When you think of Las Vegas, you think of hotels and gambling, but Las Vegas also has a large school system, the Clark County School District. It enrolls more than 300,000 students and spends less than $7,000 per student. It is the fifth largest school district in the nation, and legislators have launched a process to break up CCSD into four districts. Critics say it will allow wealthy communities to secede and reenforce segregation. The district is dealing with budget issues, and class sizes are huge: 32:1 in fourth and fifth grades, and higher in higher grades.
Like many districts, CCSD has a serious teacher shortage. School opens today, and there are 900 vacancies for teachers.
The district hired 200 more teachers in May than it did during the same month last year, but teachers are leaving the district at an alarming rate.
More than 1,600 CCSD teachers quit the profession this past school year, up by about 600 over the past five years. Only around a third of those are due to retirements. Yearly resignations count for 6 percent of the total number of licensed teachers in the district.
Educators on the frontlines often say it’s the result of bad morale among those in the profession.
“This is the worst it’s been in all my years,” said Katie Decker, principal of Bracken and Long elementary schools.
“The amount of demands that are placed on them now, it’s a much tougher job than was placed on them years ago,” she said. “You gotta shift the culture.”
Decker, a nationally recognized principal known for her common sense leadership, took charge of Long this year as part of the district’s “school franchise” program. The elementary school is short eight full-time teachers going into this year, though long-term subs are lined up to fill the gaps for the time being.
Shortages are especially persistent at inner city schools like Long, where 76 percent of the student body is Latino and 77 percent qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. At Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, near Nellis Air Force Base, 93 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunch. The school is also short 20 full-time teachers, the worst shortage in the district. By comparison, earlier this year Canyon Springs High School had the worst shortage at around 10 vacant positions.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can see it now…..Teach For America to the rescue……..just as planned!!
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TFA has a shortage, too. Oh, what to do? And LV would have to PAY TFA. Paying is not in LV’s vocabulary.
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Clark county schools have always had a teacher shortage. I think they are very difficult schools to work in and you don’t have any type of job security
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Bingo. Same is true statewide.
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At bottom this is about not wanting to spend the money needed to solve the 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.
In order to attract licensed teachers, or to influence those other people—whether kids in college considering teaching as a career, or older folks considering a career change to teaching—into pursuing education education, training, and ultimately licensing as teachers, the folks in charge of Kansas education WOULD HAVE TO UP THE INCENTIVE OF SALARY… or pay teachers more.
Since they ain’t about to do that, they have to deny the value of teacher education, training, and licensing.
Would they do this with any other profession? Doctors, police, firefighters?
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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As a former CCSD, educator I must say that politicians on both sides of the aisle have abandoned public education in Vegas. The casinos pay very little and seem to almost desire an uneducated workforce. For the record, we loved the schools our children attended there even more than the ones they eventually attended here in Columbus, Ohio.
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Politicians on both sides of the aisle abandoned ed nationally, years ago. Obama has been awful. I vote for Sanders or nobody.
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I do not understand. It says that long-term subs are lined up t0 fill the gap. Why not hire them as full time teachers? Can some one explain to me why this is not the case?
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Many of them aren’t fully credentialed. You only have to have two years of college, plus 6 credits in education courses, to be licensed as a substitute in Nevada.
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Raj, that’s probably what will happen out of necessity. But, I should tell you, the quality of subs is shockingly low. Especially since we privatized our substitute teacher service. Subs in my district (in suburban Detroit) are paid $75 per day. You can imagine what you get for that. Either, retirees who have no interest in teaching every day or people who can’t get a full-time position.
In my districts, teachers hate taking a day off and really hate a Professional Development Workshop because the chances of getting a sub that can simply follow the simple instructions on a sub plan is about 1 in 4.
But hey, any adult will do for some, I suppose.
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Because subs are NOT the same as teachers. Regarding the way shrinking budget affecting school environment and working condition,
it’s quite unlikely that they would stay longer than regular teachers in the classroom. They will be gone–sooner or later, and find the jobs elsewhere.
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Yeah, that’s what the school board thinks! Just hire subs! Of course, they’re not credentialed teachers, but what the heck? They’re cheap!
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Labor shortages in any profession are an indication that wages are too low, and/or the conditions are intolerable. Probably a combination of both in the Vegas schools. Very sad situation for the students, teachers, staff, and community.
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Because Raj, they haven’t been through a teacher preparation program. Kind of like why we don’t hire nurses off the street who haven’t been through nursing school.
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Is there a pool of low-paid, no-benefits temp workers who fill in for fully licensed nurses who are taking personal or sick days?
Teachers have no problem with subs being in classrooms, even for extended periods of time, when it allows them to enjoy their benefits. It seems to me the situation in Nevada warrants a teach first, credential later approach, but of course this might cause some squirming on the part of the ed school/credentialing complex.
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No. Most if not all states don’t require substitute teachers to be fully credentialed teachers. In states like Oregon, subs have to have a bachelor’s degree, not necessarily an education degree, but if they are long-term subs, they must be required to have a teaching credential “in the subject area” as TSPC says. The dumb licensing board made the “long-term sub” requirement even worse–only ten days instead of three months–the past year, and now the state has a MASSIVE substitute shortage.
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You need to know what you are talking about before spewing garbage against teacher ed programs.
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Susan,
The elite private schools are comfortable with hiring on the basis of subject knowledge, not credentials. They employ significant numbers of teachers who have neither a graduate degree nor any formal training in education. If it’s good enough for the best and wisest . . .
Furthermore, my children have had outstanding experiences with classroom teachers who were NYC Teaching Fellows, one of whom was a career changer who had yet to obtain her masters. Both said that their summer fellows training was vastly more relevant and useful than their formal coursework.
The barriers to becoming a teacher ought to be part of any discussion of teacher shortages.
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Tim, see my post above on subs. And I can tell you from personal experience, subs don’t need to be and often are not credentialed. Your teach first and credential later model is in place in some places but this means that the classrooms are filled with teachers who don’t fully know what they’re doing. The likely outcome? Frustration and then noticing that support for teachers is very weak. This would churn even faster.
And again, subs are usually pretty bad. I have only seen one teacher who took extended leaves of sick days. Know what happened to her? Fired. Even the dreadful union saw how abusive she was of this practice. I have taken off two days in the last five years due to a sinus infection. The chief reason I hate a day off: pawning my students off on what is highly likely to be an incompetent substitute.
Sometimes I’m okay with your posts but you are way off here. (Oh and I’ll add that since we went to a privatized substitute service, the quality has dropped off even more. The reason? They pay $40 less per day for the subs. So imagine what you get for $75 a day.)
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“The elite private schools are comfortable with hiring on the basis of subject knowledge, not credentials.”
Which schools? Which subjects? What grade level? I can assure you that no elite private schools give a rat’s patoot about subject knowledge at the k-5 level, maybe not even k-8. Knowing how to teach and, more importantly, how to relate to students, are far more important. Even at the high school level, subject matter knowledge takes a back seat to teaching ability at all but, perhaps, the most advanced levels. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to teach business math, and most rocket scientists don’t have the skills needed to relate to the kinds of kids who take business math.
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” I can assure you that no elite private schools give a rat’s patoot about subject knowledge at the k-5 level, maybe not even k-8″
I think this is a bit of an overstatement, no?
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Which elite schools? All of them. 20% of the classroom teachers at the Lab School don’t have an advanced degree. It’s 21% at Lakeside; 24% at Harpeth Hall. In 2009, the most recent year for which I could find numbers, 37% of Sidwell Friends’ instructors did not have a graduate degree.
General intelligence and knowledge are tremendous assets for early elementary teachers to have. All that intellectual curiosity and exploration is very well served by someone who knows a lot of answers.
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Tim,
Your data on the proportion of private school teachers without graduate degrees proves the opposite of your point. A large majority of the teachers in the schools you mention have advanced degrees. Intellectual curiosity and love of knowledge lead educators to seek advanced degrees.
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In response to your private school stats: first, advanced degrees are not really the issue here. That’s your strawman. Advanced degrees are helpful. Second, the best and the brightest don’t really require the same quality of teacher as other places.
Sorry, but as someone who teaches both Advanced Placement courses and low-level students in history, I can tell you that teaching AP is a breeze in terms of classroom management. Those students respect education and see value in the process. They go along with everything as long as it’s not ridiculous. (The part of AP that is brutal is grading. Super time consuming.)
But those regular old kids who come from homes that don’t really stress education? You better have pedagogical knowledge there. Classroom management and being able to relate to students with no background knowledge is way different than teaching kids at the Lab Schools who grow up with two degreed parents and hundreds of books and resources at home.
Let’s plunk Lab School teachers into a disadvantaged or lower class neighborhood and see how they do. I can’t say for sure but one thing I know about really smart people: they have a hard time understanding why weak students can’t get the most simple concepts because it was so natural for them when they were young.
Your comparison is truly apples and oranges. I’ve talked to teachers at Detroit Country Day and they can’t comprehend what our public school classrooms look like and sound like.
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So the fact that about a fifth or a quarter of the teachers *don’t* have an advanced degree is supposed to be an argument in favor of the idea that elite private schools *do* care about subject matter knowledge at the k-5 level? I’m confused.
And, no, the teacher’s personal knowledge is largely irrelevant in a progressive elementary as far as exploration and curiosity go. It’s not about giving kids the answers, it’s about knowing how to help them find their own answers. What really helps is for the teacher to be curious him/herself and willing to explore (and to be vulnerable and even wrong) – capacities that can’t be taught.
BTW, there is no such thing as “general intelligence”.
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No Tim what this “warrants” is a dramatic increase in pay and I don’t see why you don’t see that.
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Tim, using the data you provided, this is what we’ve learned: 80% of the classroom teachers at the Lab School have an advanced degree. It’s 79% at Lakeside; 76% at Harpeth Hall. In 2009, the most recent year for which you could find numbers, 63% of Sidwell Friends’ instructors have a graduate degree.
Now, can you tell us how this “proves” that most elite schools don’t have teachers with graduate degrees?
FYI, this is just an anecdote, but the one teacher I know personally who teaches at an elite private academy, located in Massachusetts, only has a B.A. degree; but it’s from Yale.
But “elite private schools” comprise less than 2% of all K-12 schools in the United States—less by some estimates and definitions.
If these exclusive institutions had to serve approximately 90% of the nation’s K-12 students, as public schools do, their shortages would be far more acute and the struggles would inevitably parallel those of our public schools.
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Tim, there has been a nursing shortage, in many parts of the nation, and the world for decades now. Laws and regulations are what prevent a pool of low-paid, no-benefits temp workers who fill in for fully licensed nurses who are taking personal or sick days.
Are you suggesting we do away with such nursing laws and regulations? And if not, then why are you so seemingly cavalier about the possible consequences of doing exactly that when it comes to teaching?
Also, how many nurses do you know? I ask because the nurses I know have no problem with subs being in the hospital, even for extended periods of time, when it allows them to enjoy their benefits.
So it seems to me the situation in nursing warrants a nurse first, credential later approach, but of course this might cause some squirming on the part of the nursing school/credentialing complex. (Nasty, uptight, control freaks that they are—and all for such frivolous reasons like the health and well-being of their patients!)
Tim, I’m SO happy that there are people like you with your attitudes on the qualifications of teachers, because when it comes to our public schools, let’s remember what’s REALLY important—getting warm bodies to preside over our classrooms for as little compensation as possible—and not be distracted by such frivolous reasons like the education and future of our K-12 students.
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Huh?
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In Utah, substitutes need only a high school diploma.
I seldom use leave, even if I’m really sick, because most of the time the substitute destroys my classroom.
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Las Vegas just doesn’t get it. The pay for teachers is too low, whether you go to higher performing schools or low, the increased work loads and poor pay is ushering these teachers out fast. Pay a professional salary and treat teachers fairly and include them in decision making will turn this ride. Otherwise, they will be a district full of substitutes. If they break up the district, desegregate Las Vegas schools, then you will see major discrepancies in how they pay their teacher and treat their students. Education is not a priority among these school districts. It’s sad for students everywhere..
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Alternate certification programs are detrimental to the profession of teaching. The real motivator behind allowing anyone with a Bachelor’s Degree to become a teacher is to avoid paying professional salaries by filling the gap with unqualified workers and thus hiding the fact that there is in fact a National teacher shortage. How can anyone without the background in education become a teacher by simply passing a test? Where is your internship experience? Where are all of your vital education courses such as education law and evaluation and measurement as well as students with disabilities courses? What other profession allows anyone fresh off the street to join the ranks simply by passing a test? I don’t see any of this nonsense taking place within prestigious careers such as medicine or law.
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Very well said, and the rest of us have to make up for their incompetence as they struggle through the first years of their new ‘career’ using the kids in their rooms as test subjects.
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It is not about filling the gaps; it is about destroying the system.
And the reformers have done a good job of selling their faux – civil rights agenda, so that the district promotes high standards for teachers – standards it is unwilling to pay for. Additionally, teachers are treated badly, and the CCSD is full of bullying administrators with little classroom experience. Thus, a shortage. It is not about common sense or rationality. It is about political game-playing and pandering.
None of it is rational. The “reform” movement has infiltrated everything, selling its tricks, and the district has bought in big-time.
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Tim,
I too think there should be ten days of allowed sick leave in every profession. That way I won’t be served by people with contagious diseases at fast-food restaurants. And that 100 days at half pay when I had cancer was what everyone should have.
Obviously you do not have this. I am sorry you would not fight for such a right. However, I did. Because I was supporting a family, my benefits kept us off welfare, so I am glad I did.
My suggestion to you is: take job teaching in Vegas as a long-term sub. You’ll love it.
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I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I don’t support sick leave or disability pay.
I have no interest in becoming a substitute in Las Vegas. I think it would be in Las Vegas’s best interest to allow subs to be hired permanently at the discretion of school or district staff.
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Tim, should the subs be hired as full time teachers without the credentials or experience to be good teachers? Would that be okay with you? Would you send your child to such a classroom?
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Tim, using your logic, why not just let high school graduates teach our kids? Or those holding a GED?
After all, when my mother was growing up in rural Kentucky in the 1930’s, she was taught by a high school graduate in a one room school house, where approximately 60 kids from the first through sixth grades were all in one room, with the 5th and 6th graders acting as “teacher’s helpers,” assigned to assist her with teaching the 1st and 2nd graders.
Clearly, that would cost a lot less than the standards most districts have today. Should we return to that? And if not, why not?
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I guess CCSD’s slickly produced, multi-million-dollar “teachers-as-superheroes” media campaign—with the CCSD Superintendent zip-lining through the city—was a bust.
This lame-brained campaign was supposed to be the brilliant alternative to what corporate reformers view as an irresponsible, tax-sucking teacher salary increase.
Gee, I can’t believe that superhero campaign didn’t work. What on Earth could have gone wrong?
Well, let me tell you. You see, out in Los Angeles—and also in California in general—it works a little differently than it does in Nevada, our neighbor to the east. It’s really great living in a state that is not some anti-union Koch Brothers’ fiefdom.
First, in 2012, we “Californios” passed Prop 30, which increased taxes on all socio-economic groups, with every penny of the billions Prop 30 produced going only to education. (You should try that in Nevada)
(SIDE NOTE: billionaire school privatizer Eli Broad publicly supported Prop 30, but then it was exposed that he had secretly funneled tens of millions of dollars to a group in Arizona, which then funded the anti-Prop 30 campaign. His goal was destruction of public education. The media exposure of Broad’s duplicity turned the tide and let do Prop 30 passing.)
The folks in charge of LAUSD—thanks to those folks in Sacramento who allocate education funding—opted for a different approach than CCSD’s. The pro-union LAUSD school board negotiated with the UTLA teachers union, and gave LAUSD teachers an across-the-board double-digit pay raise of 10% — no bonuses mind you, that’s a 10% permanent increase in the hourly / annual teacher salary.
And, lo and behold, guess what happened?
No teacher shortage!!!!
Who’d have ever thunk it?
Indeed, LAUSD has been inundated with fully-credentialed teachers both from withint and outside of California wanting—and getting hired—to work here. Even with massive retirements this summer, there’s now a small teacher SURPLUS even, with a few hundred teachers subbing as they await any openings to move into—either during this coming school year, or a year from now.
Anyway, back to Vegas…
Things there had gotten so godawful there that to solve the problem, those in charge 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 rich Red States’ folks don’t want their taxes raised.
The Ed Week article BELOW has Staci Vesneske, CCSD’s chief human resources officer, implicitly dismissing the notion of raising teachers’ salaries will be part of the efforts to address the teacher shortage: (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.”
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… but we don’t want to have to pay anything for it….
she should have added.
And Staci Vesneske, one more thing — if what you describe as “the other financial perks that make the (CCSD teacher) salary worthwhile” were so gosh-darn great, why is CCSD now over 900 teachers short on the day school opens?
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Good work, Jack
For some more detail behind the teacher shortage, here’s the latest from Las Vegas (or Nevada’s Clark County School District – CCSD), to be precise:
This TV news clip is from last month (July 16, 2015) — where CCSD was still short over 1,000 teachers before school starts this month.
Watch this CCSD school board meeting where CCSD school board member (Trustee) Linda Young is pleading for for a raise in teacher salaries. She points out that low salary combined with high living costs has driven teachers into taking second jobs such as waitressing and bartending. To pay their bills, CCSD teachers are forced to go right from the classroom to one of those jobs, with an accompanying negative impact on students’ education.
Trustee Young’s words fall on deaf ears however, as the salary freeze will continue
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/ccsd-discusses-pay-freeze-teacher-shortage-meeting
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Channel 8 — LAS VEGAS NOW
Dozens of teachers rallied outside of the Clark County School District Thursday to protest the possibility of a pay freeze.
During a bond oversight meeting, Trustee Linda Young spoke to board members saying, teachers are already struggling to stay afloat with their current salary.
“The school day would be over by 1:30 p.m., they would go home and by 3 o’clock they would have to be at their second job,” said Young. “Sometimes their second job was either bartending or being a waitress. It was something else to help make ends meet.” “That’s very disturbing when you feel like you have to give your focus to a lot of mediating issues.”
In CCSD’s June budget, there wasn’t any room to increase any of the teachers’ salaries. Chief Financial Officer Jim Mcintosh says the legislature introduced Senate Bill 241 which doesn’t allow more money until a new agreement has been negotiated.
“We are currently in negotiations with all of our employee groups,” McIntosh said. “Our teacher contract will expire on August 18th, but ultimately it’s those contracts that will decide what people are paid and what they’re benefits will be.”
Many think the new law will affect the hiring process for new teachers. CCSD needs to fill 1,000 spots before the school year starts.
The district is working tirelessly to bring back retirees as far back as 2011. So much, CCSD is offering them an incentive of a regular salary and a they get to keep their pension that will be paid by the state.
However, many wonder if it will be enough to fill the critical teacher shortage.
(Wonder no more. It wasn’t)
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“This is a profession, not a low-level service job like cocktail waitressing!!!”
Great post, Jack, and a very valid point.
However, don’t expect this clear and cogent argument to hold any weight in a place like Clark County or Las Vegas—the city that ruined my sibling’s life (she died young and broke)—where, in all seriousness, cocktail waitressing is far more lucrative AND much more esteemed in the eyes of your average citizen than the “loser job” of teaching.
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The cocktail waitressing reference was from a larger post—excerpted here—that quoted an NPR article / radio piece profiling some emergency credentialed teachers. One of them was a cocktail waitress who, with no training, was thrown into a Vegas classroom.
The article is titled… “Betting on New Teachers, But Coming Up Short”, which I thought was an inaccurate title, because this implies that you’re putting money on the table—i.e. raises for teachers—and they’re doing nothing of the kind.
Here it is
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
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“‘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.
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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 teachers to work in lousy conditions and for lousy pay.
Back to NPR:
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NPR:
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.”
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““Californios””
I thought it was “Californinians”.
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Oh, you have the Spanish translation of “Californinians”. My bad!
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Like.
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The best way to solve our healthcare crisis is to let almost anyone with a degree in something call them self a doctor or nurse – we can wipe out the healthcare shortage overnight and Lower the cost of care. Cost of malpractice insurance will keep people honest and struggling to compete.
Why in education is the answer to lower barriers and elsewhere they just try to make the profession more attractive.
I could be a doctor for the rich in NYC – they don’t need much care and if they do I could just push them off onto a real knowledgable person not serving the wealthy.
Striking how much fits in this analogy.
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Bingo ^^^^^^^^
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I had my wisdom teeth pulled. I believe that qualifies me to sub for any surgeon and get credentialed later.
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I hear you. Loud and clear.
I think that a lot of people start with the idea that “Hey, I went to school for years and I saw what teachers did. It was no big deal and anyone can do it. I know this because I went to school and because of that I know how easy it is to teach.”
So…by that same logic, I could easily be a dentist. I had terrible teeth as a kid so I was in the dentist’s chair at least two or three times a month during my entire childhood. Who could possibly be more equipped to take care of other people’s teeth than me?
And I went to the doctor quite often as a child—and now as an adult. I saw what the doctor did. And mind you, I’ve never had serious surgery so I’ll make no pretensions to being able to do that, but I could easily do what my family doctor did. I watched him closely. Piece of cake. No degree or special training required.
Finally, I’ve been sued on three occasions and I’ve sued seven different individuals and/or companies in my life. Also, I’ve been arrested once during a peaceful protest! Why couldn’t I serve as someone’s attorney after such extensive experience. Better yet, one of my grade school classmates has been in constant trouble with the law since he was a preteen, and has been arrested and convicted of crime on multiple occasions: He’d make an excellent criminal attorney. Don’ you think?
What’s that? Some people are ridiculing my logic? How dare they? After all, they didn’t ridicule those people who said that anyone who ever attended school could be a teacher. Did they?
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One thing that is really ticking off the veteran or returning teachers in Las Vegas is that CCSD officials are offering and paying $5,000 one-time bonuses to new emergency credentialed teachers who sign up—in the process, using up the $10 million the legislature allocated for teacher raises, instead giving the money to people who’ve never before set foot in a Las Vegas school classroom.
Instead, CCSD instituted a salary freeze, which is bringing protests, like the ones covered in this news report:
http://www.news3lv.com/content/news/story/CCSD-teachers-protest-salary-freeze-for-2015-2016/wduC6WEXDEqbjD9BBisX6A.cspx
In this report, CCSD’s H.R. person in charge of recruitment, Staci Vesneske, does not seem troubled in the least about this:
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“The money that was being provided did not include money for additional salary and pay increases so we had to pass on that in our budget because we couldn’t afford not to,” said Staci Vesneske, CCSD’s Chief Human Resources Officer.
We asked Vesneske about the sign-up bonuses. “The money going to new teachers is only ten million dollars,” she explained. She said pay raises would have cost the district another $32 million.
“They need to look at their budget. We’ve looked at that budget and there’s money in that budget,” said (teachers union leader John) Vallardita.
John Vallardita said the union is still negotiating with the district. “It’s unacceptable to hear that that school district has no money for any of its employees,” he continued.
Although the school board adopted a budget, it’s not final. It will be looked at again in September.
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Those unappreciated veteran teachers have even started a Change.org petition about their plight:
https://www.change.org/p/the-clark-county-school-district-unfreeze-teacher-and-support-staff-salaries?recruiter=334966395&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=mob-xs-share_petition-reason_msg&fb_ref=Default
Now, let’s look at some of those emergency-credentialed newbies who are getting the $5,000 bonus (while returning veterans don’t get one penny.).
I found this news clip about the lengths to which Nevada is going to combat teacher shortage…. by taking in teachers with dubious on-line degrees. The following news report approvingly mentions in passing that the woman being profiled received and earned her degree from Western Governor’s Univeristy, and includes and interview from someone from WGU defending that institution:
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/news/ccsd-finding-teachers-through-online-programs
However, it fails to mention that this Western Governors University is notorious on-line diploma mill, which is backed by Jeb Bush, Tennessee Governor Haslam and others. It’s frequently mentioned along with the disastrous University of Phoenix and other on-line college scam outfits.
No one behind this report ever thought of GOOGLING to get another point-of-view on this alternate means of credentialing teachers.
SCHOOLS MATTER has gone at WGU before:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/haslam-bush-wgu-and-mcgraw-hill.html
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SCHOOLS MATTER:
“On January 14, 2013, the successor to the Bush dynasty, Jeb Bush, was in Nashville to talk up charter schools, vouchers, test-based teaching, and the Common Core Corporate Standards. What was not on the public agenda was another money maker that is dear to Jeb’s heart:
“Western Governors University and the potential billions attached if WGU gets sewn into the fabric of American public higher education.
“Due to corporate and political connections of its presient, Robert Menhenhall, WGU has experienced exponential growth in recent years, moving from 5,500 students in 2006 to over 30,000 today. Mendenhall is a former IBM exec, who was IBM’s K-12 general manager (1992-1999) during the heyday of Lou Gerstner, who was the corporate alpha dog in Charlottesville in 1989, when Bush the First put a handful of governors and business CEOs in charge of reforming American education.
“Fast forward a bit to 2010, when President Menhenhall was named a winner of a McGraw Prize, a signal honor for anyone with aspirations to get rich in education.
“Less than two years later, WGU signs a deal with McGraw-Hill to purchase McGraw-Hill etexts and its LearnSmart system for its ‘competency-based’ learning systems. Competency-based at WGU, then, means stuffing down ‘learning’ materials without the expensive burden of a professor to get in the way with boring lectures and that sort of thing.
” ‘Look mom, college with no campus, and no professor.’
“Now that’s efficiency.
” . . . a landmark agreement to establish a ‘pay-for-performance’ model in which McGraw-Hill will receive variable compensation for those WGU students who use MHE technology and services for a particular course and pass.
“Through the partnership, McGraw-Hill Education will provide e-books and access to industry-leading adaptive learning tools including McGraw-Hill LearnSmart to Western Governors University’s (WGU) online courses. Under this new pricing structure, the university will pay a significantly discounted flat fee for McGraw-Hill’s course materials.
“In addition, WGU will pay McGraw-Hill a premium for each student who uses the materials and passes the course (a passing grade at WGU is equivalent to a letter grade of ‘B’ or better). Through this new pay-for-performance model, universities and learning companies share in the accountability for student success and students gain access to premium educational materials while keeping costs low.
“Then in November 2012, Jeb was commencement speaker for WGU in Atlanta, where just 375 of the thousands of diploma mill graduates showed at the Phillips Arena (seating capacity 18,000+).
“Which brings us back to Tennessee just a few weeks later to January 14, 2013, when Bush met with Haslam to talk corporate ed reform. Something obviously clicked at that meeting, for less than a month later Haslam was doing the following informercial on YouTube
” to promote a sweetheart deal to hand over $5 million in public money to set up an office for WGU in Tennessee., with Gates kicking in $750,000.
“This public largesse for an out-of-state corporate diploma mill comes at a time when public universities and community colleges can’t pay the light bills or cut the grass.”
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By the way, here’s some more douche-bag governors and others promoting the WGU scam-o’-roo:
from Utah, it’s Governor Gary Herbert:
from Texas, it’s Governor Rick Perry:
from Nevada, it’s Governor Brian Sandoval:
from Indiana, it’s former Governor Mitch Daniels:
Oh.. and here’s Arne Duncan’s second in command, Under-Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell shilling for the WGU scam:
Oh, and here’s former Secretary of Education (under George W. Bush) Rod Paige shilling for the WGU scam:
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Teacher bashing LEADS TO A teacher shortage.
For an article on the teacher climate in California:
https://www.cabinetreport.com/human-resources/teacher-bashing-may-be-turning-new-recruits-away
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“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,’ Vogel 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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This is playing out according the plan… teaching should be a short-time gig… not a career
John Deasy said any teacher that stays longer than 5 years is suspect. Michelle Rhee said the same thing. Here’s another quote:
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KATI HAYCOCK: “But what we need to do is change the idea that education is the only career that needs to be done for life. There are a lot of smart people who change careers every six or seven years, while education ends up with a bunch of people on the low end of the pile who don’t want to compete in the job market.”
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So Kati divides public school teachers into two categories:
1) HIGH QUALITY: that small minority — the elite “smart people” (TFA & others) who, over a lifetime, “change careers every six or seven years”— with just one career being teaching, and the other five or six being non-teaching careers—and who, albeit briefly, deliver the highest quality of education to their students before moving on…
… OR…
2) LOW QUALITY: the vast majority — the “low-end-of-the-pile” slackers who make teaching a long-time career, merely to avoid having “to compete in the job market,” with teaching being a place to hide out and be lazy… and, in the process, willfully destroy the academic and career potential of millions of students… and who do so without the slightest twinge of conscience.
In Kati’s deranged mind, if you teaching in classroom for more than five years—ten years at the absolute most—you’re guilty-as-charged of being one of those “low-end-of-the-pile” slackers that are driving our country to ruin.
Seriously, teaching is “the only career done for life”? What is she smoking?
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We really need to address these misconceptions about teachers. Most do not come from the lower third of their classes. In Utah the governor pursued a study to see if this was really true. It turns out that the opposite is actually true. Most teachers come from the top tier of their classes. In Utah students must carry a minimum GPA of 3.0 to be accepted into the colleges of education. Most have GPA,s in access of 3.75. In addition, many colleges also require an entrance exam of basic LA, Math and Science skillsbefore acceptance into the program. There is also a required essay and interview. I personally knew several students who could not apply because they lacked the needed skills.
This is only one misconception. There are many others. The govenor’s office addressed many of these and discovered that they were unfounded. These misconceptions not only hurt educators but the public at large. This truly needs to be addressed.
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I am so sick of this right-wing corporate reform think tanks, and their stereotypes and myths about teachers… as if we’re just a bunch of Jeff Spicoli’s (from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH) or Cameron Diaz’ character from BAD TEACHER.
The folks with a degree in teaching followed by an apprenticeship as an aide, followed by student teacher, then a masters… are light-years ahead of these TFA’s (nothing personal, I’ve liked most of the ones I’ve met, but I’m sorry, they’re amateurs.)
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Someone needs to show these studies to Howard Stephenson (a VERY anti-education Utah senator).
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I will borrow from virginiagsp’s playbook and write responses to several comments in one place.
First, one very important clarification: I didn’t say that Las Vegas should hire each and every one of its long-term subs, only the ones that district officials and principals have evaluated first-hand and judged to be capable of doing the work. If they have proven themselves, and if there is a massive, potentially crippling teacher shortage, then why shouldn’t these teachers be hired and allowed to finish up their paperwork while on the job?
The point of bringing up the percentages of teachers at elite private schools who do not have master’s degrees is simple: if the best and wisest parents embrace a nontrivial number of non-credentialed teachers being in classrooms with their kids, or with teachers who get their advanced degrees in subjects other than education, then why shouldn’t it be an option for public schools?
dunl0005 asked if I would be comfortable with my children having a long-term sub or a teacher who hadn’t obtained his traditional credentials. As I wrote in a previous comment, one of my children had an extremely positive experience with a first-year teaching fellow, and they’ve all had the normal range of experiences with substitutes. If were a Las Vegas parent, I would probably prefer a smaller class with a vetted and principal-approved sub than I would a class of 40-50 kids with a fully credentialed teacher.
Many commenters attempted to argue by analogy (never a good idea!) that having an non-credentialed teacher in the classroom is the same as having a person with no professional training perform surgery, dentistry, law, and so forth. This circles back to one of my original points: if coursework at a graduate school of education is so vitally important, then why are non-credentialed substitutes allowed in classrooms, period? Steve K addressed this by describing the heroic lengths that he and his colleagues go to to avoid being out of the classroom, but they are far from typical. The average daily teacher attendance rate in New York City is 95% (at one school in my district, it was 91% last year). That is just personal and sick days; throw in professional development and the average New York City classroom needs at least 12-15+ days’ worth of coverage every year, with a lot of that being provided by non-credentialed subs. Should parents enter every school year expecting 8-10% of the instructional time to be a wash?
The average starting and average salaries of Clark County teachers are in line with national averages, as is the cost of living in Las Vegas, and the average salary ($53,000, not including benefits) is right about at the median *household* income for the metropolitan area. Increasing salaries could very well be a good way to address the shortage, but I don’t think it is accurate to say conclusively that money is the cause of it.
Has Clark County attempted to recruit teachers from New York State? We’ve got a big surplus of young recently credentialed teachers who are struggling even to find substitute work: http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2015/01/23/tough-job-market-teaching-candidates/22235837/.
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“I will borrow from virginiagsp’s playbook . . . ”
Are you sure that you two aren’t twins who were separated at birth?
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Just having a little fun with both of you!
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And how is this being dealt with? By telling teachers that there is no money for salary increases, and failing to agree on a contract. This after teachers supported an unprecedented school funding increase in the state, which was all-Republican led during the past legislative session. The funding increase passed.
It is being done on purpose, in my opinion. Another way to destroy the public education system. Those with big money pay many fine minds to come up with ways to make more big money. They are setting it up so they can’t lose, one way or another. For example, the unprecedented funding increase was strongly earmarked.
And breaking up the district, which would have some good results, I think, is also being done to decimate teacher collective bargaining. Additionally, long-term subs are cheaper. And, as someone said, it’s a way to bring in more TFA.
It’s absurd what is happening. Unfortunately, journalism in Las Vegas is so poor that the public is unaware. Honestly, so are many teachers.
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Only 34 percent of departing teachers who completed Clark County’s exit survey agreed and strongly agreed that they were satisfied with my employment, according to documents provided to The Huffington Post. Twenty percent said they disagreed that their employer treated them with respect, 46 percent disagreed that morale was good, and more 35 percent said they would not recommend the district as a good place to work.
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