• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Nancy Bailey's Education Website

Revive, Rally and Recover Public Schools

  • Activism
    • Anti-Charter Schools
    • Anti-Common Core State Standards
    • Anti-Corporatization of Schools
    • Anti-High-Stakes Testing
    • State Action Groups
    • School Buildings
  • School Curriculum
    • General Education
    • Educators
    • Parents
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Science
    • Social Studies
    • The Arts
    • Technology
    • Behavior
    • Diversity
    • English Language Learners
    • Special Education
      • Autism
      • Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities
      • Learning Disabilities
      • Developmental Disabilities
      • Gifted
      • Other
    • Early Childhood Education
    • Elementary School
    • Middle School
    • High School
    • Student Careers
  • Other Countries
    • England
    • Finland
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
    • Canada

What’s Behind the Teacher Shortage/Crisis? Or is there One?

December 15, 2014 By Nancy Bailey Leave a Comment

Post Views: 30

There has been much talk about a critical teacher shortage, that many say nothing will solve unless drastic measures are taken. But serious teacher shortage talk was emphasized in 1990. Voila! We got Teach for America (TFA).

Before that, there were attempts to address teacher shortages in the emergency areas–special ed., science and math et cetera.

Some states and the federal government funded college coursework for those studying shortage areas. And there is some of that still today. Here are some programs funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education. But the early nineties changed more how teachers would be made. TFA, originally, we were told, was supposed to solve the teacher shortage problem in poor areas.

But TFA and a host of other residency programs through The New Teacher Project are now competing against real teachers for their jobs. How bad are these shortages?

When you look for current information, you find when teacher shortages are discussed they often refer to reports from the Alliance for Excellent Education backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and various corporations (who stress online instruction as a solution) and The New Teacher Center is also backed by many of the same people.

The individuals who highlight a teacher shortage, also imply that real teachers aren’t doing their jobs well.

We saw this with the Gates Foundation’s Teacher Effectiveness Initiative. Teachers are being driven out of their public schools through Value Added Measurement (VAM), or by having their public schools shuttered  to make way for charter schools.

This is not a teacher shortage. It’s purely an effort to get rid of veteran teachers!  They also love the Teach for America types and they want them to replace professional teachers!

Teachers often step away from their profession due to circumstances surrounding what they teach, how they are made to teach, and the conditions under which they must teach, but they most likely wouldn’t leave under better circumstances.

So why isn’t anyone working harder to stop them from leaving?

Whether there is a teacher shortage or not, if you push the message that there is a teacher shortage, administrators in school districts will have an easier time convincing the general public that they need to spend millions to bring in Teach for America.

Consider Orlando, where they recently did just that, and where they are planning on credentialing residency teachers from the University of Central Florida.

Why, in all these years, since the 1990s, have we not been able to work harder to create a true teaching profession, one that will adequately cover the professional teaching needs of the country? If policymakers knew back then, by forecasting future teaching needs, that a teacher shortage was imminent, why didn’t they work more constructively with education schools to make sure those needs would be met by real professional teachers?

If you read the Orlando Sentinel’s description you will see that it is skewed to imply that Teach for America types are the best teachers around, which has never been proven. Never! And if there truly are openings in the schools there, it most likely is because real teachers were driven out!

How bad was the teacher shortage in Seattle for example? This is from The Hechinger Report and The Nation:

In 2009, the Seattle school district was hardly in the grip of a teacher shortage: 13,800 teachers had applied for just 352 full- and part-time positions. But the schools were facing a $25 million deficit, and TFA was asking for a $4,000 annual fee per recruit (area philanthropists would later cover it; on average, schools contracting with the organization pay $5,000 a year for headhunting and support costs). So the district’s decision to pursue a contract with TFA quickly became controversial. In board meetings that were sometimes standing room only, dozens of community members — including parents, teachers and high school students — signed up in record numbers to testify against the district’s contract with the organization, urging the administration to hire more experienced local teachers. Several people even brought homemade signs with slogans like NO TFA NEEDED!

The push to replace real teachers is prominent around the country.

Bob Braun wrote last February about the threat of TFA taking over 700 teaching positions in New Jersey after those teachers were laid off!

Barbara Miner mentioned teacher layoffs to make way for Teach for America in 2010 in a signature Rethinking Schools report. She noted:

Last summer, Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman met with 18 local union presidents, “all of whom said they’d seen teachers laid off to make room for TFA members,” according to an article in USA Today. “I don’t think you’ll find a city that isn’t laying off people to accommodate Teach for America,” Stutman said.

In the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, for instance, the superintendent laid off hundreds of veteran teachers but spared 100 TFA-ers. TFA, meanwhile, expanded into Dallas this fall, bringing in nearly 100 new teachers, even though the district had laid off 350 teachers in the 2008-09 school year.

In Chicago, a TFA representative even tried to explain away the replacement of veteran teachers with their group. Many didn’t buy it.

Some reports say the projected teacher shortage isn’t really due until 2020. That provides us time to project where the shortages will be and in what areas. Teacher education programs could improve those areas and make sure teachers, real teachers, are ready by that time to replace teachers who are retiring. But if you look at the way fast-track teacher programs are now being pushed into universities and teacher education is being changed at warp speed, to focus on data collection, high-stakes testing and Common Core, it looks like a tried and true teaching profession will never again become a reality.

Just like it has not become a reality since the claims of a teacher shortage in the past!

America could make a real teaching workforce if people insisted upon it and rejected the influence by those who are taking charge of what teachers teach and how and what students learn. A professional teaching workforce could and should be the pride of America!

Back in 2002, Richard Rothstein, a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute and senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law, who has written much about education,  wrote in The New York Times, at that time, that teacher shortages are usually a myth. If teachers are given decent salaries they will work in difficult conditions and there doesn’t need to be any shortage.

It is also hypocritical to hear the same groups who bemoan what is possibly a trumped up teacher shortage, also lament how much money such a shortage is costing. Implying there is a serious teacher shortage will lead job seekers to unproven online teaching programs where they can get quickie teaching degrees. There’s lots of money to be made making fast-track teachers for a supposed teacher shortage.

The problem is, in the long run they won’t be very good teachers, and that will hurt everyone.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Professional Teachers, Seattle teacher shortage 2009, Teach for America, Teacher Shortage

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

front cover

An education glossary with an attitude.

Buy Now

front cover

Do we really want an America where we no longer own our public schools?

Buy Now

front cover

This book says “no” to the reforms that fail, and challenges Americans to address the real student needs that will fix public schools and make America strong.

Buy Now

Follow me!

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Connect With Me!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Nancy E. Bailey Follow

SPED Teacher, Author, PhD Ed. Leadership, Blogging for Kids, and Democratic Public Schools that should belong to all of us.

NancyEBailey1
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
alfiekohn Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn ·
27 Jun

A new review of research confirms multiple benefits of "looping" - that is, having a teacher stay with a class of students for more than one year: https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai22-590

Reply on Twitter 1541391125457649664 Retweet on Twitter 1541391125457649664 76 Like on Twitter 1541391125457649664 363 Twitter 1541391125457649664
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
democracynow Democracy Now! @democracynow ·
26 Jun

The world is not in a "food shortage crisis," says Sofía Monsalve Suárez, secretary general of @FIANista.

"The problem is access to food, that people don’t have money to pay for food, that people are jobless." https://www.democracynow.org/2022/6/23/food_crisis_sanctions_russia_ukraine_climate

Reply on Twitter 1541030515947577347 Retweet on Twitter 1541030515947577347 40 Like on Twitter 1541030515947577347 68 Twitter 1541030515947577347
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
tultican Thomas Ultican @tultican ·
22 Jun

The State of School Recess in America is Still Terrible! - - Is this lack contributing to the deteriorating mental health of students? https://go.shr.lc/3yeH1Jz via @shareaholic

Reply on Twitter 1539695078645456896 Retweet on Twitter 1539695078645456896 3 Like on Twitter 1539695078645456896 8 Twitter 1539695078645456896
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
plthomasedd Paul Thomas @plthomasedd ·
24 Jun

The Real Reading Debate and How We Fail to Teach Reading https://radicalscholarship.com/2020/02/19/the-real-reading-debate-and-how-we-fail-to-teach-reading/ via @plthomasEdD

Reply on Twitter 1540307416293822464 Retweet on Twitter 1540307416293822464 3 Like on Twitter 1540307416293822464 6 Twitter 1540307416293822464
Retweet on Twitter Nancy E. Bailey Retweeted
drmaryhoward Dr. Mary Howard @drmaryhoward ·
23 Jun

I'm so happy Nancy Bailey reposted her 2014 piece that still rings true: Setting Children Up to Hate Reading

"Why are young children being made to learn at a faster rate?...
Great question!
@NancyEBailey1

https://nancyebailey.com/2014/02/02/setting-children-up-to-hate-reading/?fbclid=IwAR2jxBi-kDpYqlBIbC99RFYScjskdujbBDtaN_2I9fIGPS6Kzo_kK7lE1qY

Reply on Twitter 1540096338943062017 Retweet on Twitter 1540096338943062017 8 Like on Twitter 1540096338943062017 9 Twitter 1540096338943062017
Load More

Archives

Tag Cloud

Arne Duncan Autism Betsy DeVos Bill Gates charter schools class size Common Core Common Core covid-19 dyslexia early childhood education Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Florida high-stakes testing kindergarten learning disabilities Online Learning parents Personalized Learning phonics preschool private schools privatization public schools reading Reading Instruction recess retention School Choice school libraries School Privatization school reform schools Social Emotional Learning special education students Students with Disabilities Teacher Preparation teachers Teach for America teaching Technology testing the arts vouchers

Copyright © 2022 Nancy E. Bailey · Website powered by Standing Pine Media.