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issues in teacher quality
issues in teacher quality
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Around the nation, hundreds of schools are facing the common major issue of teacher shortages. The alarmingly low amount of teachers in the U.S. creates the debate of whether or not students are receiving a quality education. “‘It’s a crisis’ says Bill McDiarmed, dean of the University of North Carolina School of Education. ‘I don’t know who will be teaching kids in the future’” (DeNisco 1). Oklahoma has a plethora of teacher shortage areas, which could be part of the reason why Oklahoma is ranked 48th in National Education (Robson 1). Shortage areas in the sooner state range a large variety of subjects for the 2015-16 school year alone, including, but not limited to: art, elementary education, foreign language, math, music, physical education/health, science, social studies, and special education (Clement 125). Why do educators participate in early termination? How does the lack of teachers affect education quality? What is Oklahoma doing to recruit and replace empty positions? If Oklahoma does not fix its teacher shortage soon, education in the sooner state will continue to spiral downward into failure. This analysis of Oklahoma teacher shortages will evaluate the reasons teachers quit, the effect of their absence, and the various ways their positions are attempted to be filled. First, there are several reasons as to why teachers quit. An enormous factor contributing to this issue is pay. Oklahoma teachers receive extremely low wages. In a study conducted by Tulsa World, it is evident that Oklahoma educators, in comparison to neighboring states, not only start with a smaller salary, but continue to receive a lower average pay even with five years of experience, as reflected by data from Tulsa Public Schools (TPS), Coffeyville,... ... middle of paper ... ...nding states for a higher salary. Their absence creates many issues, primarily affecting the quality of education in the sooner state. As Oklahoma attempts to fill and refill positions, they are failing, predominantly because teachers in Oklahoma lack a realistic salary. They attempt to unsuccessfully resolve this issue through the use of emergency certification. Holdenville superintendent Randy Davenport comments “‘I’m really afraid that we’re just at the beginning of the teacher shortage crisis, and this will take more than a short-term fix... We are a long way from this crisis being over’” (Watson 8). Davenport makes an excellent point. Oklahoma simply needs to fix this issue by raising the wages for educators. If Oklahomans want to improve from being the 48th in education, they will have to start understanding and recognizing the true value of quality teachers.
Barber calls the reader 's attention to the low salary of teachers and how their wages need to rise. Although many people know about the salary issue for teachers, they often overlook
Many teachers and administrators may leave due to the enormous changes that common core has made. With these new state standards, teachers will have to change their teaching practices as well as the curriculum being taught. Administrators will have to change the way the school is conducted. Common Core state standards not only make changes to the school’s curriculum and regulations, but they may also cause their employees to feel overwhelmed with the amount of things that are changing. They may also feel more pressure in making sure that their students learn the material and know how to put into
"Issue Brief." Teacher Attrition: A Costly Loss to the Nation and to the States (2005): 6. Web. 27 Sep 2009. .
One factor is underperforming teachers. An ineffective teacher will cover only 50% of the learning material compared to 150% with an effective teacher (Birtel et al., 2010). If a teacher is not teaching a student successfully, why are they not being fired? Teacher tenure is a reason. Teachers who have tenure are guaranteed employment, thus making it hard to dismiss ineffective teachers (Birtel et al., 2010). To put this into perspective, “1 in 57 doctors lose their medical license and 1 in 97 attorneys lose their law license, but only 1 in 2,500 teachers lose their teaching credential” (Birtel et al., 2010). When a teacher does not effectively teach the learning material, their actions can negatively impact a student. Therefore, it may explain why the United States has a low
Researchers approaching the study of teacher retention using a cost-benefit theoretical framework from the field of economics believe teachers make choices to stay in their current positions, migrate to new positions in different schools either within or across districts, or leave the profession altogether by weighing opportunity costs. These researchers envision teachers comparing the costs, both overt (salary and benefits) and hidden (working conditions, family ties to the community, etc.), with the benefits of staying in their current positions (Grissom, 2010). When costs outweigh benefits, teachers choose to migrate to new positions or leave the profession.
According to current federal education legislation, schools are required to measure and report teachers’ qualifications in order to ensure that students are receiving high quality education and district teachers equally across schools. Based on the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), twelve percent of math teachers in high school do not have a certificate or major in this subject, meanwhile the percentage for science teacher is around 4. These statistics suggest that there is a serious issue th...
Public education in the United States of America continuously faces many challenges – diverse student body, overcrowded classrooms, and lack of resources. Besides, many think that in order to provide quality of education for all students we need to improve effectiveness of our teachers. It is necessary to evaluate existing school teachers routinely. However, it will not be sufficient for improving the teacher body overall. Not only have we needed to evaluate existing teachers. It is especially important to ensure that young inexperienced teacher candidates are prepared to educate all students and meet their academic needs. Ravitch points out that “we don’t need to hire bad teachers” ( 69??? ) Thus, we need to ensure that prospective teacher candidates upon their graduation possess necessary skills to support student learning and take charge of their classrooms from day one. That is why New York and 25 other states are currently in the process of changing the way they give their initial certification. The new legislation is expected to take place in New York State beginning May 1, 2014. All candidates graduating at that time and thereafter will be subjected to the new Teacher Performance Assessment or edTPA.
This too follows the capitalism argument that there has to be a benefit to attract a person to a job. In the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger interviewed the Director of Education of a school in Arkansas that adopted a pay for performance program. At his offices in the capitol building, Director James calls himself an "advocate of pay for performance" for a couple of reasons. Financial incentives of some sort are needed, he says, to stop math and science teachers from jumping ship to industry. And school districts like Little Rock 's have to innovate fast because jobs and population are migrating internally, mostly into northwestern Arkansas. The Springdale district alone, he says, near Fayetteville and Bentonville, "hired 180 new teachers this year." Little Rock has to find a way to hold its best teachers (Henninger, 2005). This is another economic concept that is a key to capitalism. The logic is the more pay that is offered, the better the job applicants. This is also a basic concept in supply and demand. Henninger 's article continues with showing how happy the teachers were at the school. They were able to earn up to an extra $8600 for a total of $134,800. Some of the money was put into a general school pool and shared by support staff with include the custodians and cafeteria staff (Henninger, 2005). It would seem that Arkansas has
Some locations in the United States are trying to improve their education by adding quality teachers. A major reason why there is an achievement gap in education is because there exist a gap in teachers as well. Research has shown that teacher quality counts. Some states are seeking ways to keep quality teachers and ways to attract them. In New York City, the schools will not hire teachers that are not certified. Also, New York and California are adding some sort of incentive in public schools, to attract quality teaching to minority schools. Sometimes school add annual bonus up to $10,000 for qualify teacher to work in public school, with low achieving schools. Also, many state provide some sort of tuition assistance for teacher, but of all of the states only seven target the candidates to commit to the lower achieving schools (Olsen, 2003).
All throughout the United States for the past several years, states are “hurting because of falling state revenues,” (Emeagwali), and schools are trying to cope with tremendous budget cuts that are resulting in less funds provided for educational services. These cuts are putting pressure on everyone invested in the education system, including students, teachers and any other administration within them (qtd. in Johnson 2), and the reduced budget is not solely affecting any particular level of schooling either. All levels of education, ranging from primary learning to advanced, have been affected (Emeagwali). Additionally, it is not just one or two states having to adjust their budgets; by 2002, “at least 40 states [had] been forced to consider budget cuts,” and these cuts have taken their toll on the amount of funding designated towards educational opportunities (Feldman). As pressures hit hard on state governments, a rise in educational budget cuts has resulted in deleterious effects on the level of education provided to students. As a result, researchers and infuriated teachers and parents have begun supporting education as it is ignored by government administration.
Jupp, B., & Education, T. (2009). What states can do to improve teacher effectiveness. K-12
The state’s new evaluation system was in response to administrators who produced, “superficial and capricious teacher evaluation systems that often don't even directly address the quality of instruction, much less measure students' learning” (Toch, 2008). Too often, the “good-ol-boy” attitude would insure mediocre educators would remain employed. Realizing this was often more the rule then the exception, the governor created educational mandates to focus, “on supporting and training effective teachers to drive student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013). Initially, they expected the school districts and the teachers would have issues and experience growing pains, but in the end the goal was, “to improve teacher performance, year by year, with a corresponding rise in student achievement” (Marzano Center, 2013).
The biggest educational issue in North Carolina at the moment is teacher salary. It is all over the news, and social media. Everyone is aware of the current low salaries, which have been “frozen” for years. Even though everyone is aware of the situation and most people are sympathetic, no body knows how much it is hurting our state and the families of teachers except for the teachers themselves.
Mir, S. (2011), Education woes: Shortage of teachers a threat to public schools, Tribune, 3 April.
In recent years, the cliché image of a teacher has come under attach. Research has shown that teachers often work in an isolated setting in which they are considered experts in their specific area; however they often lack the support and equipment needed to do their jobs effectively. As a result, to the inadequate working environment new teachers often leave the profession within the first five years. These conditions often exist because the educational system fails to prepare our teachers with the proper tools and experience needed to do their job well (U.S. Department of Education, 2010).