Children eager to learn are reporting to their classrooms for a new school year, but in an alarming number of cases, the schools don’t have enough teachers to educate them.
And increasingly, schools are turning to people with inadequate credentials to fill the widening teacher gap.
The Oklahoma State School Boards Association reports that districts representing 80 percent of enrolled public school students have some 1,000 teaching vacancies at the beginning of the school year, a disheartening repeat of findings in a similar survey last year.
The teacher gap comes despite school districts eliminating 600 positions and seeking a record number of state emergency certifications — 664 so far this year. With emergency certifications, people who don’t have basic credentials for classroom teaching can take teaching jobs.
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The problem is widespread in the state. Some 75 percent of school leaders say hiring teachers was more difficult this year compared to last year, and about 60 percent of districts anticipate needing to seek emergency teaching certifications to fill vacancies.
The results are predictable. Pupil-to-teacher ratios will grow as schools consolidate classes for no good education purpose except the lack of teachers. Academic results will fall as teachers have more students to educate and less time to deal with them. Teacher morale will continue to decline in proportion to the state’s financial neglect of public schools. More teachers will look for work in other fields or at schools in other states where the pay is better and their skills are honored. The teacher gap will continue to gape.
It’s a downward spiral into educational failure, and it’s completely avoidable.
The solution: A substantial increase in state funding for public schools, including an overdue state-funded teacher pay raise. It wouldn’t hurt if that money were matched with a new attitude in the state’s leadership, an attitude that tells teachers that their work is valued, their sacrifice is recognized, their contribution to society is honored. In short, the state’s leadership needs to spend less time trying to manage classrooms and more time supporting them.
Every child should have a fully qualified school teacher waiting at the front of the class at the beginning of the school year. It’s a fundamental part of the social contract: the investment we all make to assure an educated, prosperous future.
And we’re failing miserably.