Teacher vacancy recommendations appreciated

Apr. 9—Organizations like Raise Your Hand Texas and the Fast Growth School Coalition say recommendations issued by the state Teacher Vacancy Task Force are appreciated, but not surprising. Some should have been taken on years ago.

Bob Popinski, senior director of policy for Raise Your Hand Texas, said the conversation about the teacher workforce has been going on for some time and there is a lot of "meat" to put on the bones of the overarching recommendations.

"You're dealing with pay; with teacher culture; with how you train and prepare your teachers for the teacher workforce; so there's definitely a lot of moving pieces within these recommendations," Popinski said.

He added that a lot of these conversations have been going on for years in Texas.

"We have a teaching staff of roughly 375,000 teachers across the state and we lose almost 37 percent of them by year five. We know we've had a teacher workforce issue for quite some time, so how do you attract teachers into the profession? How do you retain them and how do you pay them a wage that will keep them in the profession, but also give them the support and the opportunities they need through mentorship programs in the process. So what this sets out is, No. 1 they definitely understand that pay is an issue. Texas is currently $7,500 below the national average in teacher pay. That's one of their first recommendations. They didn't put a number on this; they just basically said let's increase overall compensation through an increase to the basic allotment," Popinski said.

"That aligns with Raise Your Hand's recommendation to increase the basic allotment. Right now, the basic allotment is about $1,000 below where it needs to be just to keep up with inflation since 2019. School districts don't have the same purchasing power as they did in 2019 and where about 50 percent of a school district budget goes toward teacher salaries that's a big driving force so their recommendation to increase the basic allotment, which automatically triggers a certain percentage to go to teacher pay, is a good recommendation. We suggest that they increase that basic allotment by $1,000 and so that's the first big priority of this bill," he added.

Next, he said, is to enhance total teacher compensation.

"They're looking at retirement benefits, health insurance and how to improve that. ... That's much needed as well. They're trying to figure out how to incentivize teachers to go into hard to staff areas (like) bilingual and special education to be paid for their certification process, as well as how to improve the pipeline for preservice preparation. Can we pay for scholarships for residency programs that allow teachers to have yearlong residency programs and be paid for it in a way so that they don't get a hit to their budget trying to be well prepared and trained to be ready on day one," Popinski said.

Grow your own programs were also recommended. Popinski said these need funding and staff to make sure you have the right staff to have those programs in place.

Asked about the chances these recommendations will make it through the legislature, Popinski said there is a definite need.

"I think it is a priority, not only in this organization but a lot of organizations and leadership over at the Capitol to do something with teacher workforce. We know from the Charles Butt poll that was released that 77 percent of our teachers have considered leaving the profession and that's just not sustainable to have teacher shortage areas. That's been systemic in our teacher workforce for quite some time, whether it's special education teachers ... bilingual teachers or math teachers. We know that's been a problem, so in addition to teachers wanting to leave the profession because of pay and other support issues," he added.

There are still roughly three months left in the legislative session and a lot of different opinions on how to do these things.

"There is enough funding to get this done. The state has a historic beginning balance; a historic revenue estimate moving forward. There is enough to pay our teachers more to get them on track with the national average. There are ways to bolster our high-quality traditional preparation programs. Right now, 16 percent of our teachers come from alt-certification programs. Some of them have varying degrees of training our teachers to be ready and so looking at that to make sure that we have high quality teachers coming out of all preparation programs it's going to be high on folks' minds, as well as doing a broad search for trying to attract teachers into the profession," Popinski said. "I think a lot of these issues are going to have really deep conversations. We're just happy this elevated the conversation, but like I said at the beginning there's a lot of meat to put on the bones; a lot of policy issues to be discussed. ... There's roughly 1,000 bills filed related to education issues every legislative session and these alone are some pretty heavy lifts."

The average teacher salary in Texas is $57,639 a year. Popinski said when you adjust that over the last 10 years for inflation that's increased by a little under $2,000.

He added that it varies by years of service.

The basic allotment, which Raise Your Hand also favors increasing, is the building block on how schools are funded.

"Think of it as $6,160 and that's what every student in the state starts with and then you add on some student characteristics to that, so if you're a special needs student or a student that qualifies for free and reduced lunch, or gets in gifted and talented programs, or bilingual programs you can add on allotments to that, or add on weights to that," Popinski said.

Once you start adding on the weights and allotments to that average, students receive about $10,000 across the state. That can vary based on district or campus and student characteristics. On average, he said, it's about $10,000 per student.

Attached to the basic allotment in Texas law is a provision that says anytime the basic allotment is increased, a certain percentage of that increase has to go to teacher salary increases.

Greg Smith, executive Director of the Fast Growth School Coalition and former Clear Creek ISD superintendent, said his only concern about the recommendations is that they're probably four years later than "what they needed to be."

"This is not a problem that is just in 2022-23. This is a problem that folks have seen going on for several years that the pipeline was drying up and people weren't getting into the education field," Smith said.

He said he doesn't know if people just thought it would change overnight without the injection of any recommendations, but overall it's a great starting point.

"They had the experts in the room with the teachers asking them why are they staying, why are they doing what they're doing and then the autopsy report of why are people leaving the profession so early," Smith said.

"I think they addressed it from the financial standpoint in terms of salary compensation. They addressed it from health benefits and they addressed it from the environmental point of view ...," Smith added.

Having said that, he thinks there are areas for improvement on the legislation part.

"I think there's the same thing for universities as well as school districts. I don't think it's just let's point a finger at the legislature. I think this is something that people need to be grabbing hold of with respect to their own educational environment, whether it's in your neck of the woods or whether it's mine. There's room for improvement and it's going to take everyone working collectively to dig ourselves out of this. We're all pretty much to blame for putting us into this situation to begin with."

Asked if COVID was an accelerant, Smith said he thinks so.

"It certainly revealed itself about how hard this is and the risks associated with it. It got to a point where it exasperated the situation even more so. In our fast growth school coalition ... we really felt like there needed to be some sort of injection into the system for incentives and taking close looks at ... some things we can do better with respect to creating less stress on the teachers and creating more joy," Smith said.

Many teachers in ECISD, for example, have one to five years of experience and 20 or more years but not a lot in the middle.

"The mentor thing I think is important and that was addressed. It's addressed, but it's addressed in name only. The devil's in the details on this and what goes into being a mentor to help people through the turbulent times of starting out once you're handed the keys to the door. What does that look like?"

At Clear Creek, Smith said they gave teachers lesson plan guides starting out.

"I do think we need to look at opportunities to create some different mentoring opportunities for veteran teachers to work with incoming teachers to help them over the hump. I think what we've come to grips with is if you can find me someone that's kind, caring, compassionate and willing to learn we can teach you the content. So if you can find that instructional aide, let's put them on the fast track to become a classroom teacher," Smith said.

He added that if the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker are on the same page things like pay increases for teachers are going to get done.

There are lots of questions about vouchers or education savings accounts. Smith said there is some research on vouchers in Arizona and Milwaukee that might indicate that vouchers are reducing the cost for students already in private schools.

"But as far as the actual movement of students from public schools to vouchers and having an onslaught of reductions in student population, I think the jury's still out on that," Smith said.

He added that this was a "great wake up call for the public school sector to realize that you're not a monopoly any more and you better make sure the services that you're providing to the kids, first and foremost, are going to be something that the community's proud of after tracking the data."

Popinski said public schools educate 5.4 million kids.

"I think that the universal education savings account or vouchers are a conversation that's going to be had and it's going to impact public education. If it does pass, and our organization hopes that vouchers or ESAs are not passed, we think it's bad state policy. It does siphon money away from public schools. ... Think of a small campus with four or five kids leaving for a voucher program ... Those four or five kids are distributed across the campus in different grade levels but by them leaving ... that campus loses $10,000 per student. So $50,000 to some of these small, rural campuses is a teacher's salary. Those campuses still have to have a teacher in every classroom. They still have to have a bus driver in every bus. They still have to have a cafeteria worker to help with food service, and so yes, it does siphon off money from public schools and potentially including teachers and an impact on how you can staff up your teaching workforce within a campus or a school district," Popinski said.