The State of Education

The state of Missouri is currently trying to pass a new bill regarding education and teaching in our fine red state of Missouri. I could do my best to sum this bill up in wording that makes me sound incredibly educated yet understandable to the masses. Yet, I feel it would be easiest and most accurate if I copied and pasted the information this bill contains. I will give all credit to the Missouri National Education Association, for the finely written excerpt below:

The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee approved an HCS version for HB 1740 (Scott Dieckhaus) on Feb. 22 in a contentious executive session.

The bill is on a fast track for consideration and is expected to be taken up for floor debate on Feb. 28. Stay tuned for an upcoming action alert to all state representatives concerning HCS/HB 1740 on Feb. 24.

The HCS:

1) repeals teacher tenure for all new hires and eliminates use of seniority in reduction in force,

2) repeals the minimum teacher salary for teachers with Master's degrees and ten or more years of teaching,

3) contains a tax-credit style voucher for students of unaccredited districts to attend private schools,

4) adds charter school expansion and accountability similar to HCS/HB 1228 (Tishaura Jones),

5) creates statewide virtual district school and virtual charter school open enrollment,

6) includes provisions allowing accredited districts to establish class-size capacity standards with regard to student transfers from unaccredited districts,

7) contains the provisions of HCS/HB 1174 (Mike Lair) to allow the State Board of Education to hold a hearing and act to revise the governance of a school district when it becomes unaccredited, rather than automatically lapsing the district after two years, and

8) contains the provisions of HCS/HB 1043 (Mike Thomson) regarding distribution of school formula funds when the formula is underfunded.

Alrighty, back to me...This bill has a lot going on and I do not feel the need to dig through it all as I am not the most educated on some of these topics. I did; however, put in bold some finer points I feel should be made clearer for those who may not be aware.

1. Wanting to repeal teacher tenure. Tenure is basically grandfathering in a teacher and making it so they can not be dismissed without just cause. Let it be known that any teacher who is abusive in anyway to children deserves to lose their jobs and 99.9% of the time will lose their job, so don't feel this would ever keep a truly bad teacher in place. People who support the repeal of tenure often feel that it promotes complacency amongst teachers in work ethic and growth. First being that teachers will not work to their full potential if they have no fear of losing their job, thus keeping lack luster teachers in the schools. This is a legitimate concern for the general public. As a current teacher in a public school, I would like to offer the insight that there are not many ways a teacher can slack off. We are held accountable for what each student learns and we are held accountable to see that our students make Adequate Yearly Progress (a term that came about from No Child Left Behind, which is another discussion for another day). Not making adequate progress is just cause for letting a teacher go. Secondly, a teacher becoming complacent might refer to not keeping up with trends in education. One thing I can say, which goes for a large majority of teachers, is that we love learning. We would not make a life long career out of education if we did not adore soaking up new knowledge as it became available. That aside, we are still required to upkeep our learning within the field. We have certain training opportunities that are required of teachers that vary from district to district. The state also requires a certain number of professional development hours by each teacher each year. So the fact of the matter is that teachers will continue to work hard as their job will always depend on it.

What good can come from tenure? First of all it was started by universities as a way to ensure that academic staff was not filled with young researchers but instead filled with seasoned minds with more background and understanding of academia. How can this be a bad thing? It makes sense to me. This trend has dropped off in US colleges and universities but is still held as common practice in many countries in Europe and Asia (both continents who routinely out score American schools for the record.) Think about it in regards to our public school systems in Missouri. Would we want only first year teachers educating our youth? I am in my sixth year of teaching and I am still learning ways to perfect my classroom management and handling student behaviors. By having tenured teachers we would have teachers who understand how to run an efficient classroom.

Finally I will sum up my rant on tenure with, there is very little draw to the teaching profession in the material realm. We obviously have a pay check that very few would like to see in their bank account, the least we could get is some decent perks and benefits that attract people to the profession.

2. Repealing minimum pay. I will not go into great depths here. All I will say is, SERIOUSLY? Our minimum pay for a Masters Degree teacher is still laughable compared to other professions. When they start to CAP the salaries of doctors, lawyers and businessmen then maybe I would consider a minimum pay for a teacher.

6. Accredited districts capping class size. Basically as we stand now, if a child attends an unaccredited school district they have the opportunity to attend an accredited school district. Now making sure schools are able to stay accredited is again a discussion for a much longer post. For the purpose of this, lets just assume it was unavoidable. If schools can cap class size on accredited classrooms then I promise that will leave students in an unaccredited district with no where to go. Why would we not want to offer all our students an education at an accredited school? Now I understand that a teacher can not feasibly educate a class of 45. I am not promoting that at all. I just think that there has to be a better way that what is proposed. I don't have a solution and I am not sure what options are available. What makes this even more upsetting is that many unaccredited schools are often in low income areas and it makes me wonder if they are capping class size or if they are eliminating the unworthy. Either way, education has gone through many struggles to make it unlimited for students of all abilities and races and I would hate to think that anything would change that. Its a battle we already won, I would prefer to not revisit it again.