John Thompson writes from Oklahoma:
The Tulsa World’s headline nailed the big picture, “‘Staggering’: 30,000 Oklahoma Teachers Have Left Profession in the Past Six Years, Report Shows.” The World’s Michael Dekker cites State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister who explained, “The loss of 30,000 educators over the past six years is staggering — and proof that our schools must have the resources to support a growing number of students with an increasing number of needs.”
These huge losses occurred in a state which employed only 50,598 teachers in 2017-18.
Hofmeister addressed the immediate problem, “Steep budget cuts over the last decade have made the teaching profession in Oklahoma less attractive, resulting in a severe teacher shortage crisis and negative consequences for our schoolchildren.” The analysis, 2018 Oklahoma Educator Supply and Demand Report, by Naneida Lazarte Alcala, also touched on the ways that the lack of respect and the decline of teachers’ professional autonomy contributed to the massive exodus from the classroom.
The report showed that Oklahoma’s annual attrition rate has been 10 percent during the last 6 years, which was 30 percent more than the national average. This prompted an increase from 32 emergency certifications in 2012 to 2,915 in 2018-19. As a result, the median experience of state teachers declined by 1/5th in this short period.
Given the challenges faced by the Oklahoma City Public School System, it is noteworthy that the highest turnover rate in 2017-18 (almost 25 percent) occurred in central Oklahoma. Over 11 percent of teachers in the central region are new hires.
It should also be noted that charter schools have the highest turnover rate (almost 42 percent), even higher than that of middle schools.
I kid my colleagues in middle school. But there is a serious point. Choice advocates have had success in their political campaign to defeat traditional public schools, but their turnover rate is another sign that the oversupply of charters shows that privatization isn’t a viable, educational alternative to neighborhood schools.
But the financial cutbacks were not the only cause of the crisis. Alcala cites a survey of teachers who have left Oklahoma schools; 2/3rds said that increased compensation would not be enough to bring them back to the classroom. Citing reasons that were beyond the scope of the report, 78 percent said that the quality of the work environment had declined, and nearly half said it had deteriorated a great deal.
On the other hand, the report suggested aspects of teaching conditions that merit further examination. It cited research on the negative effects of teacher turnover on student achievement, especially for low-income students. This stands in contrast with research cited by accountability-driven, competition-driven school reformers who argue that turnover isn’t necessarily bad. After all, they invested heavily in trying to identify and dismiss low-performing teachers.
The SDE study cited the value of low student-teacher ratios in terms of raising student achievement, especially for low-income students. It also noted the national pattern where education degrees have “notoriously” declined, as well as the drop in graduates in Oklahoma teacher preparation programs.
And that brings us to the unintended results of features, as opposed to bugs, in the corporate school reform movement which peaked during this era. Reformers who lacked knowledge of realities in schools misinterpreted research on California schools which supposedly said that class size reductions don’t work, and then ignored the preponderance of evidence on why class size matters. Reformers often blamed university education departments for poor student test scores, and experimented with teacher preparation shortcuts. Some reformers even said what many others felt about wanting to undermine the institution of career teaching.
To understand the decline of working conditions for teachers, the teacher strike in Denver, as well as those in Oklahoma and other states, must be considered. Senator Michael Bennet, the former superintendent of the Denver schools, called for incentives in urban schools by twenty-somethings who would work for 7 to 9 years. His hugely expensive and complicated incentive system provoked the recent strike.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1105/01/sotu.01.html
It should have been obvious that teacher churn is bad for students, who need trusting relationships with educators who love them. A decade ago, however, edu-philanthropists and the federal government essentially imposed a rushed and risky experiment on schools in Oklahoma and across the nation. These noneducators praised the gambles as “disruptive innovation.” But they incentivized primitive teach-to-the-test malpractice and drove much of the joy of teaching and learning out of schools.
Evidence that excellent teachers were being “exited” by a flawed statistical model used in these teacher evaluation systems was ignored. Since these policies incentivized the removal of highly paid veteran teachers during the budget crisis prompted by the Great Recession, Baby Boomers were often targeted. This resulted in schools such as Upper Greystone, an elementary school with 24 certified staff, which had 21 teacher vacancies at the beginning of the 2014-15 school year.
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2015/04/05/cognitive-dissonance-and-segregated-oklahoma-schools/
During the 1990s, education experts frequently warned that Baby Boomers would soon be retiring, and sought ways for veteran teachers to pass on their wisdom. During the last decade, however, corporate reform made the staggeringly serious mistake of undermining teachers’ autonomy in order to force educators to comply with their technocratic mandates. Veteran teachers were rightly seen as opponents to their teach-to-the-test regimes, and often they were pushed out of the profession so they wouldn’t undercut the socializing of young teachers into opposing bubble-in accountability.
Even if we had not made another unforced error and dramatically cut education spending, failed reforms would have wasted educators’ time and energy, damaged teachers’ professionalism, and sucked much of the joy of teaching and learning out of classrooms. When the retirement and the pushing out of Baby Boomers, funding cuts, and drill-and-kill pedagogy came together during and after the Great Recession, this staggering exodus of teachers was triggered.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Something often overlooked about our schools is that teachers not only teach their students, traditionally they also induct new teachers into the profession. When I began teaching, I had a colleague who made me sit in a chair in the closet (literally) which served as our office and handed me tissues until I stopped weeping long enough to gather my things and go home. My first year was Boston’s second year of school desegregation and it was a quite difficult time in our city and my middle school. On Fridays word would spread about where we would head at the close of the day, and the principal – a Harvard man – often bought a round of drinks for all in recognition of the week’s struggles. All in together for the next week.
The reformsters have taken aim at veteran teachers in a way that reminds me of how the Chinese have taken over Tibet – a gradual erosion of the culture, replacing it with another foreign one and ignoring centuries of tradition and knowledge. That’s exactly what John points out here: “undercut the socializing of young teachers into opposing bubble-in accountability”.
We now have schools – especially in the charter sector – where no one has any significant experience in a classroom, yet they are placed in leadership positions. How can they possibly lead others with such scant background? What wisdom do they have to impart? In this, the reformsters have won.
During my career I worked with many student teachers even though accepting them created more work for me. My reason was to prepare teachers to continue the work and ensure that new teachers would have access to solid training and guided practice before we unleashed them on students. Veteran teachers are valuable resources that contribute to the stability of the profession, and, as we know, stability is important to poor students.
so well said: “The reformsters have taken aim at veteran teachers in a way that reminds me of how the Chinese have taken over Tibet – a gradual erosion of the culture, replacing it with another foreign one and ignoring centuries of tradition and knowledge.”
So SAD!
Hope America finds its mind and soul soon or we are literally TOAST.
What has happened in Oklahoma, continues to happen in several other states as well. Florida continues to be ground zero for bad “reform” ideas. DeSantis is making an even bigger move against public education in Florida. Peter Greene has done his research on the matter. DeSantis plans to transfer a lot more public money into “opportunity scholarships,” not just in the form of business tax credits. This seems to be in direct violation of the state constitution and the will of the public. The elaborate scheme includes establishing privatized “Schools of Hope” in “Opportunity Zones.” These are state sanctioned separate and unequal schools for mostly poor minority students. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/02/fl-further-dismantling-public-education.html
We need the SPLC and perhaps the Education Law Center to examine this evil plot against public education in the state.
Just curious, but where are teachers exodusing to? Other states? Other professions? What other states and/or professions are hiring? Things are pretty grim all over as far as I can tell.
Texas. Most get a 20K raise by moving south of the Red River.
Texas has lots of room for improvement but is very far ahead of OK in terms of salaries.
Interesting to know. But doesn’t Texas have plenty of people of its own that want to be teachers? Not to mention, I’d guess there’s an exodus from Arizona and probably other states too. Even if salaries are better it still seems like it would be hard for people to get jobs, especially out-of-staters.
Texas is still having shortages in some of its bigger districts. Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth. Many of the school still lose plenty of teachers within the first 5 years because of the working conditions.
Texas is already promoting a state takeover of “failing” schools. Districts with lots of poor students and low test scores are very concerned with this threat.
Here’s a link to what they are planning in Texas. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/08/07/228974/dozens-of-texas-districts-must-improve-failing-schools-or-outside-managers-could-take-over/
Lots of Oklahoma teachers have moved to neighboring states like Texas and Arkansas that pay better.
There’s also quite a few that are just leaving public education altogether. Out of my small building with about 20 teachers, last year we lost 5, all of whom left public education entirely. One was hired at a private school, the others started new careers outside of teaching or went back to school for a new career.
Pay is just a portion of the problem. Work conditions, red tape, paperwork, etc. are as important as pay. The paperwork and red tape burns you out. States and districts need to invest in simplifying the workload to reduce attrition. TeachersInTouch is for educators by educators. It strives to simplify workflows so that every moment spent is dedicated to teaching and learning rather than on red tape and paperwork.
http://www.goteachersintouch.com
#SoTeachersCanTeach #ALLIn4Teachers #TeachersInTouch
As a Professor of Education at an Oklahoma university that specialized in Teacher Education, I saw the numbers of teacher ed degrees drop from a little over 900 per year to around 350 to 400 per year. Every new teacher was being hired, even some that were not very good, because of the shortage of teachers…nation wide. As we surveyed incoming students to the university in an attempt to recruit them into the College of Education, the answer was not only NO!, but often Hell NO! That came so very often from students whose parents were educators. Those students saw first hand what the politicians did to their parents. When a former governor called teachers “slugs” while he was in office – what did they think? After 44 years, it was time for me to retire and get out of that mess!