Teachers Are the Solution, Not the Problem

By Robert Gulya on July 13, 2013

The other day, I met some friends at a bar downtown. I found myself sitting next to someone I didn’t know, who kept complaining about his job.

“This is the first night I’ve had in weeks that I know I don’t have to come in tomorrow.”

He’s an investment banker. He went on to discuss his hours.

“Sometimes, I’m there all day. I work 12-13 hours a day sometimes.”

He asked me what I do. I explained that I teach Special Education at a high school in the South Bronx. His response:

“Summer break is pretty awesome.”

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This is not a new sentiment. When I discuss my job, I’m always met with the same comments. About all of our breaks,  how we get off at 3 PM, or how I have probably the most powerful union in the country.

In the recent presidential election, education was basically a non-factor. There was one (yes, I counted) question posed in the second debate about college loans. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics release in April 2012, 12.8 million citizens between the ages of 16 and 24 were enrolled in college. That’s about 30%. Needless to say, college loans are not the most pressing educational flaw in this country (although maybe it is to the voting electorate).

What’s fallen through the cracks are the 369,000 students who dropped out between October 2010 and October 2011, more than half of which are unemployed. What’s forgotten is the millions who graduate from NYC public schools and fail to attend or graduate college. Something is wrong with education in this country and while I don’t blame teachers, I think the solution does begin with them.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development revealed earlier this year some stunning statistics on education around the world. They found that in the US, secondary teachers spend 1,080 hours teaching each year. The world average is 653.

Conversely, American teacher pay falls in the middle of the pack at $43,633, slightly above the average of $39,007. Then, if we compare teacher salaries to the GDP, the United States moves to the lower end of the pack at 96 percent. Korea sits in first at 221, Germany follows at just over 150.

I believe these statistics are telling and reveal a good deal about how this country views its teachers. American teachers, statistically, work more hours than any other country and are paid less.

Courtesy of Google Images

Yet there I was, listening to an investment banker ask me about my time off. Not about how I get to work an hour before I have to (for which I don’t get paid) to prepare my classroom for students to walk in. Or how I worked one-on-one with a student on her essay for almost 2 hours after my workday ended (again, not paid). Or how I wrote six Individual Education Programs, which are the legal documents for students with disabilities, this month (again, unpaid), each of which takes about 2 hours to write.

How many people do you know that would give that much time, unpaid, to their employer?

Still, over the past few years, there has been growing dissent boiling against public teachers in this country as a result of the early results of charter schools. The major difference between charter schools and community schools is teachers in charter schools are not protected by the Teachers’ Union.

Thus, the Union, and by association its teachers, became the problem. Teachers weren’t working hard enough. Teachers weren’t using research to guide instruction. Teachers weren’t putting in the extra effort.

Based on the Metlife Teacher Satisfaction Survey results released last spring, the percentage of teachers who reported they were “very satisfied” with their job dropped from 59% in 2009 to 44%. The percentage of teachers who rated they were “very likely to leave the profession” increased by 12 points to 29%. To make matters worse, recent studies have shown that roughly 50% of new teachers leave in the first 5 years.

Unfortunately, a study conducted by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research found that early career experiences are crucial to teacher growth and student achievement.According to the study, “Teachers show the greatest productivity gains during their first few years on the job” before leveling out after about 5-6 years of experience. It seems that teachers are leaving the profession just as they’re getting a hang of the rules.

Education is the best predictor of success in adult life. In fact, many municipalities use high school dropout numbers to predict how many prisons to build.

About 55% of high school drop-outs are unemployed, and high school drop-outs are 47 times more likely than college grads to end up in jail. Yet this country delegates a mere 4% of it budget to education. It delegates 12% to welfare.

If we are to raise student achievement in this country, then we have to find a way to bring in talented teachers and keep committed ones. I have never met anyone who went into education for the money, but I know people who have left it. Compounding the economic question is the one of respect. If we are to attract bright, talented people to the profession, then we have to stop blaming teachers and find ways to better support them. We need to stop looking at teachers as part of the problem, but embrace them as the solution.

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I looked across at the stranger over our beers and couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re in charge of the future of people’s money. I’m in charge of the future of their children.”

 

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