Where have all the teachers gone?
Gone to other jobs everyone. When will we ever learn? Sorry Pete Seeger. But the lyrics seemed to fit. Once again, the issue of not enough teachers has surfaced.
A part of the Blueprint for Education in Maryland has been delayed because there aren’t teachers for the present situation, so the idea of implementing something that would require more teachers was dismissed. The Maryland State Department of Education is about to implement a program called The Science of Reading. This program that is heavily phonics based is supposed to have students on grade level in reading by the end of grade 3. If the students are not, they will either be retained in grade 3 or, at the parent’s request, move on to grade 4 but the parents need to agree to after school tutoring and/or summer programming. The instruction will still be based on The Science of Reading, but that’s a story for another day.
What does need to be thought about is where are the school systems going to find the space and the teachers to expand the number of children in third grade and/or provide the after school and summer instruction. That will also cost money.
The same type of people who gave us the Blueprint and the Read by Grade 3 are trying to figure out how to get more folks to be teachers. The first plan is to raise teachers’ salaries to $60,000 right out of college with no experience. So far, that isn’t working very well. Another plan is to change the licensing requirements for new and experienced teachers. Certificates are gone and as of last April all teachers have licenses. It is no long necessary for teachers to earn a Master’s Degree. School folk have long noticed that the pay jump for the advanced degree cost more money but didn’t correspondingly increase teaching ability.
So why don’t people want to be teachers any more. One reason is that women (the predominant gender for teaching) have far more opportunities for job choices than they used to have. They can earn more money, have more authority over how they do their jobs and even have respect. Another reason is that teaching isn’t all that pleasant any more. The profession does not receive the respect from the parent community that it used to have. Secondly, with pacing guides and teaching guides, teaching has become the profession of processed food. The documents lay out each step of teaching and grant no grace to the good sense of the teacher to slow down, speed up or even CHANGE the content to suit the learner. Teaching is one of the few “professions” that is not controlled by the professionals but rather by bureaucrats and politicians. Education organizations are largely to blame for this as they have become more unions advocating for health and welfare benefits rather than professional associations fighting for control of their own profession.
Have any of the bureaucrats held focus groups with successful teachers and ask them how to increase the teacher pool??
Where have all the teachers gone, gone to get some respect everyone.