press release
Indianapolis
It’s called confirmation bias. And it’s defined as our tendency to embrace evidence that supports our preconceptions and to ignore anything that contradicts those beliefs.
Exhibit A: The current assertion by opponents of education reform that Indiana’s efforts in recent years to improve student achievement are the primary triggers of an emerging teacher shortage.
Has the number of college students enrolled in schools of education declined in recent years? Yes.
Have some public schools in some parts of the state struggled to find qualified educators? Yes.
Well, that proves it. Conservatives really are trying to destroy public schools. Republicans really do hate teachers. And Mike Pence really is guilty of “borrowing” second-graders’ lunch money.
If you believe that, then there’s really not much I can write that will shake your faith. The “ISTA says it, I believe it, and that settles it” crowd is largely unpersuadable about anything that doesn’t fit the script.
But for those who still have open minds about education issues the evidence about what’s driving the drop in the number of future educators is far more nuanced than the “blame it all on the reformers” trope.
For instance, would you be surprised to hear that the teacher shortage isn’t isolated to Indiana?
As National Public Radio (not exactly the home of Rush Limbaugh) reported this week, the problem extends from coast to coast, and several points in between. “In California, enrollment in teaching programs is down more than 50 percent over the past five years. Enrollment is down sharply in Texas, North Carolina, New York and elsewhere,” NPR told its listeners.
California and New York? How was Mike Pence able to infiltrate those bastions of blue state bliss?
All right, smart aleck, so what is going on?
To answer that, let’s first acknowledge that some education reform efforts may be one driver of the teacher shortage. Repeat: one driver.
I’ve talked to too many discouraged teachers over the years to pretend that all is well. It’s not. Their discouragement may well turn off some prospective teachers who’ve heard a lot of complaints about rising expectations, stagnant pay, mounting frustrations and shifting blame.
Those of us who believe strongly, for the sake of our state and of our people, that student achievement must continue to improve significantly need to be willing to assess and adjust our methods and our message. We need to communicate, over and over, that teachers are really important and truly valued.
And we need to push hard for generously rewarding those educators who are excelling in the classroom, often without adequate recognition and compensation.
But the story doesn’t stop there.
A decade or so ago, a lot of trees were killed to publish a lot of stories (yes, kids, people once used paper as a communication app) about the teacher shortage to come one day when large numbers of baby boomers began to retire. Well, that day is here.
Also, the shortage of prospective employees isn’t isolated to the education sector. As we continue in Indiana and the nation to draw closer to full employment, workers suddenly have a lot of options. Recent news reports have documented employers’ struggle to find enough carpenters, plumbers, electricians, chefs and truck drivers. No one is blaming the trucker reform movement on why fewer people want to climb into a big rig for the long haul.
The aftershocks of the great recession need to be considered as well. For example, in California, between 2008 and 2012, schools wiped out 80,000 teaching jobs. Now, they’re hiring again, but the pipeline hasn’t been primed. That may be because all those not-so-old stories about teacher layoffs linger in the minds of bright young people when they’re choosing a career.
A final point: If I were a teacher, I’d view the developing shortage of workers in my chosen profession as a good thing, at least personally. When demand holds steady or grows, and supply shrinks, good things tend to happen for the people prepared to meet that demand. At least that’s the case in an open market.
Now, if our public schools aren’t operating like an open market, then we’ve got another problem.
Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @tswarens.
