UofA basketball coach $1,600,000, assistant coaches $400,000 annually,see AZ auditor generals report).
David:
You write: “Another school year, another teacher shortage. This isn’t a TUSD problem or a Tucson-area problem. …it’s a big, statewide problem. Emphasis on “statewide.”
Just curious: Do you have stats on the relative impact of the teacher shortage on various districts in Arizona? Is the shortage, for example, uniform in its severity in Flowing Wells, Vail, Sunnyside, Amphi, Tanque Verde, Catalina Foothills and TUSD? Is it uniform throughout TUSD — east side, west side?
If the shortage is not uniform throughout the state or throughout our largest local district, then to understand the problems with teacher supply, we should consider a broader range of issues than you discuss here.
Here’s some information that relates to the validity of the arguments you make: Salaries in the Catholic school system are lower, in general, than in the public school system, yet, in my experience, over the course of the last 20 years, the Catholic system has not experienced a teacher shortage. In addition to receiving salaries lower than in the public system, teachers in Catholic schools also have to buy more of their own supplies than those in public schools do. (I student-taught in the public system — in TUSD — and taught in the Catholic system, so my experience is first-hand. My starting salary in the Catholic system was approximately half what it would have been in a TUSD school. Much less was supplied (supplementary books, bulletin board paper, access to a xerox machine — you name it) in the Catholic system than in all three of the TUSD schools – one west side, one east side, and one magnet — where I did practicums and student teaching. Yet the Catholic schools with which I’m familiar had no trouble at that time, nor have they had trouble since, keeping their class sizes low and staffing their classrooms with professionally educated, certified teachers.)
I’m not saying there isn’t a statewide problem with funding for public education — there is. Nor am I saying that I think the level of pay and funding for supplies in the Catholic system is as it should be. However, the combination in the Catholic system of low salaries with no significant teacher supply problem points out that the way you frame our current problems with teacher supply is misleading. There are several relevant motivating (or de-motivating) factors you are choosing not to discuss.
If I — or any other currently out-of-service, credentialed, experienced teacher — were to respond to the current statewide shortage by deciding to look for a teaching job this fall, it is unlikely that it would be in TUSD. And for many of us this has nothing to do with TUSD’s salary levels, the level of funding for supplies available, or even the class sizes. It has to do with:
–the level of functionality of the district’s systems (e.g. the maintenance condition of the sites and the recurring failures to locate and deliver promptly the textbooks the district owns, but cannot find in its warehouses)
–the quality of decisions those in charge of the district’s governance — BOTH the current majority AND the majority that preceded it — have been prone to making (budgeting, financial forecasting, understanding of what “accountability” systems are appropriate, ability to deliver policy and administrative hiring decisions that support the functionality of the sites, ability to make appropriate decisions RE administrative compensation and bonuses, knowledge of and ability to support sound pedagogical practices, ability to prioritize what matters most to teachers and students and to keep board level politics from producing decisions that degrade teaching and learning conditions, etc.)
You’re right: teaching IS a hard job, and the degree to which administrators and elected officials understand this and find themselves willing and able to make decisions that SUPPORT their teaching force– rather than alternately taking it for granted and undermining it in various ways – matter. The $500 raises in TUSD were long overdue and well deserved, but they cannot compensate for variables that matter more, like what conditions teachers experience, day in, day out, as they try to deliver instruction to students on the sites. (And a relevant question here is: if the operating deficit remains unresolved, will the raises be sustainable?)
I wouldn’t want to be a TUSD board member or a central administrator in the district. It’s a tough, perhaps impossible job. But let’s be honest about where the attention should be focused and what variables can really make a difference in improving conditions for students: our largest local district’s governance and administrative hierarchy needs reform. Whether or not more funding comes from the state level (which seems highly unlikely, given the current composition of the legislative and executive branches of our state government) the district should be working to identify and solve the serious LOCAL problems. Continuing to blame external factors and trying to shift the public’s attention to “statewide” variables doesn’t help, nor is it honest. The district can deliver the greatest benefit to teachers and students by engaging in internal reform and systematic improvement of a deeply dysfunctional, decades old institutional culture — not by constantly complaining about and blaming the governor and the legislature.
David – Here’s a comment that was posted by a TUSD teacher on one of the blog posts you wrote last fall. It seems worth considering this excellent comment “from the trenches” again in the context of your reflections on the reasons for our problems with teacher shortages:
“David, as a member of the ranks down in the proverbial trench of the classroom, saying that TUSD is a failure is ridiculous… it’s too big and has too many people of widely varying skill to make that kind of blanket statement. There is much good to say about many TUSD people and programs. What *would* be an accurate to say is that TUSD -over the long haul- has implimented SO MANY new programs, systems, protocols, mandates, structures, training and put so many Band-Aids on so many boo boos that we’ve grown weary and skeptical. EEI? Down our throats for an entire year. Now? Zip. SuccessMaker? Choking on it for two years. Now? Late implementation, and oh, it’s un-supported this year, don’t call us. Harcourt literacy… “follow with ultimate fidelity!” Now? I can’t even get a replacement workbook after multiple requests and there are no less than three different literacy approaches in place in my school alone. Man, I’m tired of the wheel being reinvented with nothing to show but wasted hours and blown money. As a result, my trust in leadership has wavered and morale just plain sucks. I’m only 15 years into this TUSD gig, imagine how strung out on this bologna the ultra long timers are. *sigh*”
This is not true at all from what I have found. Perhaps there is a shortage of Math an Science teachers but that is always the case. However i Have been applying for teaching positions and most places have told me they are receiving a ton of applications and I still haven’t been able to land a job after several months of looking. If there were a teacher shortage wouldn’t they be desperate to find people applying rather than being swamped in applications?
For the person who thinks that the NEA has scared off new teachers, try again. I am not a union member and never will be. THAT aside, it the simple experience of being in an Arizona classroom today that chases new teachers away. Our district up north consistently loses 20-30% of our teachers EACH YEAR!! As a 20+ year veteran teacher in Arizona, I can see that it is apparent that you have never been in the teaching profession. Try teaching for even 6 months and see if you last. Keep up the fight, educators.
As for the charter school argument, THAT is free marketplace. Public education is not. Please walk a mile in our shoes before you ” misuse, criticize and abuse” .