Perhaps Charles Dickens gazed into a crystal ball and squinted at public education in Wisconsin in 2013 when he penned these words to begin A Tale of Two Cities in 1859.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
As a one-time English teacher, these words echo in my ears as my eyes read each day about the challenges school districts face in retaining, finding and developing the instructional capacity they need to meet the uphill mandates of state and federal governments. On the one hand, I read the words of legislators who declare that school boards now have the economic tools to make school districts more cost effective (read that as “do more with less funding”) and the curricular guidance to raise the educational achievement of every child. The curricular guidance is the adoption of Common Core State Standards, Teacher Effectiveness standards, and the transparency of School Report Cards with the requirement that school boards enact these on a short time line.
The upshot is that teachers who qualify for retirement are leaving the classroom, teachers who have lost wages and been handed increased out-of-pocket expenses required by their employment are leaving their classrooms, and school boards are challenged with finding teachers to fill an enormous number of classroom assignments.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2/21/2013) reported that “Even if Milwaukee Public Schools hired every person who graduated from a Wisconsin college with a teaching certificate between last December and August, it still wouldn’t have enough qualified teachers to fill an onslaught of expected vacancies this fall, according to new details from the district.”
“The district’s plan to hire 700 teachers by summertime includes hiring, at times, 50 teachers per week from April 5 to July 12. The district’s human resource department says it anticipates and will prepare for “continuous vacancies” throughout the year.”
If Milwaukee is successful, can the other 430+ Wisconsin school districts also meet their employment needs?
Who will be these new teachers? To borrow from Dickens’ “incredulity,” we have created an employee environment that his shucking off many effective, veteran teachers with an assumption that their replacements await and are ready to fill their vacated positions. During the 37-year span of my career as a school and district administrator, I participated in the hiring of 100s of teachers. I borrow again, this time from the movie Moneyball, to describe the dilemma administrators face in hiring excellent teachers. Baseball scouts from the New York Mets are explaining to Billy Beane’s parents why they believe he is a talented baseball player.
Billy’s Dad: Tell me why you are so interested in Billy? What is it that makes him special?
Scout #1: It’s very rare that you come upon a young man like Billy. Who can run, who can field, who can throw, who can hit and who can hit with power. Those five tools, you don’t see that very often.
Scout #2: Most of the youngsters in the league that we have an interest in have one or two tools and we’re hoping to develop an extra one. Your son has five, I mean we’re looking at a guy that’s a potential superstar for us in New York and the time is right now to get him started.
It is a truth – few teachers have “all five tools” (read that as being extraordinary, talented instructors with a passion for their work and a compassion for the children they teach and the ability to cause children to learn and understand). Try as school boards might to hire “five tool” teachers, these teachers are rare. When the board posts for the employment of a teacher, the board hopes that “five tool” teachers will apply, but more often the board is fortunate to attract several two or three tool teachers in their application pool. Teachers with multiple tools will have competing employment offers because they have the skills and talents that many school boards want. Because of this competition, a school board must make an “attractive” offer if it wants to finalize a hire. Sadly, boards are very limited in poofing up an employment offer given reduced state aid and governmental encouragement to limit teacher compensation. The result is that boards frequently are lucky to hire “one and two tool” teachers with the anticipation that through professional development a rookie teacher will learn one or two additional tools.
A contemporary school faculty meets its challenges in the aggregate. In the absence of “five tool” teachers, administrators assemble teams of teachers whose combined talents meet the curricular and extracurricular needs of their children. Recently, I talked with a “five tool” teacher who will leave the profession within the year. She excels as an AP teacher, athletic coach, newspaper advisor, letter club advisor, and mentor to students. She is esteemed by students, parents and students. It is unlikely that a “five tool” teacher will become her replacement. It is more likely that a “two or three tool” teacher will be hired to teach the assignment and other teachers or lay/community persons will need to fulfill her extracurricular roles. Schools need to meet the departure of veteran, highly effective teachers through the aggregate of several teachers and others.
Staffing a school faculty has become more and more difficult and the binding limitations of political/economic-driven legislation is making the creation of a “many tooled” faculty extremely difficult.