The state board of education in Kansas voted to drop teacher certification requirements for six districts, including two of the state’s largest.
Kansas is preparing for the 19th century, when teachers needed no professional preparation.
“Cynthia Lane, superintendent of Kansas City USD 500, one of the affected districts, called the compromise “a reasonable outcome.”
“The bottom line,” Lane said, “is we want every possible tool in order to put the right staff in front of our kids.”
Who dreamed up this scheme to lower standards? ALEC.
“Earlier in the day, more than a dozen educators and parents gave impassioned statements to the board in hopes of persuading the 10-member body not to exempt the districts from licensure regulations.
“James Neff, a chemistry teacher from Manhattan USD 383, said Kansas’ current rules, which stipulate that teachers need formal, academic training in pedagogy, not just subject matter, are critical to the “integrity” of the profession.
“A subject matter specialist is just a subject matter specialist,” Neff said, “but a teacher is something different.”
“The measure will waive the state’s licensure regulations for a group of districts called the Coalition of Innovative Districts, a program that the Legislature established in 2013 based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council….,
“Critics who spoke earlier Tuesday against dropping the requirements included education professors, Kansas Parent Teacher Association president Denise Sultz and Topeka USD 501’s Marie Carter, who recruits teachers for the district.
“They warned of the difficulties that untrained teachers can face managing large class sizes, understanding pedagogy and the learning process, and serving students with a variety of skill levels, including those with learning disabilities or behavioral issues.
“No members of the public spoke in favor of the waiver Tuesday.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m originally from Kansas, still have many friends there, several of whom are teachers. It’s an even more miserable situation there than in North Carolina (where I now reside and teach). I am so glad I graduated from high school 40 years ago, and even more glad that my son and his wife left the state after graduate school. I would not want my granddaughter going to school there.
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Perhaps the saddest part is that Dr. Lane was once a special educarion teacher herself. For her to now say that certification doesn’t matter insults her own teaching, her own education, and her own profession to a degree that is breathtaking and deeply selfish.
Once again we must ask, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
They created a huge teacher shortage. They are desperate to hire any warm body that is willing to stand in front of their classrooms in a few days. The disastrous consequences will be felt all year by every student, parent, and employee.
Yet they stubbornly cling to their ideology and trudge forward into the no man’s land of ALEC and Friedman dystopia, determined to prove that the teaching profession is unneeded and that so-called free market forces will magically rescue them.
I’m at a loss to explain this level of ignorance.
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The underlying assumptions for plans like this are stupid.
When you are trying utterly untested crap on children and teachers it is innovation. Animals have more rights against cruel experiments than our schools.
Dropping certification reqs underlines the belief that pedagogy is worthless – what questions are school boards going to ask of a candidate that is not better answered by testing and observation? Any smooth talker could get a job without needing to prove a thing beforehand.
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Quality education will be available on the commercial model but it will be a lot like cable/dish/net TV. People who can pay dearly and dearlier and dearliest will pay dearly and dearlier and dearliest for every increment of quality they can go into debt to afford. It is August 2015. The fact that every punchee teacher and parent in the US is not already in the streets is a guarantee that it will happen.
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The problems with Kansas are (1) Republican Governor Sam Brownback, (2) a rabid Republican legislature (which was purged of most “moderates”), and (3) the voters who elected them. And not necessarily in that order.
Kansas is – as some publications have noted – reaping the “rewards” of its right-wing supply-side economic experiment. It ain’t pretty.
But, you get the government you vote – or don’t vote – for.
Kansas is the nearly perfect example of why public schooling should – must – return to its mission of educating for democratic citizenship.
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One answer is that certain Kansas districts—the so-called “Innovative Districts”—are now allowed to scrap all licensure for teachers. School boards need such “flexibility.”
http://cjonline.com/news/2015-07-14/state-board-passes-controversial-licensure-waiver
———–
“The proponents of waiving licensure requirements, including the Kansas Association of School Boards and the superintendents of the six Innovative Districts, argue schools need greater flexibility to hire candidates with specialized expertise, such as experience in careers like engineering, but who might lack formal teacher training. They say school boards and administrators should be trusted to hire the most qualified, competent teaching staff available, even in absence of state mandates.
“Ken Willard, a Hutchinson Republican on the state board, concurred and said lifting the requirements could help schools better serve children.
” ‘A vote against doing so, he warned, would mean ‘abdicating, I believe, our responsibility to the needs of every student.’ ”
————————————
You get that?
It’s Orwell-thru-the-Looking-Glass time in Kansas.
Up is down.
Black is white.
Left is right.
Ken Willard, a Republican from Hutchinson serving on the state ed board, argues that—get this—it’s more “responsible” and “better serves children” to put unlicensed and inexperienced teachers in kids’ classrooms, than to continue with the pre-existing state-mandated and required licensing of teachers prior to them being put in classrooms.
Instead of hard-to-earn, state-mandated licenses, Kansas citizens should “trust school boards and administrators” to “hire the most qualified, competent teaching staff available, even in absence of state mandates (i.e. that require teachers’ licensing).”
Willard insists that doing otherwise—sticking with the required licensing of teachers—would be “abdicating our responsibility to the needs of every student.”
Needless to say, people weren’t buying this.
—————————————
“Critics who spoke earlier Tuesday against dropping the requirements included education professors, Kansas Parent Teacher Association president Denise Sultz and Topeka USD 501’s Marie Carter, who recruits teachers for the district.
“They warned of the difficulties that untrained teachers can face managing large class sizes, understanding pedagogy and the learning process, and serving students with a variety of skill levels, including those with learning disabilities or behavioral issues.
“No members of the public spoke in favor of the waiver Tuesday.
“Kansas’ new education commissioner, Randy Watson, who helped spearhead both the Innovative Districts program and the proposed licensure waiver, said he understands the concerns parents and teachers expressed.
“ ‘I think their concerns are valid,’ Watson said. ‘I think we’re all wanting a good quality educator in the classroom.’ (But we just don’t want to have to pay for it. JACK)
——————————————–
Watson, the State Ed Commissioner maintains that there’s nothing wrong with “testing new ideas”, such as putting untrained, unlicensed teachers in classroom. In doing so, they’re just trying “to pilot and try new things.” Just trust leaders to choose ” ‘candidates who will make the greatest impact on student learning and future success,’ and that (in choosing new unlicensed teachers) they would be “prudent, judicious, and thoughtful.” ‘
SEE BELOW
————————————————-
“(State Ed. Commissioner Randy Watson) said, though, that the Innovative Districts program was designed to test new ideas.
“ ‘What the coalition was set up to do,’ he said, ‘was to pilot and try some things.’
“The Innovative Districts explained in a written request to the state board for Tuesday’s vote they will focus on finding ‘candidates who will make the greatest impact on student learning and future success,’ and that (in choosing new unlicensed teachers) they would be “prudent, judicious, and thoughtful.” ‘
———-
The teachers weighed in, saying this would annihilate the “integrity” of the teaching profession.
——————-
“Earlier in the day, more than a dozen educators and parents gave impassioned statements to the board in hopes of persuading the 10-member body not to exempt the districts from licensure regulations.
“James Neff, a chemistry teacher from Manhattan USD 383, said Kansas’ current rules, which stipulate that teachers need formal, academic training in pedagogy, not just subject matter, are critical to the ‘integrity’ of the profession.
“ ‘A subject matter specialist is just a subject matter specialist,’ Neff said, “but a teacher is something different.’
“The measure will waive the state’s licensure regulations for a group of districts called the Coalition of Innovative Districts, a program that the Legislature established in 2013 based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council.”
“The six districts are Kansas City and Blue Valley USD 229 — which have more than 20,000 students each — along with Concordia USD 333, McPherson USD 418, Hugoton USD 210 and Marysville USD 364.
“Lane says the new flexibility will be used sparingly, and the districts value teacher licensure and are committed to hiring high-quality educators.
“Topeka’s representative on the state board, Carolyn Campbell, a Democrat, opposed Tuesday’s measure, reiterating her concerns with the entire concept of Innovative Districts.
“ ‘I have struggled with the coalition schools, period,’ Campbell said, citing the coalition’s origin in 2013 through dialogue carried out with lawmakers rather than state board members.
“The state’s main teachers union, the Kansas National Education Association, also opposes the Innovative Districts program — a design meant to free up schools from state laws and regulations — and the idea of waiving licensure regulations.
“The last-minute compromises that won Busch’s vote didn’t allay those concerns, KNEA vice president Sherri Schwanz said.
“ ‘We’re still concerned about the waiver because of the students,’ said Schwanz, a choral music teacher at Lansing USD 469.
“ ‘This doesn’t ensure the students’ success with the highest quality educator in the classroom.’ “
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Remember this the next time that the advocates for self-styled “education reform” toss around slogans like “raising the bar” and “rigorous standards.”
Should read: “Forward—into the 19th century!”
And given enough time and “success” the 19th century will soon be too modern and innovative for them.
😎
P.S. Only to be applied to OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. For the heavyweight “winners” of the “new civil rights movement of our time” they will still send THEIR OWN CHILDREN to places like Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel].
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There’s a disconnect there.
Arne Duncan, Eli Broad, Bill Gates, John Arnold, the Waltons, and other corporate reformers regularly and forcefully maintain that tests for students must become more and more “rigorous”, so that it will then result in “raising the bar” of achievement
However, when it comes to selecting the teachers who are supposed to make all that happen and “raise that bar of achievement,” there’s no “rigor” at all.
Indeed, they are now “lowering the bar” to freakin’ China in order to fill classrooms with any untrained, unlicensed clown that is desperate enough to take the now newly remade, low-level service job (not “profession”) of teaching—with its miserable working conditions, lousy pay, minimal benefits, little or no retirement, etc.
Given such contradictions and the low respect they give to teaching, who would want to become a teacher right now?
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And that’s been the plan all along. Demonizing teachers, using ridiculous “research” from unqualified economists to “prove” that teachers both have no impact on learning and yet are the most important factor in student success simultaneously, in order to devalue the profession and to increase the pressure on current teachers as scapegoats. Very clever indeed.
Now we have idiots sitting in the back of classrooms barking instructions into microphones attached to earpieces in the teacher’s ear. We have daily walk-through intimidation tactics to further demoralize teachers and make their jobs increasingly unbearable.
We have lost due process/tenure, we are VAM scammed into submission, and we are held accountable for all of society’s ills yet we are not marching in the streets, burning things, breaking glass, shutting down traffic, occupying office buildings, screaming at the top of our lungs, or otherwise standing in the breach like endangered workers did and still do throughout the world to protect their livelihoods and their professions.
We are mostly silently outraged and impotent, posting comments on the Internet and having small group meetings.
They are winning the war against us handily.
And why? So we can be replaced by minimum-wage technicians who will monitor the flipped classrooms where the teaching takes place on computer monitors and tablets and all the technician needs to be able to do is troubleshoot basic technology glitches or steer students to the correct usage of the software. Low pay, no pension, no benefits.
The money flows to the “innovators” who will steal everything not tied down and who are openly and greedily monetizing the children of America and there is not a united movement to shame them into hiding and exile.
WAKE UP TEACHERS! PARENTS! CONCERNED CITIZENS! The war is escalating at an alarming pace and we have yet to fight our first battles, outside of a little opting out in isolated areas and a few impassioned speeches or Facebook posts.
What will it take to outrage you and get you in the streets? Will Chris Christie punching a Kindergarten teacher in the face do it? You are about to witness the complete and utter destruction of public education for all and the teaching profession in the USA. Are you OK with that?
A Facebook meme last week said that once we accepted that shooting children in school at Sandy Hook was acceptable the battle against gun control was lost forever. Sandy Hook brought about no change whatsoever.
Why aren’t we out marching around intimidating people like the gun owners who advocate open carry? Are we that craven and afraid? I hope to God that we can find our anger, our voices, and our willingness to fight and be bloodied for the cause of American public schools and the children they serve before it is too late.
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It’s not stupid if the idea is to degrade public services, and, indeed, public life itself, in order to make us all captive to unregulated corporations, regardless of the cost. Lower the pay of public employees, provide them with fewer benefits, allow and even promote lower quality services–not a bad recipe if one wants everyone to have no choice but to support corporations for all goods and services because there will be no other way to provide them. (Corporate Charter schools anyone?) Not a bad idea if one wants to make the distribution of all services dependent on personal income or charity. No money? No services. (Unless we like you.)
Rich people will be just fine. Poor people will suffer more. The middle class? Gone the way of the dinosaurs. (Middle class incomes have stagnated for nearly forty years now, under both Republican and Democratic leadership. Remember: no money, no services.)
The thoughtful Right and Left are coming together on the reality the American middle class faces: corrupt corporations (especially in finance) stealing just about everything under the sun (including both major political parties), while insisting that we applaud them for stealing and wasting tax dollars! Check out David Stockman’s Contra Stockman website–a very thoughtful Libertarian who called out Reagan at the very beginning of his presidency (as Reagan’s budget director), and Naked Capitalism, for a similar conclusion that comes from the Left. Either from the Right or the Left–crony capitalism is killing off the middle class and making life even more miserable for the poor.
ALEC is anything but stupid. They’re winning!
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In Wisconsin, Governor Walker and the right-wing legislature made a similar proposal – to cover the whole state.
John A. Matthews
Executive Director
Madison Teachers Inc.
821 Williamson Street
Madison, WI 53703
608-257-0491
matthewsj@madisonteachers.org
http://www.madisonteachers.org
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At bottom this is about not wanting to spend the money needed to solve the teacher shortage problem the right way.
These same folks who love the “invisible hand of the free market” despise any implementation of free market “supply-and-demand” principles when it comes to education.
A quick review on “supply and demand” rom wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
Here’s “The Fourth Law of Supply and Demand” —
*** “If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases (supply curve shifts to the left), a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.” ***
As applied to the Kansas teacher shortage (or any teacher shortage)…
In order to attract licensed teachers, or to influence those other people—whether kids in college considering which career to follow, or older folks considering a career change to teaching—into pursuing education, training, and ultimately licensing as teachers, the folks in charge of Kansas education WOULD HAVE TO UP THE INCENTIVE OF SALARY…
… as according to the free market “Fourth Law of Supply and Demand” such a shortage “should lead to a higher equilibrium price”… or, in other words, it should prompt those in charge to pay teachers more.
Since they ain’t about to do that, they have to deny the value of teacher education, training, and licensing. They then bring out the “studies” from their “think tanks” that prove traditional university education of teachers is worthless, that training makes no difference, so licensing is also a waste. Those without training, a university degree, and a license are just about the same quality as those who have all that.
Would they do this with any other profession? Doctors, dentists, nurses, police, firefighters? Since there’s less supply, let’s scrap the licensing of doctors and dentists and allow them to treat and operate on patients.
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It is just a matter of degree in Kansas. Every state in the union has people determined to discredit and eliminate public education in whatever ways available to them. I believe there is a chance, that they will overplay their hand……starting tomorrow night in the republican debate. I think it is likely that Trump and Walker will emerge way ahead of everyone else…….with Walker riding to the top as the champion of those who despise unions….especially teachers’ unions. but one third of the republican party does not amount to much……unless they get one sixth of the democrats……arne duncanidiots…..maybe I am on the wrong track…..but if my prediction is correct….Walker and Trump emerge as the two dominant people……keep an eye on whether the demcrats start pulling their heads out of whatever cavity they are lodged into and start considering whether it is about to start responding, instead of taking public educators for granted.
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Isn’t ALEC one of the top promoters of a “free market” economics philosophy?
Free markets would indicate that Kansas needs to raise its teachers salaries until the positions are all filled and teachers are clamoring to go there for the increased salaries and benefits.
OH, what’d you say, “That ALEC isn’t interested in free market economics, they’re only interested in how to get the most $$$ for their funders, i.e., the koch suckas.”? Hey, isn’t that what it’s about, changing one’s mind to suit those with the money?
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You can also lower barriers to entry into the market. This is like mandating banks make loans to people with very little proof of their ability to get the job done.
They might succeed they might not but you solved the problem of offering the service by removing those barriers that might be used to prevent someone trying.
It will become the problem of those who receive the service. Schools are going to be forced to consider inadequate replacements hoping that some pan out but the materials that will be ruined in the churn are lives.
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The situation is even more catastrophic
if you head west to Nevada, and
this is what’s coming to the rest of
the country.
The situation for teacher in both states
are like two canaries in a coalmine…
Or the tip of the sword… or the earliest
echo of the coming avalanche…
This is the game plan for teachers
in all fifty states.
This is what ed reform has wrought…
the de-professionalization of teaching…
and the downgrading of the caliber of
the teaching force. Check out this quote
(from the link BELOW):
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/06/402887228/las-vegas-betting-on-new-teachers-but-coming-up-short
—————————————-
—————————————-
“ ‘I feel like I’m being challenged, which is a definite change,’ says first-year teacher Jessica Adams. She used to work as a cocktail server at the Planet Hollywood casino and resort on the Vegas strip. Unfulfilled with that career, she joined a fast-track teacher training program to get into the classroom.
“Server Jessica is now Ms. Adams, the fourth-grade teacher.
“ ‘I really enjoy being with the kids and making a difference instead of serving tables,’ she says with a chuckle.
“The 26-year-old, who has a college degree in hospitality management, now works the floor in a temporary classroom trailer at Robert Forbuss Elementary, an overcrowded school in southwest Las Vegas.”
———————————–
————————————
Now, Jessica… if you’re out there reading this, I don’t mean to denigrate low-level service work such as cocktail waitressing, or degrees in “hospitality management”, but as kids these days say, “WTF!” (What the f-word!)
Are Bill Gates kids at Lakeside being taught by cocktail waitresses with a couple weeks “training”, and in converted trailers? Obama’s kids? Rahm Emanuel’s? Michelle Rhee’s? Campbell Brown’s?
The enrollment at ed departments are dropping like an elevator ride at a Disney park… and current teachers are fleeing teaching like… like… like… I can’t think of any more metaphors …
So what do they have to do in places where this crisis is being felt earliest—and there’s no union, or an extremely weak union (i.e. right-to-work-FOR-LESS states)?
Again, let’s take a trip to Sin City, U.S.A. and find out
about the teacher shortage there:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/06/402887228/las-vegas-betting-on-new-teachers-but-coming-up-short
“Las Vegas: Betting On New Teachers But Coming Up Short”
The title of the NPR piece is wrong; those in charge in Clark County and Las Vegas are most certainly NOT “betting on” teachers. “Betting” implies you’re putting money on the table on the square marked “teachers”. They’re doing nothing of the kind. They’re only betting on… or hoping… that they can continue “cheaping out” on what they have to pay teachers. They believe that they do this, in part, by coming up with ridiculous gimmicks to get people to work as teachers in lousy conditions and for lousy pay.
Back to NPR’s website:
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/06/402887228/las-vegas-betting-on-new-teachers-but-coming-up-short
——————–
———————–
“Many veteran educators here say the shortage is undermining morale and student learning.
“ ‘It shouldn’t necessarily all be put on the veteran teachers to help the new teachers,’ says fifth-grade teacher Rob Rosenblatt. The shortage and overcrowding issues, he says, mean more work and more stress for teachers.
“The district increasingly relies on long-term substitutes and online classes to help plug the holes. And there is a critical shortage of qualified substitutes.
“Sarah Sunnasy teaches fifth grade at Bertha Ronzone Elementary School. She has back trouble but says she almost never calls in sick.”
SCARY GRAPH ILLUSTRATING SHORTAGE
“ ‘I’ve come to school on days where I cried trying to get out of bed,’ Sunnasy says. ‘Because I know if I try to call in a sub, there is not going to be anybody there. And I’m not gonna put that pressure on the people that I work with to split my class or cover my class.’
“Last school year in the district about 500 teachers quit without giving any reason. One of Rosenblatt’s colleagues resigned a few weeks into the new school year. Rosenblatt says he and a colleague have had to pick up all the slack — lessons, report cards, grading and tests.
“ ‘Basically it was the two of us teaching not just our two classes but a third class on top of it. I even told my kids, ‘I’m neglecting you guys.’
“He apologized to his regular class but told them he had to step in because the class next door ‘just wasn’t getting the education they deserved.’ ”
————————-
——–
Things there are so godawful that to solve the problem, those in charge
even came up with this idiotic “superhero” teacher recruiting campaign where
Las Vegas’ (i.e. Clark County’s) anti-union school superintendent Pat Skorkowsky
went zip-lining through downtown Las Vegas like a superhero to drum
up publicity, and where all human resource dept. workers now wear superhero capes.
I’m not kidding… watch this video of this blithering idiot soaring through the air:
Hey, Pat Skorkowsky… why don’t you just pay educators a decent, (union-negotiated?) salary, with decent benefits, job conditions, etc.? This is a profession, not a low-level service job like cocktail waitressing!!! No… The Koch Brothers, corporations and the rich Red States’ don’t want their taxes raised.
The Ed Week article BELOW has Staci Vesneske, the district’s chief human resources officer, implicitly dismissing the notion of raising teachers’ salaries will be part of the efforts to address the teacher shortage. She’s basically saying that current teacher salaries are just fine-‘n-dandy as the are: (There’s more details about the “superhero” campaign)
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2015/04/are_you_a_certified_teacher_cl.html
——————–
———————–
ED WEEK: “One challenge in attracting candidates is wages. The starting salary for teachers there is just under $35,000, less than the national average and lower than other similarly sized urban districts. (The 2012-13 national average teacher starting salary was $36,141.)
“But that number may appear deceptively low, Vesneske said, because district employees do not pay for Social Security withholdings—the district covers those costs—and there are other financial perks that may make the salary worthwhile, she said.
“The need for teachers is more crucial in the elementary grades, but the district is looking for candidates in high-need areas such as math, science and special education, Vesneske said. Of the 2,600 teacher candidates the district is seeking, at least 1,000 will be elementary teachers, she said.
” ‘We are still looking for quality,’ she said.”
————————-
——–
… but we don’t want to have to pay anything for it….
she should have added.
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The blame lies at the feet of Obama and Duncan. No Republican president would have ever pulled what these two have done.
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BTW, the salaries aren’t “worthwhile” if in the end you are screwed out of part or all of your Social Security because of offsets.
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What’s the matter with Kansas?
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Well since the Civil War those Jayhawkers ain’t been quite right in the head, but then again that’s coming from Missouri boy!!!
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TAGO!
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Can’t find employment in your chosen field? Move to Kansas and be a teacher! Kansas has much to offer including underfunded schools so the teacher pay will be quite poor.
On the upside, I just discovered that according to Kansas Board of Education logic I am qualified for more jobs than I thought.
I have successfully balanced my household budget for twenty years with a high credit rating and no outstanding debt. I’ve never had a business course but I could be an accountant.
I have done reasonably well in gambling because my mind can calculate probabilities and odds very quickly. The only math class I ever took in college was Calculus III, but I could be a mathematician, maybe for a casino conglomerate.
I’ve read close to twenty economics books, even though I don’t teach it. I know theories from Smith, Keynes, Galbraith, Friedman, Menger, von Mises and Krugman. I could be an economist.
Training and formal education don’t matter. All I need is knowledge of the subject. I think I’ll write those things down on a resume and apply to some major companies and see who hires me. I bet that will go well.
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If you ever applied a bandaid to a paper cut, why not become a neurosurgeon according to Kansas’s encouragement and laws?
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I wonder if these “teachers” will even be subject to background checks. This is scary stuff.
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Excuse me, but why don’t the parents in these states hire the ACLU or whatever law firm, form a class, then just sue the hell out of the school districts, the state legislature, the governor, etc.?
It’s in every state constitution that it’s a basic constitutional right that the state must provide every student with a quality education, and that a state’s educational system should be fair and uniform. Clearly what’s being described here qualifies as such a constitutional violation in the states mentioned.
I mean, really. Throwing anyone or anyone in a classroom to teach kids? Cutting funding to the bone? Fighting any attempts to increase funding that would lead to an ability to pay more for licensed, quality teachers? Also, you’ve got politicians and state education officials going on record, making the most patently absurd statements in support of all these right-wing attacks on public schools.
Shouldn’t this be a slam dunk in court? I know they had a case in New Jersey, “Abbott v. Burke”, where the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that education is a constitutional right, leading to court-mandated funding and programs that exist to this day.
According to wikipedia, “The ruling asserted that public primary and secondary education in poor communities throughout the state was unconstitutionally substandard.[1] The Abbott II ruling in 1990 had the most far-reaching effects, ordering the state to fund the (then) 28 Abbott districts at the average level of the state’s wealthiest districts.
“There are now 31 ‘Abbott districts’ in the state, which are now referred to as ‘SDA Districts’ based on the requirement for the state to cover all costs for school building and renovation projects in these districts under the supervision of the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.,[2] although the term ‘Abbott district’ is still in common use since the Abbott districts receive very high funding levels for K-12 and are the only districts in New Jersey where the state pays for Pre-K for all students.”
“… Abbott districts are school districts in New Jersey covered by a series of New Jersey Supreme Court rulings, begun in 1985,[7] that found that the education provided to school children in poor communities was inadequate and unconstitutional and mandated that state funding for these districts be equal to that spent in the wealthiest districts in the state.
“The Court in Abbott II[8] and in subsequent rulings,[9] ordered the State to assure that these children receive an adequate education through implementation of certain reforms, including standards-based education supported by parity funding. It include various supplemental programs and school facilities improvements, including to Head Start and early education programs. The Head Start and NAACP were represented by Maxim Thorne as amici curiae in the case.[10]
“The part of the New Jersey Constitution that is the basis of the Abbott decisions requires that:
” [t]he Legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools for the instruction of all the children in the State between the ages of five and eighteen years.[11]”
Predictably, punchy Chris Christie, through legislation, attempted to eviserate “Abbott”, but was shot down in court.
“The Abbott designation was formally eliminated in the School Funding Reform Act of 2008, but the designation and special aid were restored in 2011 when the NJ Supreme Court blocked the Christie Administration from making any aid cuts to the Abbott districts while allowing cuts to other districts.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district
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There is no certainty of success in legal challenges. The GOP has been stacking the judiciary for decades and the Democratic presidents have long, long lists of unconfirmed judges who won’t ever even have a hearing. Mitch McConnell brags about this obstructionism frequently.
The judges that are seated are much like those on the Supreme Court that operate with a clear political agenda: conservative and business ideas are natural law, everything else is innovative and unsupported in the Constitution.
When a Florida judge agreed that our VAM system was unfair, that it would prevent people from becoming teachers, that it would result in teachers being fired unfairly, that it was rating teachers on test scores of students that they’d never taught, but then ruled that it was NOT unconstitutional I knew that the legal system was not going to be our friend.
Why haven’t you seen lots of class action lawsuits brought by the teacher unions? Because they know they can’t or won’t win.
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I suppose the State of Kansas will also say that Speech and Language Pathologist, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Phycologist, and other professional fields serving the students do not have to be certified to do their jobs. Amazing. Just hire people of the street to do the work.
Read “What’s the Matter With Kansas” by Thomas Frank. It is worth the read and very clearly states why Kansas is going to hell in the hand basket.
I was raised in Kansas. Used to be proud of the state and it people. Not now. My family and I could have moved back to the Jayhawk state but it became clear that the politicians are not really for the people — only themselves.
I am happy my children and granddaughter are having anything to do with the State of Kansas. It is a disaster in the middle of the United States that is a prime example of the direction the very conservative right wing is taking this county.
The politicians have fallen into the trap of ALEC. Need to check to see how many Kansas legislators are members of the ALEC and how many collect travel money and other benefits from the ALEC.
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I’m going to call this Tucson, Arizona op-ed that I found…
“MY FAVORITE COMMENTARY ON TEACHER SHORTAGES”
It refers to Arizona’s teacher shortage, but could be applied anywhere:
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/07/20/arizonas-teacher-shortage-and-how-to-fix-it
————
From the TUCSON WEEKLY:
—–
“Arizona’s Teacher Shortage (and How To Fix It)”
“By David Safier
“Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 11:12 AM
“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.”
———————————-
Makes perfect sense, right?
Well not to the first commenter, who lays the blame on, of course, the teachers unions!!!
And why is that? Why, those union jerks simply complain too much.
According to this line of thinking, the teacher unions’ “whining and gnashing of teeth”—and the “promotion” of similar “whining and gnashing of teeth,” among union members—has led to and exodus of teachers, and also discouraged people on the outside from choosing teaching as a profession.
Here’s the comment:
————–
“DEBBIE T.:
07/20/2015 at 11:53 AM
“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.”
————-
Really, Deb? And here I was thinking that it was due to the destructive policies that that those teachers are actually whining about, or about the corporate reformers in charge of Arizona education that implemented these policies… you know, like low salary, lousy job conditions, elimination of job protections, elimination of seniority pay…
No, no, no… that’s all nonsense. Thanks to you, I now realize that if unionized teachers would have just shut up and passively accepted all of these outrages, no one would have ever left teaching, and hordes of prospective teachers would now be lining up to be hired.
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Jack: thank you for the op-ed.
It is spot on.
😎
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Here’s a little more on Arizona:
I’m looking at the survey questions / data from this study on teacher attrition in Arizona:
Click to access err-initial-report-final.pdf
Here’s a shocker (on p. 29 of the Appendix):
———————————————————
“Question 14: In general, educators who were recruited out of Arizona typically remain in a district / charter school…
“ANSWER
…………………………………RESPONSES
CHOICES
“A) 0 – 2 years ……………………………. 40.94 %
“B) 3 – 5 years ……………………………. 48.32 %
“C) more than 5 years ………………….. 10.74 %
————————————————————–
Holy sh%& !
That’s an attrition rate of 41% leaving at 2 years or less. (i.e. more than 4-out-of-ten, more than 40-out-of-100)
and
an attrition rate of 89.26 % (9-out-of-10, or 90-out-of-100) leaving at 5 years or less … i.e. combined number of those leaving 0 – 2 years AND 3-5 years;
That’s just staggering.
It must just flat out suck to work as a teacher in that state.
Also, keep in mind that 31 schools surveyed refused to answer this question, with 149 answering. One can presume that many or all of those schools among the “31” did not have promising answers to that question that they wished to share.”
It would be like…
…you start out with 100 new teachers, all starting their teaching careers all on the same DAY ONE of the 2010-2011 school year… for neatness, call that first day …September 1, 2010…
… Fast-forward to five years later, and it’s DAY ONE of the new 2015-2016 school year… again, call it September 1, 2015…
… at this point, only 11 of those original 100 are still in the game commencing their sixth consecutive year as a teacher.
The other 89 have all left at some point during that same five-year time frame… September 1, 2010 – September 1, 2015.
Some may have quite in the first week of September 2010. (and yeah, that happens… I’ve seen it.)
Some quit just days before September 1, 2015, DAY ONE of the newest (2015-2016) school year. (and yeah, that’s happens, too… I’ve seen it.)
The rest quit somewhere in between those two extremes.
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On and here’s a cause-and-effect shocker:
Teacher bashing LEADS TO a teacher shortage.
For an article on the teacher climate in California and the constant “negative narrative” and blaming teachers:
https://www.cabinetreport.com/human-resources/teacher-bashing-may-be-turning-new-recruits-away
———————————————
“The precipitous decline in young people entering the teaching profession in California is now a 10-year trend, and cause for state officials to worry that the blame can’t all be placed on a hangover from the recession.
“Instead, there’s growing concern that the job’s appeal has diminished in the wake of broad-based criticism of teacher performance, demands for more accountability, and distrust of long-standing tenure and assignment protections.
…
“But during the decade ending in 2013-14, the number of teaching credentials issued in California dropped 52 percent – from 31,397 in 2003-04 to 14,810 last year.
“Perhaps even more telling, however, is that enrollment in teacher preparation programs is off almost 74 percent from 77,705 in 2001-02 to 19,933 last year.
…
“ ‘ This is more than just having a demand and advertising for it,’ she said. ‘I think some of it has to be resolved by talking about teaching differently than we’ve been talking about it in our policy community for many years now.
“ ‘Accountability is important. But the constant focus on who is to blame for low performance does not inspire talented young people to consider teaching as their calling,’ she said.
…
“David Simmons, an assistant superintendent over personnel at the Ventura County Office of Education, said districts in his region are actually having a hard time finding good applicants for job openings.
“ ‘The year before last, we had 400 people applying for a multiple subject credential (position),’ he said. ‘Last year we started to see a drop and this year it has been even harder to find qualified applicants.’
“The question of teacher salary has always loomed as a challenge to schools wanting to attract good talent, but Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association, noted that the tendency to blame teachers for all that is wrong in education is clearly turning off many applicants.
“ ‘Young people or second career individuals that are looking at the teaching profession are severely impacted by this negative narrative,’ said Vogel.
“ ‘ It’s based in the false premise that the difficulty we are having in the system is because teachers aren’t working hard enough, or there’s too many bad teachers or we’re not evaluating them right,’ he said. ‘Look at the people who are called to this profession – there’s a sense of altruism and a desire to give back to the community.’ ”
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There’s no evidence this “solution” improves anything in terms of student performance. I’m from Texas, and the most common use of non-certififed etchers has been to hire coaches in teaching positions for which they’re unqualified. Always been a way to keep adding more coaches w/o worrying about their classroom readiness. In Kansas, I don’t know what the effects will be, but Again there is simply no evidence there’s a cohort of “naturally-gifted, but unprepared” teachers waiting to be White Knights in their schools. But this isn’t about data to reason, it’s an ideological act of obsession/faith.
How much harm will, it do? Guess that depends on those that hire teachers in these districts. I have one other thought – certification arose in the urban districts of the northeast due to local politicians using teaching jobs as patronage. Somebody’s nephew couldn’t get a job but his uncle was a loyal party member, etc. I wonder where the patronage all flow and under what name??
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The teacher shortage is coast-to-coast. Peter Greene over at CURMUDGUCATION did a brief summary of each state’s shortage, complete with links to articles from these states:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/07/teacher-shortage-coast-to-coast.html
Greene states, “But mostly we need a new word, because we’re not really talking about a shortage of teachers– we’re talking about a lack of incentives and an excess of disincentives to go into teaching.
“Put another way– there is no state among the fifty that is paying top dollar, providing great working conditions, and treating its teachers like professionals that is struggling with a teacher shortage.
“Instead, states offer low pay, poor work conditions, no job security, no autonomy, and no power over your own workplace and voila!!– teacher ‘shortage.’ ”
For Greene’s summary of each individual state’s particular teacher shortage, check it out.
(long, but worth the read)
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/07/teacher-shortage-coast-to-coast.html#comment-form
I’ll just post the rest of Greene’s conclusions and reflections here:
(again, long but worth the read)
——————————-
PETER GREENE:
“WHAT DID WE LEARN?
“I did learn some new odds and ends. I had not realized the extent of the substitute shortage. I also didn’t realize that agricultural teaching was in trouble because of shortages of qualified teachers in that field.
“Teacher programs really are slowing down, though ideas about how to address that are… well, spread over a wide area. The Center for American Progress thinks we should make teacher school harder and put more obstacles in the way because that will make more students enroll? Surprisingly few commentators point out the obvious– that teaching has been beaten down for a generation.
“Not all shortages are created equal. The big three are math, science and special ed, but elementary teachers are being produced in more-than-sufficient numbers.
“But mostly we need a new word, because we’re not really talking about a shortage of teachers– we’re talking about a lack of incentives and an excess of disincentives to go into teaching.
“Put another way– there is no state among the fifty that is paying top dollar, providing great working conditions, and treating its teachers like professionals that is struggling with a teacher shortage. Instead, states offer low pay, poor work conditions, no job security, no autonomy, and no power over your own workplace and voila!!– teacher ‘shortage.’
“And in the interests of space, I didn’t even get into Right To Work states where teachers can’t bargain and just have to trust the tender mercies of the state.
“Look, even convenience stores get it. When my local place can’t get good people to work for minimum wage, they offer more than minimum wage. States who set a standard of ‘Barely Better Than North Carolina or South Dakota’ will always have a ‘shortage.’
“And yes– many of these states aren’t manufacturing a shortage so much as they’re trying to engineer a new definition of what a teacher is.
” ‘Look! If we define ‘teacher’ as a sentient adult willing to stand in a classroom, there’s no shortage at all!!’
“Still, whatever we call it, something is going on across almost all fifty states, not just the few that have made big news with their particular staffing issues. Some states have adopted a direct, thoughtful approach to the issues. Most have not. That’s the picture coast to coast. Incidentally– if you know something I missed in your state, don’t hesitate to shoot me a note or speak up in the comments.
“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 crisis at home.
“Likewise, folks let me know that many parts of California are wielding the layoff ax with verve, in a way that would belie any claims of shortage. If there’s a disconnect between reality and reportage, that’s a story, but it’s not one that this citizen hack faux journalist had the time to run down, yet.
“Teacher Diversity
“Only two states were talking about it. Why this issue keeps falling off the front burner is beyond me. It’s critical that our teaching force shift to reflect the new reality of diversity in our student population, but it’s just not happening, and nobody in a position to make a fuss is doing much about it. In all the talk of recruitment and retention, nobody is talking about getting non-white, non-female teachers into classrooms and keeping them there– and we should be talking about it a great deal.
“Shortages Are Not All Bad
“Teacher shortages aren’t so bad if you’re a teacher looking for work. And relatively mild ones can be a help.
“Here in PA, teacher training programs are drying up and shutting down because of low, low, low enrollment. That low enrollment is undoubtedly related to the fact that everybody knows a teacher who can’t get a job, or who had a job that she lost when the district shut down a school because of financials pressures created by our genius leaders in Harrisburg.
“Should we turn a corner some day (hey, it could happen), we’re going to go from teacher glut to teacher shortage very quickly, and once that happens, it takes years for college students to get the memo that, yes, there are teaching jobs again.
“So a little bit of shortage equals an encouraging job market that helps draw people into the field (assuming, of course, that you haven’t North Carolinaed everything up and made teaching hopelessly untenable as a career).
“The Substitute Thing
“I should have known. I mean, we’re in substitute trouble here even though we ought to be loaded with teachers who want to get a job.
“This is going to need its own piece, because it’s not clear what it means. Some writers consider it a sign of teacher shortages. In my area, I consider it a sign of two things– 1) that no human being not living in a van by the river could ever live on sub pay and 2) the former sub pool of nice housewifey ladies with teaching credentials who wanted to make a little grocery money on top of their husband’s real salary– that group is now living on Hippogryph Lane, just past the unicorn farm.
“But it is clearly a national issue, with all sorts of implications, and none of them are good. I’ll definitely get back to this.
“The Real Shortage
“It’s not teachers– it’s working conditions conducive to maintaining the nation’s teacher force. If we discovered that our armed forces were comprised of six skinny guys with slingshots, we’d want to know why recruiting was broken, and we’d try to fix it.
“We wouldn’t try to punish the six guys for not being one hundred bulky man-mountains.
“We wouldn’t try to make it harder to legitimately get into the armed forces while simultaneously picking up the slack by grabbing random people off the street.
“And we wouldn’t try to change the job description of a soldier (Anybody who can make a mean face should do) so that we could fill up empty spots without paying any attention to what we were filling them with.
“As I’ve said many times, it is mysterious that so many free market acolytes don’t seem to get this. You offer what the market requires you to offer. Instead, many states are trying to bite the invisible hand that has ceased to feed them.”
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What we have here is another example in the dismantling of a profession that dates back thousands of years to teachers like Jesus Christ, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, etc.
And why? For the money and the power to mold the minds of children.
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What could possibly go wrong!?!
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Be aware also that this is simply the first of many states to do this. ALEC always looks for states that will be the first to implememnt and then they will quickly mobilize in ither state capitals to get the same legislation introduced and hopefully, for them, passed.
Similar laws have already appeared in Florida and several other ALEC states. This is the next domino to fall amd it will go quickly, just like VAM and loss of due process.
Those who are sitting back and saying “I don’t live in Kansas. This too shqll pass when they see how bad it is!” are fools. It won’t matter at all how bad it turns out if this is what they want.
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Would you like fries with your grade?
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No, this will work just fine, if your plan is to create an under-educated service class…which I’m pretty sure is the plan.
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Kansas is the state what Thomas Frank described as crest of culture wars in his book some ten years ago. And the things are getting really worse since then. Screw you ALEC and Kansas state board of Education.
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Anybody else see the hypocrisy in Republicans here? Always talking about the free market solutions for everything yet when they don’t have enough teacher do they raise the salaries as the free market would dictate? Nope, they allow schools to hire unqualified people to do the job.
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This post makes my brain ache. Owie.
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Ok. Having had a moment to think about this – who created the “highly qualified” necessary definition for teachers? My kid, whenever filling out an application for a teaching job, had to answer the “highly qualified” question, which of course she is, having taken the then current praxis and passing. Kansas teachers don’t have to be highly qualified, and they don’t even have to be certified, or at all even teachers? I am not a fan of alternate route programs, and definitely hostile about TFA, but it seems no matter what hoops certified, qualified, experienced teachers take, they are s c r e w e d. I don’t get it. I thought the highly qualified federal mandate was necessary in every state, unless, of course, you are TFA, which always disgusted me. How can they take away the need to even be a certified teacher? Are they going to have hair dressing classes? Medical coding classes? This is simply stunning. My daughter is entering her 3rd year teaching; and will be eligible for tenure after her 4th, if she doesn’t get fired. I keep telling her to sell insurance; it seems a more stable profession.
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Highly qualified was a requirement of the No Child Left Behind law. Schools had to hire only “highly qualified” teachers to continue receiving federal funds.
You are right about the goalposts constantly being moved and that no matter what qualifications we acquire we are still without recourse.
First it was a master’s degree. Then it was National Board Certification. Then it was ever-increasing amounts of professional development hours. Then it became VAM. When teachers still largely scored as being effective around the country VAM started losing its appeal.
They haven’t quite figured out how, exactly, yet, to make their requirements so punitive and so harmful that teachers immediately quit and leave their pensions, salaries, and benefits behind for pillaging.
Utah is coming close to the ALEC ideal, though, it sounds like to me, what with stripping away a large chunk of their already low salaries.
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In these states, it will be significantly more difficult to get a license / job cutting hair than it will be to teach.
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This story should be paired with the articles/data coming out this week showing the exodus of teachers from Kansas, the new state shortages, and recruitment of leaving teachers by neighboring states. How disturbing that administrators bought ALEC’s agenda.
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