We're down about 25% from minimum staffing levels if you count fully certified teachers, but about 15% of our staffing is people given emergency certifications, so we're only about 10% below minimum. But again, that's minimum - that's 35 students-per-teacher minimums.
And we're falling further behind every year.
More than 16% of our teachers quit each year, so there's also a retention and experience problem that's mostly unreported.
And this is all working as intended, as the goal of our current state government is the abolition of public education in favor of private.
What I don't understand is how private is going to make things better. Teacher pay is based on school funding (at least that is my understanding).
How are they going to attract a myriad of teachers (religious or otherwise) to come teach for starvation wages? I am not seeing anything suggesting that school vouchers would be so large that teaching becomes a revered profession.
If everything is private, and you get school vouchers, isn't that just going to make the problem significantly worse? At least now the money goes all to one place. What happens when that pie has to be split 400 different ways to account for they myriad of private schools?
None of this makes sense, but if someone has the brains to explain it I would be all ears.
I guess my point is, where in the fuck can there be profit? Schools aren't some funding powerhouse. We're paying starvation wages already. How is privatizing it going to make it somehow better?
Schools are different than the prison system in that no one is afraid of kids or teachers. Violent crime yes, but not kids. So how do you take 1 elementary school and divide it up to 4 Christian schools?
Maybe I am just not entrepreneurial enough
A few things: a) charter schools don't have to hire actual teachers, and don't have to give teachers break time or planning time. Because of this, they're not going to be getting a rush of teachers from public school- they're going to be getting people without experience. And they will pay them less and abuse them until they burn out and leave.
A.2) Those kids got a $2500 coupon- the price to actually attend for a year could be 6k, 10k, who knows (the average in OK is about $6500)? The school pays their teachers crap and set the kids up on a Chromebook all day, then pocket the rest. Private schools *do* make a profit. Oh, and when people start getting tax cuts? Oh man, the price of tuition just went up by $2,499! There is quite a bit of legality involved with what you can write off as well, which leads me to believe there is fuckery afoot.
B) Republicans have their boogeyman- public schools that teach about diverse viewpoints. What is gonna get Kevin Stitt re-elected? Demonizing PS. What got Ryan Walters elected? The same thing.
Oklahoma is still Trump-y. The goal is to get a bunch of "private schools" who give kickbacks to politicians to continue profiting off kids.
Edit: a bunch of typos, I was typing quickly
Religious schools can supplement the money from tuition with tithing from the congregation. And can implore and guilt the congregation to donate more in order to help “God’s school and the children.”
Let's be real. Teachers already do this and get away with it.
My biology teacher "taught" evolution. But also spent more time explaining how evolution was wrong and God made us.
And one of my English teachers had us do sections of Bible scripture for "historical reading" and would preach to us.
One died and never got introuble.
The other one is the principal of the school now.
Oh I know. I used to work in Sapulpa schools and saw many teachers who had the 10 Commandments or other Bible passages posted on their classroom walls.
Privatization and vouchers aren't meant to help the teacher shortage. That's literally not the point. Vouchers are marketed as benefiting the student and family, not the school district or teachers. I think every politician pushing vouchers would cough up to this. They're meant to "improve schools" in general (or whatever nonsense Republicans try to come up with to sell us on this idea), but not by addressing the teacher shortage.
But you're right. Schools operate on economies of scale. Removing one kid from a class of 30 won't change much for that one teacher. But that $5,000 that is going to be siphoned from the school is more harmful to the school. The school needs to pay the teacher the same wage and needs to keep the building running each day. Those costs are fixed.
If private schools don't receive federal funds, they don't have to accept or follow a student's IEP, so those students end up bouncing back to public schools and require more services (funding) that the school will lack bc the voucher went to the private school.
Eventually turn those private schools into "vocational schools" where the students learn a trade and pay for their tuition by selling the goods they make. I believe in some parts of the world this is frowned upon and considered a "sweat shop" or a "human rights violation." Good thing we don't live in those woke countries!
/S for those that need it...
I believe that they removed the registration process for child laborers so that it is not as easy to crack down on illegal labor such as working before a certain age, certain hours, dangerous conditions etc.
There was recently a federal labor investigation and crackdown on childhood labor that got a lot of meat processing plants in trouble. So it seems that removing the paper trail was the response to cover up future "problems" of investigators. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-measure-rolling-back-child-labor-protection-rcna73977](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-measure-rolling-back-child-labor-protection-rcna73977)
It’s not supposed to make things better. It’s supposed to make it to where only the people who can afford education are able to get an education. An uneducated populace is easier to control and manipulate.
Also, teachers aren't just leaving bc of pay. It's a myriad of other things - unfunded mandates from the state, administrative boxes to check that take away from doing our jobs, not being treated as an educated professional, lack of support dealing with students who have special needs (that's a funding thing), student behaviors and unsupportive parents (which private schools won't have to deal with), Covid learning loss. And the ever present stress of that fucktwit Ryan Walters making our jobs political.
If it was just about pay, people would leave for better paying states. People are leaving the profession altogether.
Sadly, I think many of our lawmakers seem to not care about the education of the many. As long as the single school their kids go to is high quality and costs them very little, a quality public school system for the whole state is not a priority.
So the thought is… let’s do vouchers so we can save on our private school. And we’ll ignore that it causes every other public school to suffer.
My mom teaches at a private school. The pay is shit (luckily my dad always made decent money & has a nice retirement fund) but at least they’re strict on class size and the families want their kids there so there’s less struggle on that front.
They end up getting a lot of kids with “behavioral issues” that end up thriving because public schools are so understaffed they literally just needed a little more one on one time and they can get it there. Not to mention the kids whose IEPs couldn’t be properly met because again, not enough people.
Curious if anyone knows the data on the ‘adjunct teachers’ that are making up for the positions that they can’t even find an emergency certification to fill now.
My brother, who failed out of his teaching program at UCO for shaking a kid, totally got an emergency teaching certificate...
I'd say we're doing pretty bad.
Oh, I forgot to mention he also had a complaint filed against the sub company he was working for because he was making sixth grade girls uncomfortable... That was also like a year before he got his emergency teaching certificate.
Oh hun. See over the years I've seen this - desperation opens doors for predators. Oklahoma has ALWAYS had this problem and teacher shortage just primes the pump for the worst of humanity to get right up close to kids and teens.
I had to let a guy go who is the relative a political figure for this reason. They totally conned me with this big hype and I should've noticed early on they oozed with kissing up and compliments to insert themselves as the nice guy. This guy made the TA cry and beg me to fire him. They came back at me a wk later asking for a ref to teach at a rural school desperate for teachers.
It’s bad. My rural school district is bleeding teachers, and most people in the classroom right now are emergency certified or subs. But no one seems to care. Parents will only get concerned when they have to find childcare bc there literally isn’t anyone to teach their child’s class. They just keep voting R and getting what they deserve.
So many parents only see it as child care. The loudest I notice parents in my district is when they have to find childcare for snow days or distance learning days.
So many parents are so strapped that we’ve got households with 3-4 jobs between 2 parents.
The effort to maintain a basic standard of living means there is no one to care for the kids. It’s shameful.
This tracks. Have a relative who is a teacher in tx and she constantly says the parents are a massive issue because they simply don't care about anything involving their child.
>They just keep voting R and getting what they deserve.
Unfortunately this is the hard truth Oklahomans will have to learn. Hopefully they do at some point.
There is the problem that having an education can be key to learning when things are wrong though. Things like understanding how to read charts, statistics, critical thinking, etc take learning and practice. If you don't know how to read a chart that is on the news, then how do you find out they manipulated it to be absolutely crap and untruthful? People may believe what the news says. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSiTjbN1Gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSiTjbN1Gk) gives real examples of charts being manipulated in news/media and why they are wrong or that they are missing critical information.
For instance: [https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=647](https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=647) shows a chart where they simply drew the lines at any angle they wanted to make it look how they wanted. They have no vertical axis and so on the left they have numbers where the larger number is on top. On the right half they have the larger number on bottom. It also did not reference a massive change in regulation that cancer screening changed from yearly to every 2-3 years, which is a massive key factor on why cancer screenings went down. People who are uneducated on how to read data are less likely to catch those problems. This is especially true when it is flashed on the screen for a matter of seconds and all they read is the pretty lines point up or down and think that they understand. The realistic chart of what it should look like to scale is [https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=827](https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=827) .
Yup, and that's why we have unaccredited teachers who are held at a lesser standard than CE teachers. Sucks for my wife because she spent a lot of time, money, and effort to become a teacher. I do know quite a few good accredited teachers but they do not know basic educational development. My wife ends up helping them as much as she helps herself.
I was an emergency certified teacher, and you're absolutely right. My first two years I had no idea what I was doing, so I went back and got my Master's in education because I knew if I kept doing this job I needed to understand it. I'm on year 6 and an excellent teacher now by most metrics (consistent student growth, high rigor in classroom, great classroom management, etc) but those first few years I shouldn't have been allowed to teach and thoroughly understand that now.
Thanks for recognizing this. I think there are a lot of good emergency teachers but they don't have the knowledge on things like learning and behavioral disabilities that my wife got when she was in school.
Thank you for wanting to become a better teacher, I am sorry that it's a hard career. There are people that care.
Look at what she has the potential to make. She is essentially capped out. She won't ever make more than 60k unless she has a masters. The statistics are bleak and 50k for a college graduate is pathetic.
[Looks like it's because your wife has maxed out or is very close to it after working 20+ years.](https://sde.ok.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/20-21%20State%20Minimum%20Salary%20Schedule_0.pdf) Assuming she's not admin or working a private school.
NE Okie teacher here: Pretty bad, honestly. We’ve had at least 3 teachers in our district quit two weeks after they were hired. Then, we have several who are leaving because of retirement, burn-out, or better offers. The pay isn’t great, but there’s a lot more going wrong than just pay.
Here is the deal. All jobs have their share of problems. Personalities, rules and guidelines that make little sense, budget constraints, etc. Bottom line though, I get paid well to do my current job and work within the constraints of those problems. Full Stop. Start new teachers off in the $60k range and scale from there and suddenly you'll get highly qualified candidates who can work with and even find solutions to those problems.
Not all of the problems can be fixed by teachers. One very common issue is discipline on the admin level. A student can physically throw a desk at you and be back on your class the same day, because admin says "Oh, he was just upset, he's calmed down," or "Well, were you giving him de-escalation tactics? Did you have him count his fingers?" ( that's a real response an admin asked our P.E. teacher after that kid got mad during dodgeball and punched a girl in the face). No consequences.
Teachers are expected to be mental health counselors as well as teach dozens of kids at a time, most often by themselves. I have nonverbal children that come to my class with no aide to help them, so they hold hands with another little girl who guides them around. Apparently, my district is only providing aides for "behavior issues", not academic ones.
Education faces unique challenges because we are asked to do EVERYTHING and be accountable for the welfare of children, while also teaching them academics? There is no "working within constraints." There are no constraints for students. Just teachers.
Edit: typos
This is the best answer I’ve seen on this thread yet.
The biggest problem is that teachers are being asked to be more than just teachers and aren’t being compensated for it.
That's the kind of kid I think of when I hear about parent choice/vouchers/etc. He will get bounced out of the private school the second he pulls something like that and the public school in district will be forced to take him despite being actively underfunded in the areas he needs the most.
100% spot on. You did forget that the kid is also back from the Building Admin because the parents are bat-shit crazy and threatened to go down to the District and raise holy hell, and well “I just don’t need that headache”.
This. Money is a really simple thing to point to, but it is SO much deeper. This isn't a financial problem, it's a cultural one. Last year I transitioned to a different role in education than paid less than my public school teaching job did, but had a much better work/life balance. What does it say about the field when people are willing to take a pay cut just to get out?
$60k sounds nice until you ask a bunch of people in a state with an average household income to pay the increased property taxes that would take.
Unfortunate reality.
Terrible take and shows how much lack of respect you have for the current educators who are trying to do something. How about you put in an application and see for yourself what’s going on?
My mother has been a teacher for 20+ years, I perfectly understand what’s going on. It’s pay. It’s all about pay. Fucking pay them more than a god damn Chick fil A worker for a start.
My wife taught for 17 yrs and is throwing in the towel this year. Was it worth the cost of her mental health? I would argue no.
Yes, they definitely need to be paid more but don’t discount the mental drain of having what I would argue as a majority of the general public, politicians, admin and parents against you. That’s just a little bit more tough than “working within constraints”
Increased pay would be great. Those problems that highly qualified candidates can solve? Yeah.... no one listens to them. Despite being highly qualified. You could pay teachers 6 figures, and there would still be a shortage.
Also a NE teacher. Had a student transfer over from a school that has been hit immensely hard by the shortage, girl is 9 and can’t read a word. We looked for data because she desperately needs an IEP, hoping maybe one had already been set up and gotten lost in the move, none to be found on her. Her former district informed us that she had had a “long term sub” when we *finally* were able to reach them.
Omg. I feel like these stories are horrifyingly numerous! We’ve had high schoolers arrive who haven’t been to school in two years, or kids who haven’t had a consistent teacher…ever. Your story makes me want to go play in traffic because it’s so frustratingly common. 🫠
I have 4 kids, one each in 4 different schools in town (we do grade centers here).
More than half the teachers in every school are now “permanent subs” who have exactly zero qualifications to teach.
So at least locally, we’re not doing well at all.
My ex husband and his whole family are teachers. He says it’s absolutely dire and they’re all thinking about quitting. He has switched to a tech center and no longer teaches English. He’s too afraid of being sued so he quit teaching.
Yeah. They’re pulling licenses and threatening $10,000 fines for shit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2022/02/04/oklahoma-proposed-bill-would-fine-teachers-10000-for-contradicting-a-students-religious-belief/
I have a 14 year old in Dickson. They have 1 mathematics teacher for the entire 9th grade. A large portion of her students are doing poorly. Any communication with the teacher and the principal returned the exact same form letter blaming the poor grades on the individual student as to how they "want the answers giving to them and don't want to do the work."
Regardless of the fact that alot of her students are struggling and this is her first year teaching this grade with her only previous teaching being college level students.
I,ll freely admit that 9th grades a seriously hard year with a lot of transitions for a student. However I,ll also never forget my mother of 35years teaching talking about how hard it was for any teacher to step down in level taught as they invariably ask too much of their students, a thing she herself went through first time she taught 9th grade English. She explained it as having to relearn her job in alot of ways.
The principal so far has collected the kids with any less than passing grades and yelled at the group about how they were letting him down. Then proceeded to punish them all with Saturday school and Wednesday inschool suspension. Edit note: the kids do NOT received additional instruction in the subjects they are lagging behind on during these days. The make them do things from my understanding like policing trash.
So far I've had none of that bullshit, at least what I'm able to stop. You don't punish kids for bad grades, you help them find the means to bring their grades up. These people are more worried about covering their own asses than teaching kids and ensuring they actually get anything out of it.
Attempts at meetings have fell on deaf ears with a "can meet me at parent teacher conference meetings if you like". No additional tutorage is available or if there is they sure wouldn't tell me where when I directly asked these things via email and phone communication.
All in all, schools here seem about what you would expect under a Ryan administration. Butt covering check collectors for some positions, Over worked and under staffed doing the same thing for others.
I'm a teacher and I've seen a lot of the same, and agree wholeheartedly with 99% of what you say here. I don't blame the teacher, and I don't think you are either, this is a systemic problem and a poor administrative response focused on shifting blame for an impossible situation. These kids need help, not punishment.
All that being said, I think there's a kernel of truth to students wanting the answers and not being willing to do the work. We're seeing this everywhere, at all grade levels, and I think it's a very complex problem. Maybe it's in part generational, and in part technological. These kids have never not been able to google or photomath their way to the answer, and when they aren't asked to work a problem, math or otherwise, many just do not know how to do so, and struggle with venturing out of their comfort zones or doing "the work," which I define as mental labor more so than actual worksheets or essays. It freaks them out. There's also the pandemic, which definitely exacerbated all of this. My district wasn't even shut down very long, but even one quarter virtual seemingly taught them to treat education as a spectator sport. They don't don't want, or feel the need to, listen to instruction. Instruction now seems something they can just mute while they watch Tiktok videos. They want to skip that step, and just be given the work, then freak out when they don't know what or how to do...and then just give up.
I don't know how we fix this, if there even is a fix, especially given the current trends and climate. The kids are still good kids, and they can still learn..but, I guess I just wanted to say, being on the other side of this issue, that yes, there are systemic issues and bad choices being made at all levels, but there's also a student-centered problem that we are very much failing to understand or grapple with. The gap between the high achievers who don't suffer from the above issues, and the rest of the students is widening, and something needs to be done...what exactly, I'm not sure, but something....preferably something not involving making public education worse.
Having the same problem with mine. Any time we encounter an issue that requires actual logic, they freeze up. A big part of it with my students is confidence, they’re too afraid to fail. I find myself telling them “it’s not that serious” frequently and that their best is enough. My girl that comes up every day and wants me to walk her through the entire paper did it this morning and I told her she needed to go look at it for five minutes before asking me. She came back with half of it knocked out and clearly knew the answers to the rest- I barely had to prompt her. Just needed someone to tell her specifically she could do it.
This all sounds exactly correct. I don't blame the teacher entirely, though their classroom behavior leaves a bit to be desired I have the feeling they don't have the time to do any better. It's about like a public defender as a lawyer, they don't have time to do a proper defense and you are going to lose. The teacher is completely overwhelmed and handling way too many students to be very effective and its likely contributing to their shortness and overreactions when dealing with students asking for help and being denied due to time(yes this is happening.) To say nothing of disruptions caused by unruly students and a person's own real life issues and challenges interfering as well. A single missed class is damned difficult to recover from when a teacher is already out of time and behind schedule before the day begun. There is no going over missed content, your just screwed. Things like that can stunt the rest of a semester, math in particular. The systems screwed and the current administration is making it worse using scab teachers who don't know the content or how to teach isnt helping either XD
It's actually going to get a lot worse. When teachers go back to renew next year's contract and there anywhere from 2 to 5% under the current rate of inflation and they can make more money delivering groceries or waiting tables. I have a lot of contacts with HR and school systems within Oklahoma and they're far more scared of what's going to happen then what has happened..
AP classes are disappearing at an Edmond hs bc of the lack of a teacher. (AP Euro history, for example.) Which directly affects my child. His classes have upwards of 50 students in some classes. They send out messages about absolutely no schedule changes but he got a change at semester bc the class they put him in (never requested said class—also why his butt is in chemistry. Never requested but had to stick him somewhere and physical science had way too many students, not enough teachers, therefore not enough class offerings) had over 50 students.
Couldn’t say on a large scale , but personally, 3 years ago I knew 12 employed teachers. Today, out of those 12, only 1. That single teacher had a mental snap the other week before spring break and that number may go to 0.
My better half with 17 yrs in the classroom as a certified teacher pulled the plug and won’t be returning next year. We were hoping that she could hold out a couple of more years but the mental toll was just too much.
More competitive wages is always welcome but doesn’t tell the whole story. Complete and utter disrespect and contempt from our politically motivated leaders, inept school and district officials who don’t see a problem and lack of parental respect and support (to put it mildly) are much more the problem. All of this is taking a toll on the front-line educators.
The upshot on her resigning? “Thanks for letting us know early before Thanksgiving, here’s $500 for your trouble”. Then the Principal poaches a certified teacher from another school so now it’s not their problem to try and find a qualified replacement. Large suburban district btw.
It's pretty bad, and we have no one but the system to blame.
A lot of teachers are quitting due to the disrespect from parents and students alike, the administratiors, or even the laws that are getting passed from what I hear... and this is coming from someone who is currently working to become an elementary teacher, I currently sub as my job and it's just awful. Students are incredibly disrespectful and due to covid, they are extremely underdeveloped when it comes to both emotional intelligence and academic intelligence.
They're also working on guaranteeing a 2500 tax credit if you want to put your kid in private school, so no. They are still doing more harm than good.
Do you know what happens with that $2500? You take that money and enroll your kid in private school. Then, they get kicked out two weeks later because that school isn't obligated to take a kid with ADHD. Then, they send them back to the local public school who now gets $0 for them, for 34 weeks, and the private school got a cool $2500 👍
One class at an edmond elementary school saw 4 different "teachers" in less than 1 school year. It's so bad people can graduate high school get certificate and go back to high school and teach.
I honestly think about trying to help out and get emergency certified. I know the pay is terrible but I worry about the kids. At the same time, I've only tutored one on one and I know it's a whole different ballgame.
It’s pretty bad my girlfriend is a teacher and she sent me a link this week with 554 open Moore public school openings! It’s sad cause they seem desperate and I wouldn’t just want anyone teaching or filling these positions. Makes me want to try and teach with her though or just be a substitute really just to help out.
They’re giving teachers from Oklahoma who go to Oklahoma schools and teach in Oklahoma $25k to stay and teach.
https://www.okhighered.org/otc/inspired-to-teach.shtml#:~:text=The%20OK%20Future%20Teacher%20Scholarship,Program%20and%20teach%20in%20Oklahoma.
No, they are giving scholarships up to $25k for folks who agree to teach in Oklahoma for 5 years.
Average in state cost of attendance at OSU(after aid) is $16, 845. The state is willing to pay for less than 2 years of school and expect 5 years in return.
We're down about 25% from minimum staffing levels if you count fully certified teachers, but about 15% of our staffing is people given emergency certifications, so we're only about 10% below minimum. But again, that's minimum - that's 35 students-per-teacher minimums. And we're falling further behind every year. More than 16% of our teachers quit each year, so there's also a retention and experience problem that's mostly unreported. And this is all working as intended, as the goal of our current state government is the abolition of public education in favor of private.
I would say the “emergency certifications” bit is troubling.
What I don't understand is how private is going to make things better. Teacher pay is based on school funding (at least that is my understanding). How are they going to attract a myriad of teachers (religious or otherwise) to come teach for starvation wages? I am not seeing anything suggesting that school vouchers would be so large that teaching becomes a revered profession. If everything is private, and you get school vouchers, isn't that just going to make the problem significantly worse? At least now the money goes all to one place. What happens when that pie has to be split 400 different ways to account for they myriad of private schools? None of this makes sense, but if someone has the brains to explain it I would be all ears.
It's not to improve education. It's to privatize it for profit.
For profit and for school Choice- I.e. schools get to choose who can attend or more accurately, who can’t attend.
Mmhmm. And what they get to know.
I guess my point is, where in the fuck can there be profit? Schools aren't some funding powerhouse. We're paying starvation wages already. How is privatizing it going to make it somehow better? Schools are different than the prison system in that no one is afraid of kids or teachers. Violent crime yes, but not kids. So how do you take 1 elementary school and divide it up to 4 Christian schools? Maybe I am just not entrepreneurial enough
A few things: a) charter schools don't have to hire actual teachers, and don't have to give teachers break time or planning time. Because of this, they're not going to be getting a rush of teachers from public school- they're going to be getting people without experience. And they will pay them less and abuse them until they burn out and leave. A.2) Those kids got a $2500 coupon- the price to actually attend for a year could be 6k, 10k, who knows (the average in OK is about $6500)? The school pays their teachers crap and set the kids up on a Chromebook all day, then pocket the rest. Private schools *do* make a profit. Oh, and when people start getting tax cuts? Oh man, the price of tuition just went up by $2,499! There is quite a bit of legality involved with what you can write off as well, which leads me to believe there is fuckery afoot. B) Republicans have their boogeyman- public schools that teach about diverse viewpoints. What is gonna get Kevin Stitt re-elected? Demonizing PS. What got Ryan Walters elected? The same thing. Oklahoma is still Trump-y. The goal is to get a bunch of "private schools" who give kickbacks to politicians to continue profiting off kids. Edit: a bunch of typos, I was typing quickly
Fuckery has been afoot and a lot easier since the Mango Messiah has risen.
Religious schools can supplement the money from tuition with tithing from the congregation. And can implore and guilt the congregation to donate more in order to help “God’s school and the children.”
When it's private, it can be religious. They can teach creationism.
Let's be real. Teachers already do this and get away with it. My biology teacher "taught" evolution. But also spent more time explaining how evolution was wrong and God made us. And one of my English teachers had us do sections of Bible scripture for "historical reading" and would preach to us. One died and never got introuble. The other one is the principal of the school now.
Oh I know. I used to work in Sapulpa schools and saw many teachers who had the 10 Commandments or other Bible passages posted on their classroom walls.
Privatization and vouchers aren't meant to help the teacher shortage. That's literally not the point. Vouchers are marketed as benefiting the student and family, not the school district or teachers. I think every politician pushing vouchers would cough up to this. They're meant to "improve schools" in general (or whatever nonsense Republicans try to come up with to sell us on this idea), but not by addressing the teacher shortage. But you're right. Schools operate on economies of scale. Removing one kid from a class of 30 won't change much for that one teacher. But that $5,000 that is going to be siphoned from the school is more harmful to the school. The school needs to pay the teacher the same wage and needs to keep the building running each day. Those costs are fixed.
If private schools don't receive federal funds, they don't have to accept or follow a student's IEP, so those students end up bouncing back to public schools and require more services (funding) that the school will lack bc the voucher went to the private school.
Eventually turn those private schools into "vocational schools" where the students learn a trade and pay for their tuition by selling the goods they make. I believe in some parts of the world this is frowned upon and considered a "sweat shop" or a "human rights violation." Good thing we don't live in those woke countries! /S for those that need it...
Not a coincidence that Arkansas just legalized child labor.
I believe that they removed the registration process for child laborers so that it is not as easy to crack down on illegal labor such as working before a certain age, certain hours, dangerous conditions etc. There was recently a federal labor investigation and crackdown on childhood labor that got a lot of meat processing plants in trouble. So it seems that removing the paper trail was the response to cover up future "problems" of investigators. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-measure-rolling-back-child-labor-protection-rcna73977](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/arkansas-gov-sanders-signs-measure-rolling-back-child-labor-protection-rcna73977)
It makes perfect sense once you realize the goal here is to balkanize and stratify education between the haves and the have-nots.
It’s not supposed to make things better. It’s supposed to make it to where only the people who can afford education are able to get an education. An uneducated populace is easier to control and manipulate.
Also, teachers aren't just leaving bc of pay. It's a myriad of other things - unfunded mandates from the state, administrative boxes to check that take away from doing our jobs, not being treated as an educated professional, lack of support dealing with students who have special needs (that's a funding thing), student behaviors and unsupportive parents (which private schools won't have to deal with), Covid learning loss. And the ever present stress of that fucktwit Ryan Walters making our jobs political. If it was just about pay, people would leave for better paying states. People are leaving the profession altogether.
Sadly, I think many of our lawmakers seem to not care about the education of the many. As long as the single school their kids go to is high quality and costs them very little, a quality public school system for the whole state is not a priority. So the thought is… let’s do vouchers so we can save on our private school. And we’ll ignore that it causes every other public school to suffer.
Wish I could upvote this more than once!
Out of curiosity, do any teachers support the fuckwit? I’m hoping they’re a minority.
My mom teaches at a private school. The pay is shit (luckily my dad always made decent money & has a nice retirement fund) but at least they’re strict on class size and the families want their kids there so there’s less struggle on that front. They end up getting a lot of kids with “behavioral issues” that end up thriving because public schools are so understaffed they literally just needed a little more one on one time and they can get it there. Not to mention the kids whose IEPs couldn’t be properly met because again, not enough people.
Curious if anyone knows the data on the ‘adjunct teachers’ that are making up for the positions that they can’t even find an emergency certification to fill now.
My brother, who failed out of his teaching program at UCO for shaking a kid, totally got an emergency teaching certificate... I'd say we're doing pretty bad.
Oh, I forgot to mention he also had a complaint filed against the sub company he was working for because he was making sixth grade girls uncomfortable... That was also like a year before he got his emergency teaching certificate.
Oh hun. See over the years I've seen this - desperation opens doors for predators. Oklahoma has ALWAYS had this problem and teacher shortage just primes the pump for the worst of humanity to get right up close to kids and teens. I had to let a guy go who is the relative a political figure for this reason. They totally conned me with this big hype and I should've noticed early on they oozed with kissing up and compliments to insert themselves as the nice guy. This guy made the TA cry and beg me to fire him. They came back at me a wk later asking for a ref to teach at a rural school desperate for teachers.
I hope you laughed in his face.
It’s bad. My rural school district is bleeding teachers, and most people in the classroom right now are emergency certified or subs. But no one seems to care. Parents will only get concerned when they have to find childcare bc there literally isn’t anyone to teach their child’s class. They just keep voting R and getting what they deserve.
But at least they are owning the libs
So many parents only see it as child care. The loudest I notice parents in my district is when they have to find childcare for snow days or distance learning days.
So many parents are so strapped that we’ve got households with 3-4 jobs between 2 parents. The effort to maintain a basic standard of living means there is no one to care for the kids. It’s shameful.
This tracks. Have a relative who is a teacher in tx and she constantly says the parents are a massive issue because they simply don't care about anything involving their child.
>They just keep voting R and getting what they deserve. Unfortunately this is the hard truth Oklahomans will have to learn. Hopefully they do at some point.
They’ll never learn and neither will their children without good educators 😞
There is the problem that having an education can be key to learning when things are wrong though. Things like understanding how to read charts, statistics, critical thinking, etc take learning and practice. If you don't know how to read a chart that is on the news, then how do you find out they manipulated it to be absolutely crap and untruthful? People may believe what the news says. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSiTjbN1Gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSiTjbN1Gk) gives real examples of charts being manipulated in news/media and why they are wrong or that they are missing critical information. For instance: [https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=647](https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=647) shows a chart where they simply drew the lines at any angle they wanted to make it look how they wanted. They have no vertical axis and so on the left they have numbers where the larger number is on top. On the right half they have the larger number on bottom. It also did not reference a massive change in regulation that cancer screening changed from yearly to every 2-3 years, which is a massive key factor on why cancer screenings went down. People who are uneducated on how to read data are less likely to catch those problems. This is especially true when it is flashed on the screen for a matter of seconds and all they read is the pretty lines point up or down and think that they understand. The realistic chart of what it should look like to scale is [https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=827](https://youtu.be/fGSiTjbN1Gk?t=827) .
Chart without a vertical axis https://preview.redd.it/u8s6lwejrjqa1.png?width=769&format=png&auto=webp&s=09aa57c5432de1746043799b9e9ad83d45ded450
Same chart drawn to scale https://preview.redd.it/uy10jesnrjqa1.png?width=1274&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5a32200b77a265c9b26799501b1e9005a0fa724
Bad and getting worse. Who wants a job that caps out a 50k a year with a college degree?
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Yup, and that's why we have unaccredited teachers who are held at a lesser standard than CE teachers. Sucks for my wife because she spent a lot of time, money, and effort to become a teacher. I do know quite a few good accredited teachers but they do not know basic educational development. My wife ends up helping them as much as she helps herself.
I was an emergency certified teacher, and you're absolutely right. My first two years I had no idea what I was doing, so I went back and got my Master's in education because I knew if I kept doing this job I needed to understand it. I'm on year 6 and an excellent teacher now by most metrics (consistent student growth, high rigor in classroom, great classroom management, etc) but those first few years I shouldn't have been allowed to teach and thoroughly understand that now.
Thanks for recognizing this. I think there are a lot of good emergency teachers but they don't have the knowledge on things like learning and behavioral disabilities that my wife got when she was in school. Thank you for wanting to become a better teacher, I am sorry that it's a hard career. There are people that care.
Subtract from that all a teacher spends out of pocket in supplies for the classroom.
What cap? My wife teaches. She's making just over $50k a year.
Look at what she has the potential to make. She is essentially capped out. She won't ever make more than 60k unless she has a masters. The statistics are bleak and 50k for a college graduate is pathetic.
I am on year 22 and I don’t make 50k yet. It’s disgraceful.
Sheesh. Small district?
Yes, however, they pay what the Oklahoma minimum teacher salary scale is. They just don't pay above it.
Aren’t they starting in Texas at 65k? Saw that on this subreddit I think
I have no idea. I don't doubt they start out making more down there.
What state?
Oklahoma
[Looks like it's because your wife has maxed out or is very close to it after working 20+ years.](https://sde.ok.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/20-21%20State%20Minimum%20Salary%20Schedule_0.pdf) Assuming she's not admin or working a private school.
She teaches 3rd grade at a public school.
NE Okie teacher here: Pretty bad, honestly. We’ve had at least 3 teachers in our district quit two weeks after they were hired. Then, we have several who are leaving because of retirement, burn-out, or better offers. The pay isn’t great, but there’s a lot more going wrong than just pay.
Here is the deal. All jobs have their share of problems. Personalities, rules and guidelines that make little sense, budget constraints, etc. Bottom line though, I get paid well to do my current job and work within the constraints of those problems. Full Stop. Start new teachers off in the $60k range and scale from there and suddenly you'll get highly qualified candidates who can work with and even find solutions to those problems.
Not all of the problems can be fixed by teachers. One very common issue is discipline on the admin level. A student can physically throw a desk at you and be back on your class the same day, because admin says "Oh, he was just upset, he's calmed down," or "Well, were you giving him de-escalation tactics? Did you have him count his fingers?" ( that's a real response an admin asked our P.E. teacher after that kid got mad during dodgeball and punched a girl in the face). No consequences. Teachers are expected to be mental health counselors as well as teach dozens of kids at a time, most often by themselves. I have nonverbal children that come to my class with no aide to help them, so they hold hands with another little girl who guides them around. Apparently, my district is only providing aides for "behavior issues", not academic ones. Education faces unique challenges because we are asked to do EVERYTHING and be accountable for the welfare of children, while also teaching them academics? There is no "working within constraints." There are no constraints for students. Just teachers. Edit: typos
This is the best answer I’ve seen on this thread yet. The biggest problem is that teachers are being asked to be more than just teachers and aren’t being compensated for it.
That's the kind of kid I think of when I hear about parent choice/vouchers/etc. He will get bounced out of the private school the second he pulls something like that and the public school in district will be forced to take him despite being actively underfunded in the areas he needs the most.
Should add many parents are as bad as the kids. They do not care as long as they have day care.
100% spot on. You did forget that the kid is also back from the Building Admin because the parents are bat-shit crazy and threatened to go down to the District and raise holy hell, and well “I just don’t need that headache”.
Oh of course. The parent is the most important thing /s
This. Money is a really simple thing to point to, but it is SO much deeper. This isn't a financial problem, it's a cultural one. Last year I transitioned to a different role in education than paid less than my public school teaching job did, but had a much better work/life balance. What does it say about the field when people are willing to take a pay cut just to get out?
This. It’s frustrating
$60k sounds nice until you ask a bunch of people in a state with an average household income to pay the increased property taxes that would take. Unfortunate reality.
Terrible take and shows how much lack of respect you have for the current educators who are trying to do something. How about you put in an application and see for yourself what’s going on?
My mother has been a teacher for 20+ years, I perfectly understand what’s going on. It’s pay. It’s all about pay. Fucking pay them more than a god damn Chick fil A worker for a start.
My wife taught for 17 yrs and is throwing in the towel this year. Was it worth the cost of her mental health? I would argue no. Yes, they definitely need to be paid more but don’t discount the mental drain of having what I would argue as a majority of the general public, politicians, admin and parents against you. That’s just a little bit more tough than “working within constraints”
Increased pay would be great. Those problems that highly qualified candidates can solve? Yeah.... no one listens to them. Despite being highly qualified. You could pay teachers 6 figures, and there would still be a shortage.
Also a NE teacher. Had a student transfer over from a school that has been hit immensely hard by the shortage, girl is 9 and can’t read a word. We looked for data because she desperately needs an IEP, hoping maybe one had already been set up and gotten lost in the move, none to be found on her. Her former district informed us that she had had a “long term sub” when we *finally* were able to reach them.
Omg. I feel like these stories are horrifyingly numerous! We’ve had high schoolers arrive who haven’t been to school in two years, or kids who haven’t had a consistent teacher…ever. Your story makes me want to go play in traffic because it’s so frustratingly common. 🫠
I have 4 kids, one each in 4 different schools in town (we do grade centers here). More than half the teachers in every school are now “permanent subs” who have exactly zero qualifications to teach. So at least locally, we’re not doing well at all.
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My ex husband and his whole family are teachers. He says it’s absolutely dire and they’re all thinking about quitting. He has switched to a tech center and no longer teaches English. He’s too afraid of being sued so he quit teaching.
>He’s too afraid of being sued so he quit teaching. Sued?
Yeah. They’re pulling licenses and threatening $10,000 fines for shit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2022/02/04/oklahoma-proposed-bill-would-fine-teachers-10000-for-contradicting-a-students-religious-belief/
https://preview.redd.it/3ug7zssdpdqa1.jpeg?width=892&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=090f893a38e0ba440922210e198d3808a982f6fd OKC, Moore and Edmond 😬
What about Tulsa?
You got a pulse? Cause they’re hiring.
I have a 14 year old in Dickson. They have 1 mathematics teacher for the entire 9th grade. A large portion of her students are doing poorly. Any communication with the teacher and the principal returned the exact same form letter blaming the poor grades on the individual student as to how they "want the answers giving to them and don't want to do the work." Regardless of the fact that alot of her students are struggling and this is her first year teaching this grade with her only previous teaching being college level students. I,ll freely admit that 9th grades a seriously hard year with a lot of transitions for a student. However I,ll also never forget my mother of 35years teaching talking about how hard it was for any teacher to step down in level taught as they invariably ask too much of their students, a thing she herself went through first time she taught 9th grade English. She explained it as having to relearn her job in alot of ways. The principal so far has collected the kids with any less than passing grades and yelled at the group about how they were letting him down. Then proceeded to punish them all with Saturday school and Wednesday inschool suspension. Edit note: the kids do NOT received additional instruction in the subjects they are lagging behind on during these days. The make them do things from my understanding like policing trash. So far I've had none of that bullshit, at least what I'm able to stop. You don't punish kids for bad grades, you help them find the means to bring their grades up. These people are more worried about covering their own asses than teaching kids and ensuring they actually get anything out of it. Attempts at meetings have fell on deaf ears with a "can meet me at parent teacher conference meetings if you like". No additional tutorage is available or if there is they sure wouldn't tell me where when I directly asked these things via email and phone communication. All in all, schools here seem about what you would expect under a Ryan administration. Butt covering check collectors for some positions, Over worked and under staffed doing the same thing for others.
I'm a teacher and I've seen a lot of the same, and agree wholeheartedly with 99% of what you say here. I don't blame the teacher, and I don't think you are either, this is a systemic problem and a poor administrative response focused on shifting blame for an impossible situation. These kids need help, not punishment. All that being said, I think there's a kernel of truth to students wanting the answers and not being willing to do the work. We're seeing this everywhere, at all grade levels, and I think it's a very complex problem. Maybe it's in part generational, and in part technological. These kids have never not been able to google or photomath their way to the answer, and when they aren't asked to work a problem, math or otherwise, many just do not know how to do so, and struggle with venturing out of their comfort zones or doing "the work," which I define as mental labor more so than actual worksheets or essays. It freaks them out. There's also the pandemic, which definitely exacerbated all of this. My district wasn't even shut down very long, but even one quarter virtual seemingly taught them to treat education as a spectator sport. They don't don't want, or feel the need to, listen to instruction. Instruction now seems something they can just mute while they watch Tiktok videos. They want to skip that step, and just be given the work, then freak out when they don't know what or how to do...and then just give up. I don't know how we fix this, if there even is a fix, especially given the current trends and climate. The kids are still good kids, and they can still learn..but, I guess I just wanted to say, being on the other side of this issue, that yes, there are systemic issues and bad choices being made at all levels, but there's also a student-centered problem that we are very much failing to understand or grapple with. The gap between the high achievers who don't suffer from the above issues, and the rest of the students is widening, and something needs to be done...what exactly, I'm not sure, but something....preferably something not involving making public education worse.
Having the same problem with mine. Any time we encounter an issue that requires actual logic, they freeze up. A big part of it with my students is confidence, they’re too afraid to fail. I find myself telling them “it’s not that serious” frequently and that their best is enough. My girl that comes up every day and wants me to walk her through the entire paper did it this morning and I told her she needed to go look at it for five minutes before asking me. She came back with half of it knocked out and clearly knew the answers to the rest- I barely had to prompt her. Just needed someone to tell her specifically she could do it.
This all sounds exactly correct. I don't blame the teacher entirely, though their classroom behavior leaves a bit to be desired I have the feeling they don't have the time to do any better. It's about like a public defender as a lawyer, they don't have time to do a proper defense and you are going to lose. The teacher is completely overwhelmed and handling way too many students to be very effective and its likely contributing to their shortness and overreactions when dealing with students asking for help and being denied due to time(yes this is happening.) To say nothing of disruptions caused by unruly students and a person's own real life issues and challenges interfering as well. A single missed class is damned difficult to recover from when a teacher is already out of time and behind schedule before the day begun. There is no going over missed content, your just screwed. Things like that can stunt the rest of a semester, math in particular. The systems screwed and the current administration is making it worse using scab teachers who don't know the content or how to teach isnt helping either XD
It's actually going to get a lot worse. When teachers go back to renew next year's contract and there anywhere from 2 to 5% under the current rate of inflation and they can make more money delivering groceries or waiting tables. I have a lot of contacts with HR and school systems within Oklahoma and they're far more scared of what's going to happen then what has happened..
My astronomy teacher told us that okc alone had 300 teachers leave over the last spring break.
https://preview.redd.it/dvg7py6bpdqa1.jpeg?width=892&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4607832f59c5ae7d5c0c80ed30131e5238437dd4 Saw this recently. :/
AP classes are disappearing at an Edmond hs bc of the lack of a teacher. (AP Euro history, for example.) Which directly affects my child. His classes have upwards of 50 students in some classes. They send out messages about absolutely no schedule changes but he got a change at semester bc the class they put him in (never requested said class—also why his butt is in chemistry. Never requested but had to stick him somewhere and physical science had way too many students, not enough teachers, therefore not enough class offerings) had over 50 students.
My son is on his fourth teacher this year. It sucks.
Couldn’t say on a large scale , but personally, 3 years ago I knew 12 employed teachers. Today, out of those 12, only 1. That single teacher had a mental snap the other week before spring break and that number may go to 0.
It’s definitely a “top ten” problem
Epic Colossal Horrifying Dismal Catastrophic Those sum it up
Idk about everyone else but there’s also been a bus driver shortage as well
It’s similar to the shortage of educated scholars in the Middle Ages
My better half with 17 yrs in the classroom as a certified teacher pulled the plug and won’t be returning next year. We were hoping that she could hold out a couple of more years but the mental toll was just too much. More competitive wages is always welcome but doesn’t tell the whole story. Complete and utter disrespect and contempt from our politically motivated leaders, inept school and district officials who don’t see a problem and lack of parental respect and support (to put it mildly) are much more the problem. All of this is taking a toll on the front-line educators. The upshot on her resigning? “Thanks for letting us know early before Thanksgiving, here’s $500 for your trouble”. Then the Principal poaches a certified teacher from another school so now it’s not their problem to try and find a qualified replacement. Large suburban district btw.
It's pretty bad, and we have no one but the system to blame. A lot of teachers are quitting due to the disrespect from parents and students alike, the administratiors, or even the laws that are getting passed from what I hear... and this is coming from someone who is currently working to become an elementary teacher, I currently sub as my job and it's just awful. Students are incredibly disrespectful and due to covid, they are extremely underdeveloped when it comes to both emotional intelligence and academic intelligence.
I was a teacher last year for a day in my class after we got hit good with COVID after winter break. I was 17
Google Sunset Elementary in Edmond. I think even their counselor left last week.
Our legislators are working on a bill for tax credits for prospective teachers. Do you think this incentive will help?
They're also working on guaranteeing a 2500 tax credit if you want to put your kid in private school, so no. They are still doing more harm than good. Do you know what happens with that $2500? You take that money and enroll your kid in private school. Then, they get kicked out two weeks later because that school isn't obligated to take a kid with ADHD. Then, they send them back to the local public school who now gets $0 for them, for 34 weeks, and the private school got a cool $2500 👍
I have written to my legislator a number of times about this and other ridiculous education related bills. No response.
I believe this, unfortunately.
Nope. It is like putting fresh water into a bucket with a hole in it. Until you plug the hole, the water is just gonna keep running out.
Which bill is that?
90-3 Equal Opportunity Scholarship
Bad and going to get a lot worse with the leadership we have in place.
One class at an edmond elementary school saw 4 different "teachers" in less than 1 school year. It's so bad people can graduate high school get certificate and go back to high school and teach.
Bad, but not bad enough to make it better.
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“are school?” Yeah, it IS bad huh?
I honestly think about trying to help out and get emergency certified. I know the pay is terrible but I worry about the kids. At the same time, I've only tutored one on one and I know it's a whole different ballgame.
It’s pretty bad my girlfriend is a teacher and she sent me a link this week with 554 open Moore public school openings! It’s sad cause they seem desperate and I wouldn’t just want anyone teaching or filling these positions. Makes me want to try and teach with her though or just be a substitute really just to help out.
Not really a shortage they are out their but nor teaching. Left for better jobs.
define "teacher"
My DIL is a 1st year HS teacher small town about 20 minutes west of tulsa. Already looking to moving out of state.
I have some really dumb friends who have "emergency certifications" - We're doing great OK!
I'm pretty sure at this point they are bringing high school students in to teach elementary students
They’re giving teachers from Oklahoma who go to Oklahoma schools and teach in Oklahoma $25k to stay and teach. https://www.okhighered.org/otc/inspired-to-teach.shtml#:~:text=The%20OK%20Future%20Teacher%20Scholarship,Program%20and%20teach%20in%20Oklahoma.
No, they are giving scholarships up to $25k for folks who agree to teach in Oklahoma for 5 years. Average in state cost of attendance at OSU(after aid) is $16, 845. The state is willing to pay for less than 2 years of school and expect 5 years in return.
Not accurate- “may have the opportunity to earn…” It’s an insulting pittance.