I was reading an article today about another politician and their theory on how to improve public education and guess what? Yep, it was the same old story about how "Choice" is the panacea for everything that is wrong with public schools. It goes something like this: "Our children are trapped in failing schools and deserve a chance to escape to be able to pursue their dreams. We have no right to deny our children a good education; and besides, competition is good for everyone. When the money follows the kids, it will force public schools to get better to compete for those dollars. If public schools refuse to improve, then they deserve to be closed." We have heard this for years and yet, despite all of the research that exists on effective strategies to improve education, very few people in the public arena are talking about the real issue: The public's lack of support for the profession of teaching. All of the talk about school choice is a "Red Herring", designed to take your attention off of the real problem which is our nation's pitiful support for our teachers. Instead, politicians like to talk about choice because it sounds good to voters. After all, as Americans we like choice. We like the fact that we have ten fast food restaurants within a one-mile radius of our home. We love the fact that we have a Walgreens and a CVS next door to each other. We adore the fact that we have both Costco AND Sams Club in our towns. It's all about choice for us...and the politicians know this. Choice is also good for the political class because it taps them into the fat dollars they can get from the corporate education giants and wealthy donors who support choice initiatives. In many states, the most vocal lobby against public education is the business lobby and the Chamber of Commerce, who steadfastly assert that public schools are turning out graduates who can't read, can't add, can't think...basically that they can't do anything. I oppose this viewpoint and anecdotal evidence, but more on that at a later time.
Here is why choice is bad for education: It ignores the real issue which is the degree to which we support the teaching profession. By support I mean: Respect for the profession in general, better quality and more relevant training, and increased salaries. Let's take these factors on one at a time.
First of all, teaching is a profession that is not revered by most of the public. Many people do not consider teaching as a prestigious profession. In a 2014 Harris Poll, teaching ranked 10 out of the top ten prestigious professions. While it certainly remains higher than many other possible professions, it is clearly NOT a top choice for most people. Some large states have lost over 50% of their teacher prep enrollments between 2008 and 2013 (Sawchuk, 2014). Sixty percent of respondents named teaching as a prestigious profession as compared to 88% for doctors and 62% for architects (Smith, 2014). In other surveys, teaching doesn't even make it into the top 10. As educators, the fist thing we need to do is to stop tearing each other down and start being the champions of public education to everyone we meet. If the people in the profession are negative about it, it's unlikely that others will perceive it in a positive light. We know that word of mouth is the best advertising and it is an effective and cheap way to start a public relations improvement on our profession. Bottom line, if you are an educator and you have problems with public education, you need to get out of the business. We need to fight our battles that need to be waged within our own house and we don't need to be airing our dirty laundry. Also, we could do a little more to clean up our own image by upholding higher professional and ethical standards...and most of all...loving every child who walks through our door like they were our own.
Secondly, the teaching profession is in great need of high quality and relevant teacher training. As an administrator, I have had a number of novice teachers come through my school. Some of the best teachers I have seen have come from "alternative" certification programs. These programs are designed for people who were in another career who then later decided to become a teacher. I have found that many of these people do a brilliant job because they made the conscious choice to stop what they were doing, subject themselves to a year or more of constant schooling and evaluation, and then endure the bumps and lessons associated with the first year of teaching. Conversely, I have found that many of our university graduates are theory rich and experience poor. Much of this is not their fault, however. Their programs are often a "cash cow" for the university and they push these students through years of theory courses and observing hours, only to release them slowly to teach as student teachers during their last semester of college. This is a pattern that has been around for many, many years and I believe that it is a wrongheaded approach in many respects. We need to change the way we do things by first, refusing to certify novice teachers fully until they have completed at least three years of an internship program where they receive intense guidance from coaches who are trained to help them with all aspects of classroom instruction. I believe that we could even weave this into a Masters degree in teaching and give students credit for the work that they do in the classroom. As a culmination activity, I would have these teachers complete the equivalent of National Board Certification, and give them a credential that would be immediately acceptable in any state in the United States. These students will have proven that they have the respect of their peers and their administrators and are committed and trained to provide best-practice instruction to every student, every day.
Finally, we get to the issue of teacher pay. The average teacher salary in the United States is $50,000/year. Many novice teachers make far below that and this is the issue that is helping to kill the prospect of attracting quality teachers to the profession. According to the National Education Association, the average starting salary for a novice teacher is $36,141 (NEA, 2013). This person likely has school loan debt (Yes, I know some of this can later be forgiven, but they still have to pay until that kicks in.) and all the other costs associated with trying to make it on your own such as rent, car payments, credit card debt, utilities, food, etc.. They have spent the past four or five years striving for this dream or have quit another job to pursue their passion and they remain largely unrewarded financially for this decision. We realize that teachers don't go into the profession for the money, but it would be nice if the public recognized their contribution to society with greater remuneration. In 2015, the federal government will spend almost $69 billion on public education (Ed.gov, 2015). This is ironic since the federal government essentially educated nobody. Much of this money, $42 billion, is discretionary and not tied to Pell Grants. Of this amount, $14 billion goes to support Title I initiatives, which are important to low-income children and are managed by the state in the form of grants (Ed.gov, 2015). If we took the remaining $28 billion and divided it evenly among the nation's 3.1 million public school teachers, that would be $9,032 for each of them. That could raise the starting salary for the new teachers to $45,173, and that would be a good down payment on making things right. By the way, in 2015, the total revenue to the federal government is projected to be $3.34 trillion (Congressional Record, 2015). A contribution of $28 billion represents only 0.08% of the total. So, we can't spend less than one-tenth of one percent of our total revenue to help out our teachers? Give me a break!
So, the next time you hear politicians shouting about choice. Plug your ears, hum a tune, and refuse to listen. It's all lies designed to confuse you and make you think that the trouble is with the lack of choice in public education; when the problem is actually the result of our inattention to the very thing that research says is THE MOST critical element in a child's education...THEIR TEACHER!
References
Congressional Record, 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2014-03- 04/pdf/CREC-2014-03-04-pt1-PgS1278-2.pdf
Ed.gov, 2015. Retrieved from: http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget15/summary/15summary.pdf
NEA, 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/home/2012-2013-average-starting-teacher-salary.html
Sawchuk, S., 2014. Steep drops seen in teacher prep enrollment numbers. EdWeek. Retrieved from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/10/22/09enroll.h34.html
Smith, J., 2015. The 10 most presigious jobs in america. Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-prestigious-jobs-in-america-2014-11
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