California's growing teacher shortage is gaining some real attention. People in high places mention it frequently and promise to do something about it. We hear often about school districts that have had to hire teachers who can qualify only on emergency permits. In some districts such teachers make up a considerable percentage of all faculties. And yet, weirdly enough, a highly placed person at Stanford University told me recently that fully credentialed Stanford graduates can't get a job in San Francisco Unified. What's going on?
It shouldn't even be necessary to say so, but the public does want fully qualified teachers in the public school classrooms. A September 2000 Lou Harris poll revealed that 87 percent of Americans support "doing what it takes to put fully qualified teachers in every public school classroom in America." The figure was across the board ethnically: African Americans supported the importance of qualified teachers 86 percent, Latinos 89 percent. There is no lack of public understanding of this issue.
Yet the administrative bureaucracy, responsible for hiring teachers, is strangely reluctant to do everything possible to staff our classrooms with true professionals. Everyone knows that a proper professional salary is a prerequisite to a professional staff, so when school boards refuse to pay teachers decently, they are clearly fighting the public's wishes. Yet that is what is happening around the state. In districts like Wiseburn, Chino Valley, Fairfield-Suisun, Alameda, Ramona, Richgrove, and Cajon Valley, just to mention a few, the bureaucracy lowballs and fights teachers in the collective bargaining process, denying them money that CTA and teachers fought to bring to the district.
The administrative fat cats have their reasons, they say. Their way of budgeting puts teachers last, and their excuse is that "programs" are more important than teachers. The failed logic of such a position should be obvious, even to bureaucrats. No matter how good the textbook or the lab station or any other item in a program, it takes a teacher to provide the learning experience for the students. "Programs" are created by teachers and implemented by teachers. Without teachers, what can they accomplish?
I don't know just what "programs" these school boards are eager to spend teachers' money on, but I do know that the districts have their priorities in reverse if they think that buying programs will educate kids.
That's not just my opinion. In October 2000, Newsweek reported a study that said, "Teachers are the heart of the school, the single most important factor in a student's success." Many studies have shown that kids learn best in schools where teachers feel respected and connected to their colleagues and community.
Ignoring such studies - and ignoring common sense - apparently comes easily to some administrators. A clear example is Superintendent Don Brann of the Wiseburn School District. He is offering the teachers a 1 percent salary increase. You read that right. It's not a typo. One percent. (Inflation is currently running around 5 percent.) Brann claims in a letter sent to every person in the district (he was careful to miss no one, including "Occupant") that the district got a 12 percent funding increase, but for the good of the students all but that 1 percent was allocated to "programs." Does this man understand anything about education?
I wish he were only an isolated example, but he's not. There are too many others, who clearly demonstrate one of the major problems within California's public schools. The school board in the Ramona District, another example, is giving an 11.5 percent raise to administrators, while teachers are being offered only 5.5 percent. How does this kind of insult fit the fact that if you want the best people for a job, you offer a competitive, respectable salary?
The argument that districts can't afford to pay teachers what they are worth because, as Ken Hall and School Services are saying, that would conflict with maintaining programs is just plain crazy. The programs have been maintained out of normal budget funds; the extra money for schools this year, $1.84 billion of it, came from the efforts of teachers and it was clearly intended to go to teachers, to shore up standards in our profession by attracting and holding fully qualified teachers. To use it for other purposes, including ever fatter salaries for non-teaching "educators," is an outrageous misappropriation of the public's money and openly disregards the public's stated wishes for our schools.
Programs require teachers. Fully qualified teachers require professional compensation. It's that simple. Administrators, learn this lesson: You can't do it your way without further downgrading public education.
The public and teachers are in agreement. Fully credentialed teachers are necessary in the classroom, and the way to get them there is to pay them what they are worth, to listen to what they have to say, and give them priority in the budget. Teachers ‹ not a load of bloated bureaucrats in the central office ‹ are the key to quality education.
Apparently too many of the central office "educators" need to be educated, and make no mistake about it, CTA is ready and able to do that job.
