As a recent college graduate, I am a prime example of why we are suffering from a shortage of teachers. After graduating with a degree in engineering, I realized I had a desire to teach and began looking in to what it would take to do so. With my engineering background, I realized I might make a good candidate for a high school math teacher.
I found that if I invested enough time, I could get certified to teach math, but there was a problem: money. After looking into the well-defined pay grades for teachers with zero years of experience, I realized I would make less than $30,000 a year ? $29,750 to be exact. I also saw the less-than-awe-inspiring pay increases each year. Despite my passion for teaching, I began to pursue other career goals. It made me wonder how many other opportunities for well-qualified teachers our state has missed due to uncompetitive salaries.
Over the past decade state government has provided North Carolina teachers with generous pay raises and teaching bonuses. It seems little if any of those resources have been have directed toward raising starting salaries for new teachers. It is true when you include compensation and benefits, pay for North Carolina teachers is above the national average. It is also true that in many areas starting salaries for new teachers are too low to attract qualified young professionals. Raising starting teacher salaries needn’t be difficult. It can be done by better targeting existing resources and by creating more innovative pay plans. Making starting teacher salaries more competitive is a small step, but one that could have a big impact on convincing others like myself to return to the classroom and do their part in ending our statewide teacher shortage.
-Kyle Ward
How about lowering the barriers to entry for becoming a teacher? That is one way to make the starting salary more palatable.
A degree in engineering and the state thinks you are unqualified to teach high school math? How much time and money would you need to invest to be “state approved” to teach math?
First, it’s not the state. NCLB requires that teachers have a degree in the subject they teach. So let’s blame the right people.
Second, the state has increased beginning teacher salaries tremendously over the past couple of years. While the overall average has been 5-6%, for starting teacher salaries, the increase has been closer to 8-10% with raises of 2-3% for teachers with 25+ years experience.
As for the starting salary, that is the state pay. In Wake County, there is a county supplement of close to $8,000 per year, so you’d really be making close to $38,000. And that’s to work 10 months — 39 weeks — not even a full year. Not a bad starting salary for someone with no experience straight out of college.
As for the “he less-than-awe-inspiring pay increases each year” — maybe once you get out in the real world in any normal job you’ll understand this, but, raises aren’t guaranteed, you have to earn them. Guaranteed raises regardless of performance only exist in government workers and union contracts.
There is a huge difference between knowing a subject well enough to be able to teach it to someone else and the knowledge base gained through and accredited school of education which teaches a teacher HOW to teach or reach a classroom full of students. Classroom management is a very big issue. A person well versed in a subject, like math, does not necessarily carry the classroom management skills into a classroom need to teach. The mathematic knowledge base may be there, but the practical skills may be missing. That is where an accredited school that teaches teachers to teach and teachers gaining professional certification is so important.
There is probably a grain of truth to Mickie’s comment, but teachers are put into the system by a rather static, bureaucratic sausage grinder. In other words, getting the pedagogy classes is not getting the practical skills — and some people are just naturals. You see this at the university level where no such requirements exist. (There are crap teachers to be sure, but no b.s. licensure requirement which is but a barrier to entry.) I believe I could teach rings around most public school teachers in English, History, Social Studies, but I have a degree in philosophy.
No way to make it more flexible?
Yes we can make it more flexible. Get the Federal Government out of education.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is one of the worst pieces of legislation passed in the last decade and does more harm to education than good for it.