Recently the News & Observer ran a story and an editorial taking issue with my comments recommending the elimination of the Teaching Fellows program. This article is a response to the Thursday, August 4th News & Observer editorial
N&O editors make a weak case for why North Carolina taxpayers should continue to fund the Teaching Fellows program. They ridicule Republican arguments as merely “guilt by association” and think conservatives are put off by any teacher who will “band together with co-workers to seek better pay, better working conditions, and more support for the public school enterprise.”
In glossing over important distinctions, editors conveniently create a straw man argument to be readily dismissed. My opposition to taxpayer support of the Teaching Fellows program is based on the program’s relationship with the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), the quality of teacher professional development programs and the lack of jobs for current teaching graduates.
N&O editors pooh-pooh the curious links between NCAE and the Teaching Fellows program. The links are numerous. JoAnn Norris, former director of political activities at NCAE, is now Executive Director of Public School Forum, the entity that administers the Teaching Fellows program. Sheri Strickland, NCAE President, also sits on the board of the Public School Forum. In addition, Teaching Fellows program guidelines allow American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and NCAE members to be on the local and regional screening committee for teaching fellow candidates.
The editors also ignore important facts. NCAE is the state arm of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor organization in the United States. If you join NCAE, you must also join NEA.
What is troubling about the connection between NCAE, NEA and the Teaching Fellows?
Let’s look at some numbers. In 2008, NEA tallied $56.3 million in political contributions – more than Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Exxon combined. Those contributions included $1.8 million for Bev Perdue’s campaign as well as $1.7 million in Perdue campaign ads. NEA is a labor union concerned about power, not the education of children. If you think NEA is concerned about raising student achievement, think again. Former NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin made perfectly clear what NEA’s main priorities were when he said the goals of closing the achievement gap, reducing the dropout rate and improving teacher quality “need not — and must not — be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining… It is simply too high a price to pay.” [1]
As the major teacher association in North Carolina, NCAE stands to gain heavily by its ability to select and influence Teaching Fellows recipients. And if NCAE and NEA are committed to developing the best teachers and offering quality professional development, why don’t the organizations dig into their deep pockets to pick up the tab for this professional development program instead of forcing taxpayers to finance it? After all, “professional improvement of its members” is listed as the organization’s number one objective in the NCAE constitution. Rather than spending more than $3 million on North Carolina’s gubernatorial race, the NEA and NCAE could have financed a substantial number of Teaching Fellows themselves.
How teacher development is conducted in North Carolina offers another reason why the Teaching Fellows program should be eliminated from the state budget. For starters, there are a lot of offerings. If you are a teacher, aside from private professional organizations, you can access professional development offerings through the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), The North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, the North Carolina Teacher Academy or the UNC Center for School Leadership and Development. Programs include: While it is true some organizations and offerings have been scaled back or eliminated, they are still extensive.
The Office of Professional Development within the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction offers training materials and courses in professional standards, course development (LEARN NC), and online teacher training courses. In addition to its own programs, the DPI Professional Development site is also linked with numerous state or federally-sponsored teacher and educator professional organizations, each of which also includes a professional development component. Examples of such organizations include the North Central Regional Education Laboratory and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. In addition to the Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT) offers professional development opportunities in common core standards, seminars for beginning teachers, classes for teacher and principal scholars as well as courses for those interested in obtaining National Board Certification. The North Carolina Teacher Academy (NCTA) offered local professional development opportunities to school systems and individual schools. Funding for NCTA was not included in the new state budget. In addition, the UNC Center for School Leadership Development was created to allow public schools to access the resources of the UNC. The Center offers an extensive listing of professional development courses for educators, administrators and other school leaders.
A cursory review of the goals and offerings of these four organizations reveals overlap and duplication. However, along with these concerns there is also controversy. Up until two years ago, DPI received about $12 million in professional development funds for teachers. The loss of funding was a casualty of the economy. However, other controversies surrounding NCCAT and NCTA certainly didn’t help. NCCAT, which has a staff of 100 on two campuses, has been dogged by concerns over extravagant spending, questionable course offerings and lavish facilities. Meanwhile, two years ago, NCTA found itself in hot water for charging $10,000 for literacy coach training sessions. For an extended discussion of these concerns see: Finding Savings in Obscure Places of the Education Budget.
Editors say the Teaching Fellows program shouldn’t be eliminated because it is working. They point to the fact that 60 percent of participants who began teaching twenty years ago are still teaching in North Carolina schools. To say that twenty years later 60 percent of Teaching Fellows are still in the field is a weak endorsement of the program; it fails to say anything specific about the program’s benefits. There are thousands of Teaching Fellows in schools throughout North Carolina. However, why is there so little evidence of the program’s impact? Why do only 66 percent of state students pass both math and reading End-of-Grade tests? Why have fourth grade and eighth grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed a pattern of general decline from 2002 to 2009? Why do nearly two-thirds of graduates entering community colleges have to take basic algebra, English composition or other basic courses because they didn’t learn it well enough the first time around in high school? If the Teaching Fellows program produces better teachers, twenty-five years and thousands of graduates should make noticeable impacts
Still, there are other questions. Why is Public School Forum paid $810,000 annually in taxpayer money to “administer” the program? For a staff of six people and 2,000 students, the numbers seem excessive. At a time when educators are losing jobs and programs eliminated, can the Teaching Fellows program continue to afford to send students on lengthy “enrichment” trips to places like Australia?
No programs, no matter how noble or well intentioned, exist in a vacuum. The reality is Teaching Fellows graduates have been entering a miserable job market for several years. Two years ago, The News & Observer ran a story on the difficulty of Teaching Fellows graduates are experiencing in finding jobs. According to the Department of Public Instruction, less than half (49 percent) of the graduates from UNC education schools have teaching jobs within one year of graduating. Yes, there is a greater demand for teachers in math and science. However, a quick review of certification areas for recent Teaching Fellows graduates show only about 10 to 15 percent of graduates have certification in math, science or both. That means about 85 percent of Teaching Fellow graduates can join the thousands of other graduates looking for teaching jobs in a shrinking job market. With so many unemployed teachers, now hardly seems like a sensible time to finance a program designed in part to “boost the quantity” of the state’s teacher corps, as the N&O puts it.
We all want good teachers. Encouraging teachers to enter the field and worthwhile professional development are two tasks that can help accomplish that goal. However, professional development, while important, is best provided by private companies and trade associations. Recent controversies show what can happen when an essentially private function is taken over by state government. The Teaching Fellows program, no matter how well intentioned, provides no reason why taxpayers should continue to fund a program whose benefits are not apparent and whose many graduates will likely join the ranks of those who won’t be able to find jobs.
[1] See: NEA General Counsel: Union Dues, Not Education, Are Our Top Priority, The Foundry blog, July 9, 2009, available at: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/09/nea-general-counsel-union-dues-not-education-are-our-top-priority/
I am a recently retired public high school teacher. I think the program has merit but not enough to drive NC into debt problems. We must put the state first or we all go down in flames. I have been to professional development workshops and training sessions at UNC-CH and to teacher academy and they were wonderful!!! But too much money is spent on things like snacks. We must have more strict discipline of students and staff and we must have higher expectations for students if we expect to raise their scores. Standards must be held. While I was teaching, standards were lowered to 60% as passing. Well, I don’t want a doctor or lawyer or business person who can only score 60% when tested. These standards are TOO LOW! I do understand that parents aren’t helping students as much as they once did. The government’s money would be better spent on a program to encourage parents to care about their children’s education more than they care about their popularity. Our parents too often are not mature enough to lead their students concerning the true value of education. Teachers must be evaluated but so must principals….I never joined a union…wouldn’t because they are politically involved in bigger pay, more benefits, etc. and I was earning enough, not a great salary, but enough. My greatest concern was students and their attitude toward education which is absolutely dismal! They are aware of massive corruption in government and fraud by politicians so why should they care about getting an education. We need old fashioned honesty in government and society isn’t going to improve until we get it~!
Jburgess – There are a lot of teachers who think like you. We need the political leadership to get the message and start backing up good teachers with higher standards and true accountability. They can than get out of the way and let you do your job! Thank you for being a teacher.
Teaching Fellows was a good, solid program and it was working so the Republicans had to break it… the pattern of poor; but enriching to their friends, policy making and the elimination and gutting of citizens’rights is the only thing the Republican legislature is interested in doing.. oh and thanks for the higher unemployment… Where are the jobs speaker tillis?
As a current Teaching Fellow at N.C. State, I’m finding many issues with this editorial. Let me spell a few out for you.
First of all, to associate the program with the NCAE and NEA is ridiculous. Not once have I ever been approached about joining either group following graduation (nor do I plan to). I’ve actually had several people tell me that these groups get in the way of educational progress rather than help facilitate it. While I certainly can’t say this for all Teaching Fellows campuses, since I only attend one of them, I know this is true for N.C. State. For you to then comment on the union’s mission statement is irrelevant. As Teaching Fellows, we KNOW this is NOT the job for someone who is out to make money. We KNOW that job conditions–especially in the state of North Carolina–are likely to be far from ideal. And yet, we’re still here, still actively learning how to be the best teachers we can be. So please, don’t associate us with groups of people you say care more about a steady income than our students.
Also, why are you referencing “professional development” opportunities for teachers–and say that there are so many that we’re actually wasting money on them–when you also state that some of those programs no longer exist? You also focus on professional development resources for teachers, and fail to realize that the Program is designed to give budding teachers the training they need BEFORE they’re thrown out into the miserable job market and into our struggling school systems. Personally, and this may just be me, but I’d like for my future children to have teachers who are ready and comfortable in the classroom BEFORE day 1. By the time I graduate I’ll have had more than 80 hours of field experience (participating/teaching in a classroom setting) than any of the non-Teaching Fellows education majors in the UNC System. Why? Because school systems and specialty programs (MSEN, the WELL, RAMP-UP, etc) know that the Teaching Fellows Program is a reliable and respectable program–one whose participants excel in these settings, and are more likely to welcome the participation of those students than other education majors.
And to say that the Program should be cut because it “isn’t working” is narrow minded. Today, if a child is still behind by the time they’re in the third grade (apparently the new magic number for public school systems), it is seen as incredibly challenging to get them up to the State’s standards years after. While I don’t believe that explains everything, what do you do when half of the students in your class don’t meet the State’s standards and you’re forced to backtrack so much to teach them what they’re ‘supposed’ to already know by, say, the fifth grade that you don’t have time to get them ready for the sixth? Saying that the Program isn’t working because certain grades are declining is not as simple as a reflection of the program–it’s a reflection of our educational system. Now you may be thinking, “Well, if these Teaching Fellows are so GREAT, why haven’t they changed the system?” Do you know how LONG that takes? How many obstacles are in the way from current “standards,” testing, parents, other teachers, administrations, school boards, unions, etc?! I’d like for changes for the better to happen over the course of a few years or sooner too, but that often does not happen.
Also, I just LOVE how everyone decides to take only a couple of the statistics on this program and our educational systems and focus on those, completely omitting everything else. Have you looked at the statistics for teacher effectiveness (I personally don’t care about ‘retention’ numbers, those mean virtually nothing given today’s job market) for all teachers, not just those in the program? If you’re going to cite statistics and say (among other things) “Why do only 66 percent of state students pass both math and reading End-of-Grade tests?” then you need to use the REAL numbers. Teaching Fellows are NOT the only teachers in our schools. I’m not bashing other teachers, some of the best teachers have never had contact with the program, but to use those statistics and ask why the program hasn’t been the magic fix to our educational system is ridiculous! You’re only including one group of educators, and you aren’t looking at any other factors! Stop trying to fool people with one-sided statistics. If you could truly show me statistics that show that N.C. Teaching Fellows are dragging our state down in the classroom–and I mean REAL, reliable statistics that actual have meaning–then I might reconsider this part of my argument. But not a moment sooner.
And finally, while I can’t give you a reason why the Public School Forum (another organization that we hardly ever come into contact with) is given almost a million dollars to administer the program, I do have a question for you. Where on Earth did you get information stating that the State’s funds are used to send us to Australia? Because it certainly isn’t N.C. State. Yes, several of the PRIVATE Teaching Fellows universities (First one that comes to mind is Queens) do send their students on trips to other countries, but most of our public universities require students to pay for everything that the $6,500 doesn’t. And let me tell you, it doesn’t cover a whole lot. With tuition rising every year, that money doesn’t even cover tuition and fees at N.C. State anymore. Also, several hundred dollars is “escrowed” from that $6,500 to use toward our enrichment programs like the Discovery trip, Junior enrichment, Junior/Senior conferences, etc. Many of our public universities that are part of the Program don’t give a lot of money for extra expenditures, so we actually fundraise and pay our own way if we want to do extra things (just like every other student group in the same situation). So before you make the Program out to be some extravagant elitist group, please, find out what REALLY happens to the money we’re allotted.
Next time you’re curious about the program, please, feel free to actually talk to someone who’s been in the Program. We’d be glad to discuss it with you.