Alternet published an article about the dire condition of teachers and teaching in Michigan. Nancy Derringer describes the growing crisis over the future of the profession in a state that treats teachers like Kleenex.
The legislature has hacked away at teacher benefits, and would-be teachers have gotten the message.
The latest data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Title II program, which supports teacher training and professional development, show enrollment in teacher prep at the college level is falling, sharply in some states. In Michigan, 11,099 students were enrolled in the state’s 39 teacher-prep programs in 2014-15, the most recent data available. That is a 3,273-student decline from just two years previous, in 2012-13. Since 2008, the total number of Michigan college students studying to become a teacher is down more than 50 percent.
Michigan State University saw its teacher-prep enrollment fall 45 percent between 2010 and 2014, from 1,659 to 911. Grand Valley State University’s tumbled by 67 percent, from 751 to 248 in the same period. Only the University of Michigan-Dearborn and Central Michigan University saw increases, of 39 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Whether these numbers portend a coming teacher shortage is unclear. But it does reflect a trend that has been ongoing for some time, said Abbie Groff-Blaszak, director of the Office of Educator Talent with the state Department of Education. Not only are fewer aspiring teachers entering programs, but fewer are completing them, and there’s been a decrease in teaching certificates issued by the DOE.
The combination of Betsy DeVos, Rick Snyder, and Arne Duncan has been deadly for the teaching profession:
The push to improve student test scores, particularly among low-income students, has led to a number of changes that put more accountability on teachers. Groff-Blaszak said the decline in enrollment has tracked with Race to the Top reforms, which in addition to rewarding excellent educators, also provides for the removal of ineffective ones. Such reforms have not been universally embraced, for fear that they are a cover for sapping the power of unions, or holding teachers accountable, via testing, for factors they say they have little control over.
And before they even become teachers, teacher prep students must pass the state’s Professional Readiness Exam, which was toughened in recent years in an effort to raise teaching standards. In 2013-14, its first year, fewer than a third of students attempting it passed on their first try. At Western Michigan University, education students must pass the PRE and maintain a 3.0 average, said Marcia Fetters, the school’s associate dean and director of teacher education.
“When I entered teaching in 1982, there was no GPA requirement,” Fetters said, who described the current PRE, which tests math skills, reading and writing, as “infamous.”
“I don’t know how valid the test is to serve as a predictor of student performance in a teacher-ed program,” said Fetters. “On the one hand, we only want the qualified, but at the same time, if the test itself is not valid? We have had complaints.”
For charter school teachers, the situation is even more dire. They get little or no mentoring or support. Turnover among staff is high. And salaries are lower than in public schools.
Does anyone in Michigan care about educating the next generation of students? Apparently not.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Maybe many care about teaching but as former students they know that a teacher’s students’ standardized test scores mean little in predicting teacher quality. Therefore, they pick a career where there is a better standard in judging the quality of their work. Maybe they understand math and statistics better than DeVos, Snyder, and Duncan.
What does this say about Michigan? If the voters keep voting in people that treat teachers like toilet paper, then most of Michigan’s voters must be racists or ignorant fools.
And 80-percent of Michigan is white in a state where 56-percent of the population 25 years and over have earned a BA or higher with a high school graduation rate of 91.2 percent.
Does that mean the majority of whites in Michigan support “Make America White Again”?
Privatization!!!
of all public services is obviously a murderous problem in Michigan, and the people of Michigan seem unable to stop it. The schools are polluted with privatization. The power of the people is sapped. There might have been something in their water. …There was definitely something in the water.
and the corporate privatizers put it in the water — all to make a profit and cut taxes for the wealthy
Lloyd. you’re almost right.
It’s “Make America Stupid Again”.
Make America “Stupider” Again
You bested me and win! I agree! But you’re so not like Americans.
My former Chinese wife of 16 years, we are still friends, would agree with you that I am so not like most Americans.
She often says that I’m more Chinese than most Chinese men when it comes to the way children are raised and how important an education is for those children.
More power to you, Lloyd.
You know why, Lloyd?
There are still plenty of non-white people who vote against their interests and who are more or less politically illiterate.
Well, when only something like only 6/10 eligible voters voted, well, that about says it all.
I agree. The apathy is dreadful and dangerous . . . More than the politicians.
The data suggest that soon the conservative forces that have long been bashing teachers and teacher unions may soon get their longstanding desired goal: Let anyone teach kids, how difficult can it be? Personally, I’d like to put every politician who supported the various legislative moves to undermine the teaching profession in a classroom, preferably a tough classroom, for a few weeks with live and broadcasting of their performances!
Let computers teach kids is the goal. Blended Learning, CBL etc. Less teachers and more kids in front of screens. The plan is all coming together for the silicone valley billionaires.
And getting rid of the union to make more money for billionaires. We live in a sick, sick society.
I have said this over and over again, and 8 dream of this. Every American (especially politicians) should spend a week or two in a classroom and then they can give their opinions about the teaching profession. Also, there is no sitting down in a Kindergarten classroom for a read aloud and getting up and leaving. Everyone would have to stay for complete school days.
Part of the plan. Deprofessionalize teaching to the point where the rewards are not commensurate with the amount of effort and money that has to be invested to obtain a credential and you will have no choice but to hire the uncertified and rely on computers to deliver instruction. As a bonus it also costs much less, so there is less pressure to raise taxes.
LOL – they will make more profit….it won’t COST less.
New Mexico and out of state high school students enrollment in the Colleges of Education across NM has greatly decreased. The NM Colleges of Education cannot graduate enough new Teachers to fill slots vacated by retirements or Teachers leaving the state. The biggest impacts to Colleges of Ed enrollment has been use by the state standardized test for Teacher evaluations. These tests make no sense at all and are based primarily on the use of the VAM. High School Students are too smart to go into a profession that cannot will not treat their Teachers fairly. The now depart Secretary of Education Skandera brought the standardized test from Florida and at that time enrollment in the Colleges of Ed started to decline.
I was a state-level officer of the Michigan Education Association for over 30 years. We watched the Republicans attract votes in state elections by repeatedly cutting taxes that support the public schools, by pushing a Charter School law that allows the operators to use state educational tax dollars to make huge profits while being able to select their students and under pay their teachers. These laws exempt Charter School teachers from being members of the state teacher retirement system, exempt charters from having to provide benefits for their teachers, and until recently exempted charters from the requirement that their students take the state’s tests of academic progress that all public school students have to take.
When this first started I was a Republican and a member of the MEA’s Republican Educators Caucus. I attended a legislative fund raiser for the House Republicans and was introduced to then Gov. Engler as one of the state’s “Good Republican Teachers,” he responded that I couldn’t be both a good Republican and a good teacher at the same time. I immediately left the dinner with the MEA PAC’s check for $13,000 still in my pocket, went home and changed my registration to Democrat and slowly became more and more active opposing all the legislation introduced and or passed by the Republicans who control Michigan government due to Gerrymandering.
Today I would never suggest that a student of mine consider becoming a professional educator unless they felt it was almost a religious calling. I would warn them that to be a teacher they must be willing to live with constant disrespect and poverty wages. Then only, after they know what they are getting into would it tell them good luck. I know I wouldn’t do it again in today’s world.
Thank you, Professor Kolk,
Joe Nathan, Stephen Ronan, who regularly defend charters, do you have a response for Prof. Kolk?
I think what Professor Kolk points out is that the downward spiral in Michigan started long ago, actually with schools of Choice which he doesn’t mention. Engler also changed how schools were funded. There are so many reasons for problems now in education, but poverty still takes the cake, especially as choice and charters have drained students and teachers from minority school districts in Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Benton Harbor.
Perhaps bad news for students, but seems like good news for teachers in the job market.
To go and enter into jobs that pay poorly and treat them with utter disrespect and contempt, making them slaves to test scores?
Really?
Fewer job market entrants is always good news for job market entrants.
“Fewer job market entrants is always good news for job market entrants.”
But not necessarily the quality of job entrants. If people aren’t entering the profession because of poor pay and working conditions, who do you think is going to take those jobs? Who is going to go to college and perhaps graduate school to prepare for a job that won’t support you much less pay back your loans? I may have a passion for teaching, but I also enjoy eating, and I can only take so much abuse from administration.
Every Sunday I read the newspaper and routinely glance at the local help wanted ads. This time of year the “Professional” category is filled with central NY school districts looking for teachers, teacher aides, principals, asst. superintendents…
NYS pays teachers pretty well when compared to other states, but districts, including my own, are having a really difficult time filling positions. School starts in less than 4 weeks and there simply aren’t enough unemployed teachers around CNY to fill these positions.
I haven’t had a student teacher in four years, after having had one every year for the previous five. There are so few teacher candidates in the NYS colleges and universities. While FLERP! Is correct in stating that if you are a good teacher looking for employment the lack of competition makes it easier to find a good position, this does not bode well for the future.
So they make it impossibly hard to get legitimately certified as a teacher. Nobody goes that root. They are free to use the alternate routes to teacher certification allowed in ESSA or just TFA. Makes perfect reform sense to me.
Where are the reformers who used to say, end tenure, weed out the bad teachers, and pay the good ones $150,000? Tenure is going extinct, and compensation is not far behind.
Apparently you are over your own hypocrisy.
To which you is your comment directed, Ken? Gracias in advance, Duane
The countries in the world which have the strongest education systems (delivering both excellence and equity) recognize that the quality of teaching determines the quality of learning. In those same countries (Finland, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Canada) teaching is a respected profession, quality of life for teachers is high, and competition to gain enrolment in teachers’ colleges is fierce. Teachers in these countries are held accountable, but in very different ways than is usually talked about in many other jurisdictions. There is clear evidence to identify how to improve teaching and learning, and it is by involving and engaging teachers in working together with school leaders to accomplish goals that make a difference for students.
Few want to become teachers?
Don’t worry. There’s an app for that.
Parents unite. Do you really want your kid sitting in front of a screen all day long, receiving input from an algorithm?
BUT…it’s the wave of the future! That’s what I keep being told by teachers, administrators, and school board members, all of whom should know better.
That’s the crazy part!….that teachers are falling for this CBL ,Blended Learning crap. Do they not realize that if they don’t speak up, they will computerize themselves right out of a career? Then, the kids are really left with a junk, curriculum- in a- box, fake education. I don’t get it?
As the former tech at all of our school’s sites, I’ve watched this gradual technology takeover move with dismay. All my PDs focused on using the technology as a PART of the lesson and/or unit planning.
I agree: they should know better.
I heard one of my young colleagues bemoaning the fact that his Smartboard stopped working during an observation.
It’s not smart to rely exclusively on this tool. There has to be a real time backup.
I’m concerned that this isn’t being stressed with the new wave of teachers who are just starting up.
I worked in a district where the word had gone out that you had to include some tech gadget in your teaching observation in order to get a gooed eval.
I keep telling teachers that they are destroying their own jobs by going on all this CBL crap, and they look at me like I’m wearing a tin-foil hat. I can’t understand how all of these teachers don’t see the writing on the wall. One of the teachers at my school wants to use an online platform for everything. When I asked how she can do that, since we have few computers in the building, she said she will have the students do it all on their phones!!???? She even wants the students to write their essays on their phones. About 1/3 of the students don’t have phones. I can’t figure out HOW one would write an entire essay on the phone. You couldn’t even see most of what you had written.
I think the that the bipartisan NCLB legislation is the ultimate cause of this lack of interest in teaching… That’s where “reform” started and DeVos’ support for vouchers is where it will end. The current version of “teacher is a replaceable part in an efficient machine designed to get good test results… which should make “reformers” in both political parties happy since that was what NCLB hoped for,
And here in New York, ESL teachers are badly needed. Why not let certified foreign language teachers be automatically certified to teach English as a Second Language (or ENL – English as a New Language as it’s now called)? I have been teaching French (not my native language) for 26 years. The courses required for certification in ENL are very similar to those for foreign language. I would be happy to teach ENL. This is the stupid certification stuff that drives people out of teaching.
The DEFORMERS wnat to GET RID of Teacher Education Programs so they can give them the SCRIPT to read and the machines to use in classrooms and scramble our young’s minds and souls. Ka-CHING!
“I quit. The profession I joined no longer exists”.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
This is not just a Michigan problem, this is happening across the country.
Yes…a nationwide phenomenon.
We just lost a few teachers from one of our sites, here in NYC. Only a month to find replacements, which is not easy to do.
All have gotten jobs at different schools but aren’t necessarily thinking they’ll stay there either. Just escaping the madness and hoping for better in other places. But they also know that there’s a good chance it’s going to end up being more of the same. The orders are coming from above the jurisdiction of the principals (and superintendents).
The job is hard enough as it is. Add on the unobtainable mandates, testing, junk science Value Added Modeling/Measuring teacher assessments, and the devaluing of the profession (who needs teacher colleges/degrees when we have computerized “Personalized Learning”?) and you’ve got a lot of people either heading for the hills or staying out of the profession, altogether.