There has been a shortage of people pursuing education as a vocation in South Dakota for decades. There are several reasons for this. For years South Dakota has been dead last, or near the bottom, in salaries for people pursuing education as a career and since other states are hurting for teachers too – why stay in South Dakota when one can make tens of thousands of dollars more in another state?
Now many universities are requiring education majors to student teach for a year. That’s a crock. First of all, a student pays the university for credits for the privilege of student teaching in a school district for which they receive no salary. Second, unless the student teacher is doing two radically different things – Special Education and Science or at a big school and also a small school (say Sioux Falls and Ethan) – the additional “experience” is wasted for that student teacher and it’s a gravy train for the school using them (and I do mean “using”) as free labor. Who among us can afford to work full time for no pay, while paying for the privilege of doing so to some university and then paying all of the living expenses one has when out in the world to boot. It’s an added reason why it’s difficult to get young people to choose education as a career.
Another reason for the shortage is where the jobs are in South Dakota. While all localities have some trouble, the difficulties are magnified in small town South Dakota and dire on the reservations. Years ago, when I was a State Senator back in the 1990’s, I went to a conference on the teacher shortage in South Dakota to talk to teachers about what could be done to make the profession more enticing to people to help alleviate our constant shortage of educators – teachers mainly then, but all positions now.
The discussion was interesting. It included items like multiple preps, my wife – for example – was the only science and math teacher for all students 8th through 12th grade and for all math and science subjects when she taught in Emery, back in the late 1980’s. There are “duties as assigned” that included things like coaching and driving the bus at smaller schools. However, most of these small-town teachers were women and they cited the lack of marriageable men in their little towns as their reason to get out of education and move somewhere else. They wanted to be wives and mothers and there just weren’t enough eligible bachelors to go around.
The number of hours a good teacher puts in are enormous. When I was teaching, which I did for thirty-six years for the Mitchell School District, my day began around 7:30am at school. I taught and did other educational related things until 3:15pm and then had my extra-curricular responsibilities from August through April until 5:30 or 6pm. Then there were the evenings – parent teacher conferences, chaperoning dances, supervising athletic events, putting on my own events (emceeing Show Choir and other events, plays and musicals) etc. When I was the debate coach (which I did for ten years) most of my Saturdays from November to April were spent in another town with the debate team. Also, there was the preparation and correcting papers for the next day which took from two to four hours every night. In later years there were the emails from students and parents to answer. I’ve run into student teachers and first year teachers who got into the profession thinking that education was a doddle and you’re on the golf course by 3:30pm. They didn’t last long.
Now there is the conservative backlash to deal with. Pressure groups are demanding books be banned from school libraries, often without parents ever having read the books in question but simply egged on by some outside group with their own agenda. Books as innocuous as Winnie The Pooh have been attacked and banned. The Woke Liberal crowd has responded by giving these right-wing conservatives a taste of their own medicine by demanding that the Bible be removed from school libraries – it’s full of sex (The Song of Solomon) and violence you know. In some places, they’ve succeeded.
I’m so glad I’m retired. I used to teach American History and I taught “history”. There are parts of our history that are ingenious (all of our inventions, scientific discoveries and Nobel Prize winning ideas etc.), parts that are glorious (our saving the world from tyranny in World War II) but there are also parts that aren’t so nice (the subjugation of the Native-Americans, slavery, the internment of innocent Japanese-American citizens during World War II – like happened to George Takei, Sulu on Star Trek for example, etc.). I was hired to teach the history of America not just its magnificence. It seems like that’s all conservatives want taught, just the fame and glory bits. When you teach about the foibles and errors of our country, hopefully you’re educating future generations to avoid the mistakes of the past. When you don’t, “history repeats itself” as the old saying goes.
A Fox News poll revealed that 77% of parents are extremely worried about book bans. Other polls have found that 80% of both Democrats and Republicans say books should never be banned for discussing race, slavery or critical views of US history. The politization of education, history and library books in particular, are keeping people from going into education. I’ve had school years where there were 300 or so kids in in my classes over the course of both semesters. It’s impossible not to rile, offend or otherwise ruffle feathers of anyone or their parents given the topics covered in American History with that number of students, the variety of races and ethnicities in class and the subjects talked about during the course. However, that’s what’s expected of educators now. Don’t offend anyone, despite the fact that some are so very easily offended these days. A history teacher can’t win. One can’t teach about the subjugation of Native-Americans or racism towards African-Americans because it makes white kids uncomfortable (that’s the new law in Florida). However, not teaching about the subjugation of Native-Americans or the systemic racism towards African-Americans throughout history offends people from those racial groups. It’s the classic, “no-win” Catch-22 for a Social Studies teacher.
We’ve seen politization here in South Dakota when the original Social Studies Standards, drawn up by South Dakota citizens and South Dakota educational professionals were summarily thrown out by the Governor and ramrodded into their place instead were standards written by a single retired professor out of Michigan for political purposes rather than for educational reasons.
Sioux Falls has tried money to lure exceptionally hard to get categories of teachers. For example, Sioux Falls has offered a $10,000 bonus to new Special Education teachers hired by the district but only $2000 retention bonuses to Special Education teachers already employed in the district. This dichotomy has led some to contemplate “quitting” and then reapplying for their same, old job in order to qualify for the bonus. The South Dakota Board of Education Standards has now approved a plan that would allow schools to pay student teachers and use them in lieu of an already certified teacher. That’s nuts. Student teaching is an old-fashioned apprenticeship. They need an experienced hand in the classroom to help instruct and guide them. I’ve had student teachers that seemed capable of jumping right in and taking over a classroom like a seasoned pro. I’ve had others that I recommended never be allowed to be in front of kids and who should be told to seek a different career outside of education.
Wade Pogany, the Executive Director of the Associated School Boards, and I have known each other for more than thirty years. We go back to a time when we were both classroom teachers and debate coaches, me in Mitchell and Wade in Aberdeen. He tells me the teacher shortage is now an “educator” shortage with vacancies hard to fill across the spectrum, including administrators at all levels.
What should be done about this education shortage? Part of it is always money, a school district not only has to be competitive with other districts but also with outside businesses to some degree (think about computer teachers who could be using their skills in the private sector, as an example). Recognizing teachers are people with families and outside interests, so limiting extra-curricular and other outside-the-school-day responsibilities is another step. Going back to the days when education professionals, with input from parents, made school decisions instead of outside political pressure groups, single agenda fanatics and Governors would be a positive change as well. A return to common sense and restoring the single semester student teaching regimen is a must as well.
A little courtesy and respect for the people who spend more waking hours throughout the day, at least during the school year, with your kids than you do would go a long way as well. Education is the foundation for the success of your child. We should want the best and brightest in the classroom as teachers. We ought to want kids to hear the truth about their country – it’s the best nation on this Earth on that there is no doubt, but it is not, nor has it ever been in the past – perfect. Libraries should have materials that appeal to a wide range of interests on a variety of subjects and if that book isn’t your cup of tea, don’t read it but don’t prevent others from having an opportunity to do so if they wish to.
Education should challenge, illuminate, elucidate, stimulate and perhaps, on occasion, even offend. Political influence, censorship and oppression have no place, at any level, in our system of education. As Mark Twain said, “The truth hurts, but silence kills.” Some aspects of our history and society have been ugly but to remain quiet about it and foster deliberate ignorance on the next generation intentionally is folly on a monumental scale.