Catherine Martinez: If policies stand, teacher shortage will worsen

Let’s review some of the factors influencing the non-news of a teacher shortage.

On Sept. 1, Alpine Testing Solutions, the company hired to assess the validity of the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA), found that the test could be used at the “group level” to evaluate teachers, establish cut scores to measure student achievement and give school grades. Validity in testing means that the test aligns with what it is supposed to measure. The company found that the questions were fair and unbiased and matched the Florida Standards.

Ironically, the company suggested that the FSA scores should not be the sole criteria for keeping a student from passing to the next grade or receiving a high school diploma. However, it suggested that the scores could be used at a group level to assess teachers and schools.

The same report acknowledged that many students had difficulty completing the test because of cyber attacks. Not mentioned was AIR’s admitted mistakes in running an software update the day before students were to log on a take the test.

The situation has to deeply concern any teacher not planning to retire in the next couple of years. The Student Success Act passed in 2010 requires that a portion of each teacher’s evaluation be based on a student’s real progress in relation to predicted process. The law isn’t clear on what should be done about missing scores. Will they count against a teacher’s overall success rate?

The law also has no provision for the complete transformation from the FCAT to the FSA, which is rather like comparing apples to oranges. Also, the protests against excessive testing nixed the plan last year to test every subject every year with a standardized test but left unresolved how to assess a value-added score for a teacher who does not teach reading, language arts, or math.

That leads us to the Best and Brightest Scholarship Act, which is the biggest unknown giveaway to new teachers. It’s a bill that Miami Republican Rep. Erik Fresen pushed in the Florida Legislature. Teachers who can prove they scored in the upper 20th percentile on the ACT or SAT and were rated “highly effective” in the 2013-14 school year can apply for a $10,000 bonus (how can that be called a scholarship?). There is $44 million in the current budget for that bogus bonus.

The capricious nature of this giveaway should be evident immediately. ACT and SAT scores are highly correlated to income level, so that wealthier, white and Asian students tend to score high in relation to their poorer, darker peers. Percentile means that students are graded against each other that than against an objective criteria. New teachers who may still have their scores on file or at least have easy assess to them do not even have to score “high effective”; they just need to be employed in the 2013-14 school year.

The program is also biased against older teachers and those who attended community colleges.

Those of us still teaching are not at all surprised about the teacher shortages across the country. All college graduates have to take on enormous debt, and teachers are the lowest paid, in close competition with preachers of any other college graduates. I can testify that 7.5 hours per day is not enough time to plan lessons, instruct students and grade papers. I donate between 12 and 15 unpaid hours per week.

Another factor driving young people away from teaching and experienced teachers into other fields is the war against “tenure.” The word is a misnomer. Traditional tenure in higher education preserved academic freedom for professors so they could express controversial views without fear of retribution.  Tenure in public education simply means due process. No one complains because defrocking a priest, disbarring a lawyer, or unlicensing a doctor is a long and arduous process.

When I started teaching 20 years ago in Florida, a teacher could be confirmed with a permanent contract after three years. Nowadays most teachers have a yearly contract with no kind of job security.

A teacher on continuing contract can still be fired for committing a felony such as abusing students. A continuing contract just means that a teacher cannot be removed just because a principal or assistant principal doesn’t like his or her face. However,  a principal who doesn’t like a teacher has many ways to make life miserable for a teacher, such as surprise observations or inconvenient duty assignments.

It’s obvious that state legislators can solve the problem by making the teaching profession more attractive to young college graduates.

Teachers want to be trusted and treated like professionals. The current obsession with standardized tests takes away from actual teaching time. Currently four weeks out of 36 are dedicated to the FSA, not including diagnostics and test prep.

Teachers need to feel that they are valued and secure members of the system. The direction of the federal government and local state governments means the teacher shortage will get worse, not better.

Catherine Shore Martinez is a National Board Certified teacher at Pahokee Middle Senior High School in Palm Beach County. Column courtesy of Context Florida.