Unexcused absence: teacher shortage
By Trina Allen Home
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With this letter, I am resigning my position as sixth grade math and science teacher …
My
decision to leave the classroom was a difficult one because I enjoy working
with children. If you had asked me as a small girl what I wanted to do when I
grew up, I would have replied, “I want to be a teacher.” I could not imagine
doing anything else. Yet, my love for teaching dwindled until I became burned
out and weary. I finally
lost the energy that drives effective teaching. Where my first priority
should have been making the lessons meaningful for students, my lessons had
become routine and uninteresting. It didn’t happen in one year, or two, but
over the course of a 15-year career. I don’t remember a single event that caused
my effectiveness to die. It occurred slowly in an ongoing progression of
parent-teacher conferences, meetings, report cards, and paperwork that I had
previously accepted as the work that made teaching possible.
Feeling
depressed about my decision to leave the classroom, I decided to do some
research into the profession that makes up four percent of the work force. I
learned that there are five times as many teachers as lawyers and professors,
and twice as many as registered nurses. I was shocked to discover that nearly
one thousand teachers leave the field of teaching every school day. The cost of
replacing teachers is a staggering 4.9 billion dollars a year.
Each year, at all levels of teaching
experience, large numbers of the teachers surveyed are considering leaving the
profession. Their dissatisfaction is a direct result of the school environment
in which they work. Teacher shortage continues to be a problem even
with new aggressive teacher recruitment processes. Experts predict that US
schools will need more than 2 million new teachers in the next decade, with
shortages most acute in urban and rural schools and in high-need subject areas
such as special education, math, and science.
The
statistics for turnover among new teachers are shocking.
About
20 percent of all new hires leave the classroom within three years. In
inner-city schools (like the one I taught at in Raleigh, NC), the numbers are
even worse, with as many as 50 percent of new teachers fleeing the profession
during their first five years of teaching.
Why
do new teachers leave?
The
first-year teacher with no experience is typically assigned the same tasks as a
veteran teacher. Moreover, the new teachers get the teaching assignments that
the veterans don’t want, like remedial classes. New teachers say they feel
overwhelmed, isolated, and unsupported. They enter their first classroom
confident they will change the world. But, discipline problems, angry parents
and the tremendous workload soon undermine that confidence.
Current
research shows that teacher shortages are not caused by a deficit in the supply
of teachers as formerly thought, but rather a revolving door, where teachers
depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. When asked why they left
the teaching profession, teachers list the following as the reasons for
fleeing:
·
Lack of job
satisfaction and the desire to find a better job — 42% of teachers site this as
their reason for leaving
·
Too heavy a
work load
·
Lack of
planning time
·
Low salaries
·
Insufficient
support from administrators
·
Discipline
problems and problematic student behavior
·
Inadequate
decision-making power over school policy
For
me, it was a combination of all these factors. Contrary to the belief that
teachers work only seven hours per day, my workday began at 7 A.M. and ended 12
to 14 hours later. In addition, I worked about ten hours each weekend writing
lesson plans and grading papers. Any effective teacher puts in similar long
hours. If they do not, then they are not a good teacher, period. Teaching
students is only a small part of the job. I spent the majority of my working
hours planning lessons, preparing materials, grading papers and meeting with
and phoning parents. Administrative meetings, conferences, and duties such as
bus and cafeteria monitoring were additional requirements.
Most
teachers cannot afford the luxury of taking the summers off, as anyone who has
looked at a teacher’s paycheck can verify. During my summers off, I wrote
grants, taught summer school, worked as an intern in a pathology lab, waitressed, and anything else that enabled me to live
throughout the next school year on my teacher’s salary.
Money talks. It tells
scientists and mathematicians that we do not want them in our
classrooms. School districts simply cannot pay a graduate with a chemistry
degree a wage comparable to what they could make in a chemistry lab. Low salaries for teachers — compared to professionals of comparable
education and skills — ensures that the revolving door stays open.
There
is consensus among educators that the single most important factor driving
student achievement is quality teachers. However, that consensus falls apart
outside the educational arena. Teachers are not valued and respected for their
contributions, even though many successful people attribute their success to
one of their teachers.
Perhaps
part of the lack of respect for teachers stems from the fact that teaching has
been a female dominated field. And further, perhaps part of the shortage of
teachers is a direct result of women choosing careers other than teaching,
leaving holes in the schools that will need to be filled.
I
am happy to be embarking on this new chapter of my life as an educational
researcher. While it will never be as rewarding as teaching, it also does not
come with all the pressures and stress of the everyday life of a classroom
teacher.
I
congratulate teachers everywhere for the tremendous job they are doing
everyday, despite terrific odds stacked against their success.
Further Reading:
A Summary of the National Comprehensive
Center for Teacher Quality National Issue Forum: Addressing Personnel Shortages
and the Recruitment of Special Education, Mathematics, and Science Teachers in
At-Risk Schools. May 25-25, 2006. Rosemone, IL: http://www.ncctq.org/issueforums/atrisk/summary.php
Attracting
and Keeping Quality Teachers: http://www.nea.org/teachershortage/index.html
High Turnover of Science
Teachers Requires Schools To Change. NSTA
Survey: 2000
Of Teacher
Shortages and Quality: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3210656.htm
l
School
Districts Approve Plans to Link Teacher Pay with Student Performance: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2006-04-12-voa1.cfm
Teacher
Attrition: A Costly Loss to the Nation and to the States: http://www.all4ed.org/publications/TeacherAttrition.pdf
Teachers
and the Quality of Education: http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/know_sharing/flagship_initiatives/teachers1.shtml
Teacher
Turnover, Teacher Shortages, and the Organization of Schools:
http://depts.washington.edu/ctpmail/PDFs/Turnover-Ing-01-2001.pdf
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