Exodus of teachers and alarming sign
Published April 19, 2014
Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, April 18, 2014.
"The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students."
– The North Carolina state constitution
Those words make it pretty clear that the General Assembly has a responsibility to maintain public schools in our great state.
But what if you had a school system and no teachers came?
That's not likely to happen, but there are signs that school systems across North Carolina are not only having trouble attracting new teachers, they are seeing good ones leave in alarming numbers.
The Wake County school system – which with nearly 155,000 students is the state's largest system and the nation's 16th largest – has seen a 41 percent increase in teacher resignations so far this year. School leaders said that 612 of Wake's 9,000 teachers have resigned since the beginning of the school year, compared with 433 during the previous year.
"Good teachers are having to make hard decisions to leave our classrooms for a better future somewhere else or in another line of work, in another profession – not in our public schools and not in our state," Doug Thilman, Wake's assistant superintendent for human resources, said at a news conference Thursday.
According The News & Observer, "more than 200 teachers said they're leaving because of employment outside of teaching, dissatisfaction with teaching, a career change, to work in another state/government agency, to teach in another state or other reasons."
That figure was 117 last year.
Thilman told the N&O he thought it was telling that there was a drop in the number of teachers who said they're resigning to teach in another North Carolina system. There was an increase in the number of teachers who said they're leaving to teach in other states.
At some point, the state, which pays teacher salaries, is going to put itself at risk of not having enough teachers to carry out its constitutional mandate on schools.
Our students deserve the best and brightest teachers. What is happening in Wake County, which is consistently rated as one of the top places to live in the nation, is not a good sign.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20140418/ARTICLES/140419676/1108/editorial?template=printart
April 19, 2014 at 11:11 am
Richard Bunce says:
[pedantic on]
So exodus of teachers is one story AND what is the alarming sign?
[pedantic off]
April 19, 2014 at 3:22 pm
Gary Arrington says:
I find it interesting that Mr. Tilman has these figures but failed to provide specific numbers...since the Department of Public Instruction does not report a statistic for teachers who resigned and left the state in it's annual turnover report. Perhaps he is reporting data he has gathered only from the Wake system, not the entire NC school system.
A large portion of the state's turnover in 2012-2013 seems to be centered is just a few districts. District 4 (Sandhills) and District 1 (Northeast)accounted for more than a third of the state's entire turnover in 2012-2013. Has anyone investigated reasons why?
Furthermore, 35% of the teacher turnover in 2012-2013 was due to "...individuals resigning to teach in another NC LEA (Local Education Agency)or charter school and individuals who moved to non-teaching positions in education". In other words, more than a third of the resignations were to move to another teaching job in NC or to a non-teaching job in public education in NC. Should this really be considered "turnover"?
Finally, another third of the turnover is what might be called "unavoidable turnover". The state calls it "turnover beyond control", meaning that no matter how good the job is, the person would have left anyway. This includes individuals "...who retired with full benefits, individuals who resigned for health reasons, individuals who resigned due to family responsibilities and/or childcare, death, and individuals who resigned due to family relocation.
An overall state turnover rate of 14% doesn't seem too unreasonable when compared to, say, healthcare, which often runs 20+%, especially when you consider that a significant number of those teachers stayed in NC in education jobs, and another significant number of those teachers would have resigned no matter what.
April 20, 2014 at 11:50 pm
Norm Kellly says:
Expect an audit this year. From either the feds or the state. Perhaps both. You don't toe the line, you get harassed.
Thank you for presenting some of these numbers. The obvious part of this story is that libs & education administrators are working to convince people that the Republicans are screwing teachers. But an obvious question seems 'how many of the teachers who quit did so to follow a family member who lost their job here and had to move to take a new job, either in the state or outside the state?'. Or, along the same line, 'how many of those teachers moved to stay with their family member whose job was relocated elsewhere?'. But it doesn't seem like asking those questions fit the lib narrative.
There was an article in the Sunday N&D that said something about a teacher who hadn't gotten a raise in 6 years. (no, i did not waste my time reading the n&d! my son was talking to me about it.) So, once again, an obvious question comes to my mind, but was left unasked by the N&D or the reporter. I'm guessing the question was unasked because it didn't fit the narrative the reporter was trying to create. The question 'but who was in control of teacher pay for the majority of the time you are complaining about?'. Which could be followed by 'why are you only speaking out now? what changed that you felt compelled to finally speak out?'. See, I'm not a reporter but I can think of obvious questions quite easily. If its this easy for a non-reporter, why is it so hard for those who get printed in the N&D? Now you begin to understand why I refer to that rag as the Noise & Disturber. They make a lot of noise, they disturb people, but they do very little news reporting. They try to manipulate the news rather than report it. Typical lib rag!
I know in Wake County they've been saying for years that their teacher population was aging; at some point in the future there would be a growing number of teachers leaving the system due to retirement. Is this part of what's going on now? Does the system actually count a teacher going to a charter school in the area as part of turnover? But if they are still teaching in the area, is it really turnover? If the person is still teaching kids, aren't they still a teacher?
April 21, 2014 at 10:33 am
Richard Bunce says:
How many teachers left because they are card carrying members of the government education industrial complex who desire the status quo and do not want any accountability for the fact that the majority of government school students are not proficient at basic skills and so they just move on to another State where reform has been effectively stifled?
