Monday, October 24, 2022




America’s teacher shortage

More than half of public- school principals reported that their school was under staffed entering this school year, especially for special- education positions, according to a September U.S. Education Department survey. That’s more than double the 20% who said they were understaffed before the pandemic. But, as with so much of education in the U.S., this problem isn’t affecting all schools equally. Several teachers told TIME they were leaving Paterson for districts that could pay them better and offered more resources. At least one survey has found that schools in lower- income areas are more likely to have vacancies.

Meanwhile, students are suffering the consequences. At Eastside High School in Paterson, nearly 600 students are currently enrolled in science classes that lack a fulltime teacher, with four substitutes filling in as the school tries to fill five vacancies for science teachers. A spokesperson for the district said the school’s supervisor of science has been uploading lessons and assignments for those students, who receive grades via a virtual learning platform. Some students don’t have a teacher for their science classes at all, and are working on assignments in the school’s auditorium “under staffsupervision.” In addition to paying existing staffextra money to cover classes with vacancies, the district says it will soon begin paying teachers a stipend to grade work for classes without permanent teachers.

A month into her senior year at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson, 17-year-old Abriannie Lima has permanent gym and English teachers, but has a rotation of substitute teachers in three other classes, where she says she has still received no homework or graded assignments this year. (A spokesperson for the district says classes without permanent teachers have assignments posted online every day.) “It’s hard because it’s my last year. We actually haven’t been in school for almost two years,” Lima says. “Sometimes I just don’t feel like going because there’s no point in going if I have no teachers.”

That’s exactly what worries Brown, who fears her son will fall behind in writing and math without a certified special- education teacher.

The pandemic led to some of the biggest declines in academic achievement recorded over the past 50 years and widened the achievement gap between Black students and white students. As schools try to help students catch up, their solutions include smallgroup instruction and individual tutoring—which are nearly impossible to offer without enough educators. “You’re talking about gaps in learning. We are still suffering from COVID,” Brown says. “I feel like now with the vacancies, we’re never going to be able to catch up.”

Although surveys throughout the pandemic hinted at a looming mass exodus of teachers, that hasn’t come to pass. And some experts point out that many districts have been using federal relief funds to hire more teachers and staffthan they had before the pandemic.

Researchers found at least 36,000 vacant teaching positions across the country and at least 163,000 positions that are held by under qualified teachers, according to a working paper published by Brown University’s Annenberg Institute in August. Their analysis shows the problem varies widely by state. Mississippi, for example, had about 68 vacancies for every 10,000 students. New Jersey—a state that, alongside cities like Paterson, is also home to some of the wealthiest communities in America—had just one vacancy for every 10,000.

And certain districts are struggling more acutely. Schools serving more students of color and schools in high-poverty neighborhoods reported a larger percentage of teacher vacancies than schools serving mostly white students and schools in wealthier areas, according to an Education Department survey from January. Even before the pandemic, high- poverty schools had about twice the teacher turnover rate of low-poverty schools.

Public-school funding in the U.S. depends heavily on property taxes. As a result, districts serving wealthier white students tend to be better resourced than those serving low- income students and students of color. That’s partially why high-poverty districts, with less money for teacher raises and other resources, are more likely to have teacher shortages right now.

In Paterson, where about 60% of students are Latino and 25% are Black, two-thirds of students are considered economically disadvantaged, according to state data. In New Jersey, state money makes up much of the funding gap in poorer school districts. (Paterson is in the midst of contract negotiations with the teachers’ union, which is calling for increased starting salaries and regular raises.)

While teachers have long raised concerns about being underpaid and disrespected, the wage gap between teachers and other professions has grown worse over time. In 2021, teachers earned 23.5% less than college graduates with a comparable education level, the biggest gap since 1996, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

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California Tries to Delay Release Of K–12 School Test Scores Until After Election

Last year, California K–12 school test scores showed that the math proficiency of the median eighth-grade student was at about the level of a fifth-grader. Hispanic and Black students, who represent over 60 percent of the state’s student population, performed even worse, with proficiency barely above the level of a third-grader.

“Horrible,” “awful,” and “unacceptable” are a few adjectives that describe this outcome. Many of these students will never catch up, because mathematics builds on itself. Many of these students will never succeed in technical fields such as engineering or computer science because these fields are based on mathematics. Some of these students may not even develop the mathematical knowledge to become financially literate. Many may economically struggle throughout their lives, being shut out of high-paying STEM jobs. Many may require some form of public assistance as adults, as the grossly deficient education they are receiving will leave them poorly prepared to earn a decent living in a world that will almost certainly leave them behind.

How many kids are we talking about? There are currently about 5.9 million students enrolled in California public schools, making the scale of the problem nothing short of a disaster. And while the magnitude of this educational deficiency is likely the result of remote learning during COVID, the deficiency itself has been around for decades; a study by the RAND Corporation, “California’s K–12 Public Schools: How Are They Doing?” dates California’s educational failures back to the 1970s.

The 2022 test results have been available for months, but the California Department of Education decided to withhold the results and not release them until an undetermined date later in the year. For parents and educators, this means that students are well into their next school year without the necessary data to determine what support and remediation they may need.

Why wait to release the results? According to one spokesperson for the Education Department, the delay is because they want to release the rest results at the same time they release other metrics, such as absenteeism and school suspensions, though no compelling reason was given for tying the test score release with these other data and releasing all the data at the same time was never done in the past. Another person in the Education Department said the department was still reviewing the data for validation, but if that were the case, then why let local districts release the data? Some schools released test scores early last summer.

Others note that the delay may be politically motivated, because the test scores will show continued learning outcome deficiencies, so bad that they might impact the November elections involving education leaders. This includes the election for state school superintendent, with incumbent Tony Thurmond running against Lance Christensen, as well as many local school board races.

Enter EdSource, an independent education organization whose mission is to inform the public about state education issues. EdSource asked for the test score results in August and was rebuffed by the Education Department. EdSource next sent a letter to the Education Department from its attorney. The lawyer didn’t pull any punches, stating, “EdSource considers delay tantamount to denial as it effectively robs the public of its vital role in overseeing the CDE [California Department of Education] and individual districts and in holding both accountable to its students and the public. This is especially important during what continues to be one of the most challenging and impactful times to our educational system due to the COVID pandemic.”

EdSource challenged CDE’s decision to withhold the test scores: “The CDE cannot identify any ‘public’ interest in non-disclosure that could justify its denial position, let alone an interest that ‘clearly outweighs’ the substantial public interest in access to this information.”

David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, a San Rafael–based open government group, argued that there are no exemptions in the law that allow the government to withhold records from the public because they are inconvenient or embarrassing, saying, “The state can’t talk out of both sides of its mouth” by giving districts data that shows their test results and then refusing to release the overall data set.”

The Center for Reinventing Public Education stated in a report issued this month, “The academic, social, and mental-health needs are real, they are measurable, and they must be addressed quickly in order to avoid long-term consequences.” EdSource’s staff writers added, “Waiting until later this year to release how students scored last spring will delay needed public discussions on how districts should respond to serious setbacks in learning including shifting funding immediately and next summer to accelerate learning.”

Timely release of these data is critical for helping students get back on track. Less than 50 percent of third graders tested at grade level or above in English language arts during the 2018–19 school year, before the pandemic stalled learning. Nearly two-thirds of today’s third graders are reading below grade level.

EdSource’s legal challenge appears to have worked. The Education Department has reversed course, indicating it will release the data this month—though the release date may be after some ballots are returned—stating that “there is no reason to withhold the data.” This statement raises the question of why the department made such a quick reversal after they indicated that the data was incomplete and needed validation.

California’s public education system is failing most of our children, despite taxpayers spending nearly $20,000 per pupil per year. This failure is chronic. It continues year after year, decade after decade, and the root cause is a politically influenced education system that desperately needs a complete do-over.

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The writing crisis in Australian schools

A review of 10 million NAPLAN year 3-9 writing results and more than 350 persuasive writing samples by the government-funded Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has found students’ writing declined significantly in every key skill area but spelling over seven years to 2018.

“We do have a serious decline, and it’s worse for our older students,” said the head of AERO, Jenny Donovan, who called for the core skill of writing to be given greater emphasis in the nation’s schools. “It’s a big drop and [writing] is a really basic expectation.”

Claire Wyatt-Smith, an Australian Catholic University professor who was a key contributor to the NSW Education Standards Authority’s review of writing in schools, said an emphasis on reading had taken the focus off writing in Australian schools.

“Writing is of at least equal need and greater urgency,” she said. “The teaching of writing is perhaps the biggest equity issue we face. We can use the word illiterate. They finish school and are unable to have the proficiency in writing they need for workplace engagement.”

The national findings echo those of a major review in NSW, which also found teachers lacked confidence in teaching writing, were not given the training and resources they needed, and spent too little classroom time focusing on it, particularly in high school.

Writing is key to success at school because students who struggle to express their thoughts clearly on the page cannot demonstrate their knowledge. Research has shown that writing ability in year 9 is a strong indicator of success in year 12, when many subjects require essays.

Donovan said clear written expression was also essential to life after school. “Everybody is going to need to write a job application,” she said. “They’ll have to question a traffic fine, or make a case for why their rental bond should be returned.”

AERO’s analysis found the decline was particularly noticeable among high-performing students.

In 2011, more than 20 per cent of year 9 students achieved five or six out of possible six marks in sentence structure, which meant they could write sentences that varied in length and complexity. By 2018, that proportion had fallen to just eight per cent.

Writing standards

Forty-five percent of students in Year 7 can score a 3 out of a possible 6, meaning they can correctly write most simple and compound sentences, and some complex sentences. In year 9, more than a third of students are still only able to write at the same basic level.

Only a quarter of year 9 students used apostrophes, commas and colons correctly most of the time. Most were at the level of a competent year 3 student as defined by curriculum documents, which meant they could use capital letters at the beginning of sentences and full stops at the end.

The many students who are below the standard assumed in the curriculum are likely to find lessons and assessments too hard. This is a particular problem in year 9, although students in years 5 and 7 are also achieving at a lower level than curriculum expectations.

“Students are a long way short of where the syllabus and curriculum anticipates they should be in their learning,” said Donovan.

“When teachers are using the syllabus or curriculum to guide them, rather than the knowledge of where their students are up to, they’ll miss the mark. They’ll be teaching at a point where the students are not ready for learning. “There’s no reason why a year 9 teacher will know what’s in a year 3 syllabus document. That’s a big gap to straddle.”

Donovan has made writing a priority for AERO, which was founded to help schools use effective teaching approaches, and has developed resources that teachers can use in their classroom. “The good news part is we also understand what to do about it,” she said.

NSW has also become the first jurisdiction to make writing a key focus of its new syllabuses.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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