Phyllis Bush is a member of the Board of the Network for Public Education. She is a retired teacher and a passionate fighter for better public schools. She is one of the leaders of the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education. She has been outraged again and again by the actions of the Governor and the Legislature that demean public school teachers and show preference for charters, vouchers, and inexperienced teachers.
There was a hearing in Indianapolis to explore why there is a teacher shortage. Phyllis drove there with friends to testify, but the hearing lasted so long that there was no time to hear the public.
This is the letter that Phyllis sent to the Board of NPE:
FYI—six of us from Fort Wayne drove to Indianapolis yesterday to speak at the hearing about the teacher shortage. I figured that there would be at least an hour of “expert” testimony before there would be public comment. However, our “drunk with power” committee chairs decided that we needed even more expert testimony—five and a half hours more. To be fair, there were some members of the committee who pushed back, but because they are in the minority, their views were dismissed as well
I just emailed this to the members of the interim study commission. I was so wired when I got home last night that I couldn’t sleep, and when I finally did get to sleep, I was awakened by a leg cramp—and now I am even more livid about how Kruse and Behning wasted the time of the 40 plus would be speakers—most of whom did not stick around to talk because it got so late. The hearing ended at 8:40 last night.
I hope things are going better in your part of the world.
Phyllis (mad as hell and ready to smack someone upside the head)
Dear Senator ______
Because of the structure of the interim session yesterday, we were unable to stay for the whole marathon hearing. I spoke with Rep. Smith, who then spoke with Sen. Kruse about the length of the hearing. Since there were no assurances of when we might possibly be able to speak and since the “experts” were still testifying at 5:30, our group of six people (who care about public education) decided to leave.
I hope that in the future the Chairs of these committees will be mindful of the fact that many people who wish to have their voices heard come from other parts of the state at their own expense and on their own time. While I realize that it is important to have “expert” testimony (especially paid out of state experts), it seems disrespectful not to pencil in time to listen to the voices Hoosier taxpayers and Hoosier voters.
Thank you,
Phyllis A. Bush
I left a copy of my testimony with Rep. Smith, but just in case you didn’t receive a copy, here it is.
My Testimony for Today’s Hearing
PHYLLIS BUSH·MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2015
Public education is so important; that is why I keep driving to Indianapolis to testify about various and sundry education issues. Sometimes it seems futile, but I won’t give up. If I don’t speak out when I see the consequences of misguided educational policies that are so fundamentally wrong, then I am complicit in the damage done to public education. Having said that, I will continue to speak out against what seems to be a legislatively orchestrated attempt to destroy public education. I’m tenacious by nature, so I’m in to stay. I’m in until Public Education is made whole.
Given the current teacher scapegoat climate both in Indiana and in the nation, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out why there is a teacher shortage. When our legislators and policy makers continuously demean and disrespect teachers, is it any wonder that teachers are leaving the profession faster than rats leave a sinking ship? Is it any wonder that young teachers would not want to stay in a profession where there is little chance for a salary increase based on spurious and often inaccurate data? Is it any wonder that good teachers don’t want to continue spending a great share of their time preparing kids for tests and teaching to the test? Is it any wonder that they don’t want to carry out state mandates which they know are instructionally inappropriate?
If we are to look for the causes of this supposed teacher shortage, the finger should point directly at the feet of government officials in this state and across the nation who have scapegoated, demeaned, and devalued the teaching profession.
When people are belittled or told that they are worthless or inadequate, when the expectations are inappropriate and punitive, when the opportunities for expressing views are stifled, there is a toxic mixture of factors which border on abuse.
How many new teachers will be drawn to a profession where there is no respect, where there are few rights, and where they are viewed with the same lack of respect as minimum wage workers are?
Maybe this committee is asking the wrong questions.
Is there really a shortage of teachers or is it that teachers have fled the profession because of untenable working conditions?
Superintendent Glenda Ritz and her Blue Ribbon Commission have made a list of suggestions which target teacher retention and recruitment, and their list sounds much like what teachers have been asking for since the so-called reforms of Mitch Daniels and Tony Bennett. Our organization, the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, is ready and willing to help by offering concrete suggestions.
Rather than discussing whether or not there is a teaching shortage, perhaps this committee needs to be discussing what is our legislature planning to do to repair the damage that has been done before it is too late?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This an article that appeared in the Oct. 20, 2015 Times of NW Indiana:
INDIANAPOLIS | State lawmakers got a sampling Monday of the complexity of Indiana’s teacher shortage and heard a variety of ideas to alleviate it.
Between 2009 and 2013, federal data show the number of Indiana college students taking teacher training courses fell to just 8,991 from 18,113 five years earlier — a 50 percent drop.
At the same time, Hoosier schools have struggled to keep teachers in the classroom — particularly in high-need, low-income urban schools — due to difficult working conditions, little academic freedom, few salary increases and an almost single-minded focus on standardized testing.
The difficulty of recruiting and retaining teachers played out across Indiana a few months ago, when some 10 percent of the teaching slots vacant at mid-summer remained unfilled on the first day of school, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency.
Experts told the Legislature’s Interim Study Committee on Education that Indiana could fix the shortage by making it easier to become a teacher, providing student loan forgiveness, recruiting more teachers from neighboring states, increasing pay, stopping the denigration of the profession and many other measures.
Lawmakers are likely to propose legislation to implement at least some of those suggestions when the General Assembly convenes in January, though some remained skeptical a teacher shortage even exists or requires legislative attention.
A separate, four-month teacher shortage review led by Glenda Ritz, the state superintendent of public instruction, is set to announce Dec. 7 the policies the teacher-led panel believes are needed to increase the state’s teacher supply.
Indiana State Teachers’ Association (ISTA) posted this today:
October 20, 2015
A legislative study committee looking into Indiana’s teacher shortage met late into Monday evening. Close to six hours of testimony was heard from its hand-picked witnesses. The hearing which began at 1 p.m. lasted almost 8 hours.
Legislators heard from more than a dozen of their own “experts,” some of whom were from out-of-state—and all of whom conceded that the data they were sharing today “had low response rates,” “has limits,” “has holes in it,” “should be taken with a grain of salt,” and “needs more work and is inconclusive.”
Those revelations got us past hour number five of the hearing.
Chairman of the study committee, Sen. Dennis Kruse, announced several times throughout hearing that more than 40 people were signed up to testify, warning that the hearing could last until 9:00 p.m.
Some ISTA members on fall break traveled to the hearing to testify about the troublesome changes they’ve experienced in their profession—resulting in difficulties in attracting and retaining quality teachers—and which negatively impact students. However, the shear length of the hearing caused most of these members and many other interested parties to leave to meet their family obligations. Not surprisingly, those who were able to stick it out, represented well.
ISTA was not called on to testify until nearly 8 p.m. By this time, only six of the 14 committee members were left in the chamber.
Ensuring that ISTA members would be heard, ISTA’s testimony consisted of sharing the stories, the experiences, and the passion of its members gleaned from the series of “Let’s Connect” forums it convened around the state this fall.
Since the study committee announced in late summer that it was going to hold a hearing on the teacher shortage, ISTA expressed disappointment that this single hearing was scheduled at a time where Indiana’s true experts—classroom teachers—would not be able to personally testify. Still, going in, ISTA viewed the hearing as an opportunity to initiate some positive change.
But the hearing, as much as any one thing, continues to expose the underlying perceptions that center on disrespect. The committee is saying that it will meet next Monday, October 26th at 1:30 pm to determine legislative recommendations. Stay tuned.
ISTA thanks its members who offered these (and many other) insights this fall. Thanks, too, to those who provided written testimony which is being shared with the committee and to those who took precious time away from your families to travel to Indianapolis. And, to all our members who serve Hoosier children every day, you are the best! You do your profession proud.
Here is another article speaking to the same issues:
TEACHER TO LEGISLATORS: I’D LOVE TO STAY IN THE CLASSROOM IF I COULD AFFORD IT
After a long meeting today Rep. Behning said recommendations wouldn’t come until next week
David Mikesell, a teacher from Portage, is worried the only way he’ll be able to secure a future for his family is to eventually move on to an administrative job to earn more money.
Mikesell was one of a handful of educators and others who stuck around for almost eight hours to tell a legislative study committee today that low pay, along with frustrations with testing and accountability, are discouraging aspiring educators from entering the profession and good teachers from staying.
“I would love to remain a teacher if I could afford it,” Mikesell said.
The committee of lawmakers has grappled with two big questions: Does Indiana have a teacher shortage? And if so, what can be done to fix it?
There haven’t been any simple answers.
The committee was expected to finish recommendations today, but after at least 15 presentations and numerous public comments, there was still little definitive data from experts about how big the problem actually is.
So far, no specific solutions that Indiana lawmakers could pursue have broad agreement.
Even the question of whether there actually is a teacher shortage in Indiana isn’t settled. Data presented to the committee from state agencies about how many students are enrolling in university teacher training programs, and whether it has fallen, wasn’t always conclusive.
For all those reasons, House education committee chairman Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, said forging final recommendations will take another meeting. The committee is expected to meet again at 1 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Statehouse.
“I don’t think any of us have all the answers,” Behning said. “I don’t think any of us have all the data we need to make logical suggestions as to what the problem is and to how we’re going to fix it.”
A variety of strategies were suggested by experts and educators to smooth teacher hiring and bolster retention.
The state could transition away from pay bonuses for high test scores back to more regular salary increases, one suggested. Creating bigger mentoring programs could better support new teachers, keeping them from getting discouraged, said another. The state could also take steps that make it easier for teachers from other states to get licensed in Indiana. Or it could pay teachers in high-demand areas, like math, science and foreign language, more money than others.
Julie Hollingsworth, a member of the Fort Wayne board of education, said the weight student ISTEP scores have on teacher evaluations, and that potential score drops this year could bring down school grades for 2015, makes it pretty clear why teachers might shy away from careers in Indiana.
“If the legislature does not suspend the use of these scores for grading schools and evaluating teachers, it will send a very clear message to teachers how little their efforts were valued,” Hollingsworth said. “Who wants to go into a profession when you are so obviously set up for failure? You cannot improve education by demeaning the people who do the work.”
Many teachers who spoke to lawmakers decried salaries that started low, and increased only moderately with the addition of master’s degrees and 10-plus years of experience. Rep. Melanie Wright, D-Yorktown, said in her school district, the top of the pay scale is about $54,000.
“I don’t know how you raise a family on that,” Wright, a 28-year teacher, said.
While there are certainly districts that have had a hard time hiring, Rep. Rhonda Rhoads, R-Corydon, said those problems aren’t necessarily new. She thinks some of the hiring problems can be explained by what those in the Baby Boom generation, now retiring, and younger teachers expect from jobs — both in terms of how long they stay, and what they expect to earn.
“This is not a new thing, there have been teacher shortages over the years,” Rhoads said. “I have a paper here from 1982 … there’s always been in and out just like this. There’s a difference between certain age groups and what they want in jobs.”
Indiana’s Legislative Services Agency sent out a survey to school superintendents last month asking about open jobs. But just 26 percent of the state’s school districts and 22 percent of charter schools responded, causing some legislators to question the validity of the survey.
“Are you concerned at all about how valid this is?” asked Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary. “I’m just trying to figure out how much credibility we should put into this.”
Of the 181 unfilled jobs reported that were still available in school districts and charter schools, 28 percent were in special education, 16.6 percent were in elementary schools and about 13 percent were in math and science.
Statewide projections based on the survey responses showed a possible 733 open jobs across the state as of the time the survey was given.
Using department of workforce development data and data from higher education about students who complete education degrees showed that across the state, demand for teachers outpaced supply significantly when it came to teaching assistants, but otherwise, the numbers were fairly close. There were some notable gaps in the supply of special education teachers in most all grades.
However, officials said that this model was not conclusive because of limited data that was available.
There’s still a separate report to legislators expected from a 49-person panel created by state Superintendent Glenda Ritz to study the issue of recruiting and retaining teachers. The panel has met throughout the past month to come up with strategies to keep more teachers coming back to teach year after year.
According to education department data, Indiana school districts brought back about 80 percent, or four out of five, of their teachers the next year in the same schools between 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Typically, presenters reaffirmed that hiring tends to be hardest for schools in isolated rural communities and high-poverty urban neighborhoods. Jobs that require more schooling or specialized skills, such as science, math and special education teaching jobs, are also harder to fill.
According to information from the Commission on Higher Education, there’s been a 37 percent decline in students completing teacher preparation programs from 2004 to 2014, but that doesn’t include teachers from alternative programs such as Teach For America or The New Teacher Project, said Teresa
Lubbers said that while data is important, there’s a lot more that needs to be researched, including what could happen with the state’s pipeline of teachers who teach high school classes for college credit. Changes to education requirements for dual-credit teachers could dramatically reduce the number who are eligible to teach.
“In addition to the shortages that we think we might have by geography or subject or grade or gender, we also have a problem with dual credit,” Lubbers said. “The challenge for us is to really identify what the scope of that might be.”
[http://in.chalkbeat.org/2015/10/19/teacher-to-legislators-id-love-to-stay-in-the-classroom-if-i-could-afford-it/?utm_content=buffer40442&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.ViagWX6rQdU\]
This post hit home with me because I a former teacher who quit due to pay and loss of autonomy due to being required to teach to standardized tests (and the fact our district mandated students take STAR, NWEA MAP, ACT practice assessments, etc). It was too much for 36k annual salary. Falling further and further in debt, I had to quit.
I accepted an engineering position with starting pay over double my base teaching salary. The sad part? I wanted to teach, and spend a career in education. I didn’t pursue an administration degree in the evening because the school district I worked for didn’t pay for their teachers to further education, and I didn’t have the money to finance it myself.
In engineering (at least with my current experience), they want us to pursue higher education – and pay for it. They want to see us thrive and push us to do so. I don’t understand why education isn’t set up like this anymore. In fact, you’d think that our nation would want a highly educated workforce (not only in pedagogy, but also in content knowledge). Oh wait, teachers aren’t real professionals, so why would they be supported in the manners described above. #sarcasm
Also, I was tired of being evaluated based on my inner city students’ test scores. Even though my students always increased their standadrized test scores, there was much more learning occurring in my classroom than increasing scores could show.
My kids learned about hard work, perseverance, and about abilities students never knew they had. They learned what high expectations were and learned a hell of a lot of math. In fact, many of my inner city seniors (who entered 9th grade far below grade level) graduated without having to take remedial courses in math. Some seniors even tested into calculus. Standardized tests won’t show this.
They don’t want to pay for teachers to further their educations because they bring in TFA. The TFAers get weekend masters degrees, a free ride at Supes Academy or Broad Academy, and further bring ruin and damnation into public schools. It won’t be over until they are through dismantling public schools across the nation. Meanwhile, Wendy Kopp and her organization are such greedy pigs, they are bringing TFA internationally, and its a sad state of affairs.
This is a bi-partisan man-made shortage. Not sure if it is “crisis” because it is playing out just as it has been intended to. The part about offering to pay off student loans, that is direct out of TFA’s playbook, so I would imagine TFA will come to the rescue. Now, the RHEEL dilemma is that savvy ivy league students are no longer duped that TFA is the peace corps (if they ever fully believed that) and perhaps 20 years of hearing hot TFA is in the self-perpetuating business, now the lobbying business and the shuttering of public school business and the opening of charter school business….. the luster of TFA has worn off–though there still are perks to be gotten by sacrificing 2 years in a charter school. Loan forgiveness, cheap rent in teachers village, money awards from the alma mater, instant certifications, weekend masters degrees, and principal and admin positions in charters….perhaps that will still attract some college grads to go the TFA route. The politicians certainly don’t want to offer such perks to the average joe/jane who really WANTS to teach, or anything of the kind to veteran teachers. The beatings will continue as status quo, or like in Las Vegas, they can take a cocktail waitress and turn her into a teacher with a few weeks training. (At least, I think that was Vegas).
“Rather than discussing whether or not there is a teaching shortage, perhaps this committee needs to be discussing what is our legislature planning to do to repair the damage that has been done before it is too late?” Meaning, how to undo RttT policy?
I wish I had the text that Dr. Tony Lux, the superintendent or now, acting superintendent of the Merrillville schools in NW Indiana wrote for our local newspaper. I wrote the paper to thank the editor for printing it and he replied that he had received a lot of favorable comment.
Dr. Lux has been a tireless supporter of public schools, debated Tony Bennett when he appeared at our Highland HS auditorium and has written numerous columns for our local papers.
This last one, as was all his former ones, superlative.
I have lived in Indiana for the major portion of my adult life and am appalled at the political situation here.
Gordon, I think this is the article your referring to.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/tony-lux/tony-lux-surprised-there-is-a-teacher-shortage-really/article_ec635492-041f-541d-97b4-59b79a8831e2.html
“It is amazing to read about the blue ribbon committees being formed at the Statehouse to determine why there is a teacher shortage. The feigned ignorance and surprise of legislators is incredibly hypocritical.
Blame for the teacher shortage should be placed clearly at the feet of government officials in this state and across the nation who have scapegoated, demeaned and devalued the teaching profession.
To understand the root causes as to why Indiana universities are reporting up to 50 percent reductions in college student enrollments in teacher preparation programs with an almost 20 percent drop in the issuance of Indiana teacher licenses, we need to get in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine. The time period begins in 2004. Mitch Daniels was governor, Tony Bennett was state superintendent, and it continues today under Gov. Mike Pence.
During this time, the country and Indiana experienced a major recession that prompted a multiple year $300 million reduction in state funding for education. While the funding reduction was blamed on the economy, the propaganda machine began to proliferate statements that public education was both failing and overfunded.
If schools were failing, then teachers were ineffective. Teachers were not only ineffective, but overpaid as well.
The solutions were multi-faceted. Plans were formulated to evaluate teachers more stringently to get rid of the bad ones. The witch hunt to rid schools of weak teachers cast a pall over the credibility of the teaching profession. Teachers were seen as not just the most important variable, but the only variable that affected student learning. Any reference to the effects of poverty on student learning were dismissed out of hand as an effort to avoid accountability.
What followed was a legislative snowball racing downhill. An oversimplified, flawed system for grading schools on an A-F scale was created. School grades continue to be required despite major flaws in state assessments. State standards were raised to be the highest in the land, resulting in increased hours of testing time and diminishing teaching time. Laws dictated more stringent teacher evaluations tied to school grades and test scores. Laws dictated limiting salary increases so teaching experience and advanced degrees were devalued. New teacher and administrative licensing standards implied that anyone with a degree could be a teacher or administrator, even without training. Charter schools, unfettered by union agreements, were heralded as schools that could do better by hiring teachers at low salaries and cheap benefits.
Private school vouchers allowed for millions of dollars to be diverted away from the neediest underachievers to support the highest achievers.
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Complexity index funding targeting the most disadvantaged underachievers was reduced and redirected. The effects of tax caps crippled property tax collections for many school systems, forcing them to use general fund dollars to pay debt rather than staff.
Educators are so demoralized they do not encourage their own children to follow in their footsteps, much less other students.
Today, with decreased funding for public schools, teachers cannot enter the profession with any kind of guarantee that in five to 10 years they will be earning very much more than they are now.
Still surprised there is a teacher shortage? Really?”
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/tony-lux/article_ec635492-041f-541d-97b4-59b79a8831e2.html