Attracting top-notch teachers for NC

 By Sarah Thomson, Op Ed in News and Observer, August 9, 2013.

At the risk of offending some fellow educators, not all of the General Assembly’s recent education legislation is problematic. When we reject every component of an education agenda, it reduces our credibility, and we fall subject to mission creep. We devote less attention to the most important issues facing education in North Carolina.

I do not mind that lawmakers took away tenure. There are no teacher unions in North Carolina; we have no collective bargaining rights; tenure does not mean much here anyway. And, no, the North Carolina Association of Educators is not a union.

Nor am I bothered by the elimination of teaching assistant positions. Spending the past few years teaching eighth grade in Durham Public Schools, I saw far too many unlicensed, inadequate teaching assistants in classrooms, doing the work that should have been done by expert teachers. Our school, like many, could not afford to hire more teachers. I appreciate Gov. Pat McCrory’s idea to eliminate teaching assistant positions in favor of hiring more teachers.

Disputes over these non-issues take our attention away from the crux of the concern here in North Carolina: teacher retention and teacher quality, which are directly tied to teacher pay and teacher training. We fall sadly short in both areas. We know that teacher quality is a significant factor in determining student achievement, and teacher “effectiveness” is directly related to the preparation received during the initial teacher licensure program Further, students in low-income communities often disproportionately receive under-qualified, ineffective teachers.

So what are we doing to ensure that effective teachers work and stay in the neediest classrooms? North Carolina continues to rely heavily on inexpensive, alternative licensure programs that do not adequately prepare teachers to teach at this level, particularly in communities of struggling readers and writers. Highly qualified teachers from other states arrive and leave quickly because the pay is low and the conditions are laughable.

Our students cannot afford our state’s lack of investment in teacher quality and retention, particularly after our adoption of the Common Core Standards last year. These standards require rigorous instruction, in-depth content knowledge and the ability to teach challenging, abstract concepts while building high-level reasoning skills. This is a wonderful task! But it’s one that cannot be accomplished without proper support.

The recent legislation discouraging graduate coursework and requiring only 50 percent of charter school teachers to have licenses highlights lawmakers’ lack of concern. Further, No Child Left Behind requires that teachers in low-income districts be “highly-qualified,” a designation that requires two degrees at the secondary level – a degree in one’s content area as well as a degree in teaching. How can teachers be highly qualified if we are discouraged from completing the necessary graduate coursework?

Other states do this better. The News & Observer recently published a multi-page spread comparing Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, one of the top-performing districts in the country, to Wake County Public Schools. I taught in Montgomery County. It does two things that North Carolina does not: Hire teachers with master’s degrees from reputable institutions and compensate them accordingly. Not surprisingly, MCPS does not have the high teacher turnover rate that we do.

Over 50 percent of the teachers at my school in Durham, including me, resigned after the school year finished in June. None is returning to teach in DPS. Some are changing districts to receive the salary increase due to them after the statewide salary scale was frozen in 2007, but most are moving to different states or leaving teaching altogether.

I am moving to Michigan to begin a doctoral program in teacher education, where I will work with student teachers and help prepare them to do what Common Core stipulates we must. Having attended UNC as an undergrad and identifying as a proud, native North Carolinian, I am asked by friends: Why not stay and do a program here? Simple answer: North Carolina does not emphasize teacher education. Other states, like Michigan, Maryland, California, Colorado and Oregon, are looking at innovative ways to promote teacher quality and retention.

I hope to return and help to change things. I know I’ll have a lot of help, because friends and colleagues here are native North Carolinians, not outsiders, who are committed to Bill Friday’s call to give back to the people of North Carolina, who gave us our education.