OKPLAC & Betty Collins — Union Public Schools Teacher
As grassroots parent advocates, OKPLAC deeply values our public school teachers and all they bring to our kids every day.
We are also very worried about them and the teaching profession.
There is too much toxic rhetoric out there directed at our teachers, too much legislative interference with teaching, and too little pay and support for the important work they do.
When qualified teachers leave the profession, and our bright young people don’t choose to pursue teaching, it’s our kids who pay the price.
So what is it that teachers need? What will bring a level of job satisfaction to keep our best teachers in the classroom with our kids? To better understand the teacher shortage, we decided to ask a teacher.
Betty Collins teaches at Union Public Schools in the Tulsa area, where she’s been teaching for the last seven of her thirteen year teaching career. Betty has not only experienced the teacher shortage firsthand, she is currently studying teacher recruitment and retention as she pursues her masters degree in Education Policy & Organizational Leadership.
Here are some of Betty’s ideas for recruiting and retaining teachers for Oklahoma’s public schools.
Establish Paid Internships: Most teacher preparation programs require at least one teaching internship. Students in these programs are often discouraged from holding another job during this time so they can focus on their internship. State legislatures could establish programs and incentives for paying student teachers, which would allow economically disadvantaged teaching students to join a teacher prep program without risking their financial stability.
End High Stakes Testing: Federal mandated state testing is just a tool that lobbyists use to make testing companies money. Focusing on test results pits teachers and schools against each other, while doing nothing to raise the achievement of the lowest performing students. Eliminating these costly tests will allow state governments to spend that money on focused recruitment and retention efforts and to develop assessments that measure individual student growth from year to year, rather than comparing all students to each other in a never-ending war to classify all public schools as failing. This will also naturally eliminate the school report card, which does a whole lot of nothing to help the mandated 5% of F schools to elevate above that station.
Allow Cross-State Pensions: If circumstances require a teacher to relocate across state lines, it’s typical that the teacher’s state pension does not transfer with them to a new district in a different state. Too often this leads to an experienced teacher choosing to leave the teaching profession, further reducing the teacher ranks and depriving kids of a highly qualified educator. Just like a 401(k) would follow a parent to a new state, a teacher pension should also follow the teacher.
Grow Your Own: Sometimes there’s a great untapped teacher in the district who is not in a classroom, but is working in an administrative or paraprofessional role. Districts would be wise to establish so-called “Grow Your Own” programs for identifying these employees who demonstrate a predisposition to teach and recruiting them into the teaching profession.
Parents, if we want the best public schools for our kids, we have to listen to our public school teachers and stand up for what they need to be the best they can be.