Topic: Education Funding and Teacher Shortages
Purpose: To persuade the class to recognize the issue of teacher shortages, consider the proposed ways to correct the issue, and work to rectify the situation.
Thesis Statement: Oklahoma schools are now in desperate need of teachers; however, these positions are hard to fill because Oklahoma public school teachers are among the lowest paid teachers in the nation. To correct this issue, we must realize what is the problem, what caused the problem, and what is the best way to fix the problem.
I. Introduction
A. Gain Attention: According to a News Channel 4 story in 2015, Oklahoma teacher shortages became an “emergency” because in only two years, emergency certification requests jumped from 97 to 499. This means that 499 school districts needed a teacher immediately because they could not fill the void. During this time, the Oklahoma State School Board Association (OSSBA) released a statement that over 1,000 teaching jobs were available and needed to be filled (Doney, 2015).
B. Establish Speaker- Audience- Topic Connection: As college students, every person in the classroom should be able to think back to a teacher they’ve had that inspired them to do something big, or taught them lessons about life as well as school. Teachers are so vital to our lives because they helped to get us here at Oklahoma State furthering our education even more. It can be easy to say that this isn’t our problem, but if you focus on the teachers that
In taking a brief look at the Oklahoma education system, one need not look far before issues of significant underfunding and understaffing come directly into view. Many different proposals regarding what Oklahoma needs to do to resolve this problem have been suggested in the past, but very few of these proposals outline an answer regarding how these fixes will be implemented. How Oklahoma's educational system can increase the effectiveness of its limited funding is something that can be addressed with simple cost-effective steps and strategies that have proven their effectiveness in other states. Additionally, the issue of understaffing can be looked at from a fresh perspective in order to understand what the Oklahoma education system can do to bring in new teachers and keep these teachers. Finally, in joining with national-level movements and interest groups such as the National Education Association which can help with budgetary issues and Teach for America which can help to bring in new, trained and enthusiastic teachers into areas of Oklahoma that have seen poor performance from students in the past.
What will Oklahoma look like in 2040, will we be thriving in student education or will we even have an education program for Oklahoma students to thrive in? Oklahoma is already ranked 48th overall in education, what does the future entail if we don’t start trying to build our education system back up. Teacher salaries in the state of Oklahoma are a hot issue right now and need to be discussed. Low teacher salaries don’t just affect teachers they have a huge impact on students and their education. The people of Oklahoma don’t want to raise their taxes to increase teacher salaries but something must change for the future and sake of Oklahoma’s education system.
As somebody who has experienced the Oklahoma Education System first hand, I have came to the conclusion that it needs to be improved drastically. There were countless times that teachers just played a documentary instead of getting up and teaching the students and touching the children’s hearts. This might be due to them just being lazy, or the teachers feeling that they are not valued under the current system that was in place in Oklahoma. I believe that the teachers of Oklahoma should be valued highly due to the fact that they are the people who create doctors, scientists, politicians, and inventors. They need to be valued up there among the doctors and scientists and treated like it. This will raise test scores in children that usually do
Oklahoma as of today is ranked 49th nationally in per-pupil expenditures and ranked 48th in teacher pay (Klein 2). Putting Oklahoma as one of the worst states to be educated in the United States. “Oklahoma is consistently ranked near the bottom for education funding and teacher pay” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth And Job Creation” 3). When there are state cuts that need to be made, the departments of education are one of the first that usually tend to suffer. Since the 2008 economic crisis, Oklahoma has continued to cut the budget for education; even though the economy has since then gotten better (Perry). Budget cuts in education affect all parts of the education process for the students. “Some school districts have ordered teacher layoffs and shorter sessions” (“Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer” par 4).Schools are now struggling to keep their heads above water. Each year from the budget cutting, schools have had to lay off teachers, cut entire programs, and have limited resources used to educate the students. Even the teachers’ retirement system is suffering, being one of the top poorly funded pension programs nationally (Ash par 3). Seeing as that the schools have to cut down classes and programs, administration has had no other choice than to increase class size, overwhelming teachers tremendously. “Oklahoma has 1,500 fewer classroom teachers and 40,000 more students since 2008-2009” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth
High school teachers’ average salary varies across the world. The United States is said to be one of the richest countries in the world, yet our teachers are being paid one of the lowest amounts. The Education Intelligence Agency, author of the article “Ohio Teacher Overcomes Union’s Tolerance” published an International Teacher Salary Report ranking the fifty states by “how much the average salary exceeded per capita personal income.” According to the Education Intelligence Agency Ohio’s percentage rate is only fifty- five point one percent. According to the Education Intelligence Agency the lowest state percentage is in South Dakota at twenty- three point six percent and the highest state percentage is
The issue of teacher shortage today is continuing to grow. The effects of the achievement gap are reaching the teachers, not just the students: “...good administrators and teachers, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, will be driven out of the profession…,” (Boyd-Zaharias 41). The achievement gap is part of the reason teachers feel they are underpaid, which happens to be one of the leading cause in teacher shortage considering, “Teachers were paid two percent less [than comparable workers] in 1994, but by 2015 the wage penalty rose to 17 percent,” (Long). Being a teacher requires passion in order to stay in the field, especially if the money in teaching is decreasing. Money is an important aspect for people when it comes to their careers, therefore, fewer people want to become teachers. This lack of teachers and the lack of college students studying to become a teacher leads to unqualified teachers and larger classroom sizes (Ostroff). Both of these causes are eventually affecting students’ learning environments. I chose this issue in education for my project because I have personally felt these effects, and I know others who have as well. As a future educator, I want to see better wages and better benefits, but this can only happen with qualified, passionate teachers. I plan on being one of them, and I plan on sparking a change. I am a future educator fighting to end teacher shortage.
According to the state report card, Salem Elementary School’s socioeconomic status of students is strongly high in poverty. Correspondingly, all of the students enrolled in Salem also have some type of economic disadvantage. As discussed in our EDTE 2020 class, high poverty areas tend to have teachers “with less experience”, who do not have “proper certification”, or who have a “high turnover rate”. This is the complete opposite at Salem, as it’s stated on the report card that all teachers have a bachelor and a master’s degree, with over 72% of teachers being
Teachers have and will always have a big impact in everyone’s life and if not everyone, well, at least they did for me. They teach you everything you need to know about a subject and valuable life lessons, so why are they not paid sufficiently enough to make a decent living? Teachers salaries have always been low and I believe it is the time that changes. Being a lawyer, doctor, or engineer is great, but none of that would be possible without the insight of a teacher, I will inform you in this paper on why I believe there is a need for action. I will go over the background of teacher’s salaries, my ideas on what would be best for teachers not just in Texas, but nationwide, and pros and cons on the issues and ideas at hand.
The teacher candidate has always felt she puts more pressure on herself than her external factors. She is not as nervous to teach to students, but teaching in front of Maercker Intermediate School staff members. On top of putting pressure on herself, she become anxious worrying about what her cooperating teacher and other Maercker staff think. The teacher candidate knows she is not qualified teacher, and can make a few teaching errors along the way, but she worries if she not demonstrating the right teaching strategies and methods. At times, she did not feel confident to teach, but over time, she learned to not focus on what staff members think of my teaching, but focus on how I will impact student learning. Miss Butzen has communicated with Mrs. Corcoran on effective teaching strategies, which she suggests have students work in cooperative learning groups and have students participate during teacher-directed instruction. She has taken this advice, and prefers to use the interactive teaching instruction. Ashley has discovered she does not want to do the majority of teaching a lesson in lecture, teacher directed style, but have students engaged in the lesson by having students volunteer to model the measureable learning target and have students work in cooperative learning groups during the practice
The low pay for our educators is causing many negative effects. New York Times shows that the low income is causing sixty-two percent of teachers to have a second job outside of their teaching jobs. Just to have enough money to support their families and make ends meet. Most everyone decides to college to prevent having these struggles with money, and to avoid having to work multiple jobs, when they get older; however, not when it comes to living off of only a teacher’s income, the struggles to have enough money are interminable. This low pay is also causing most teachers to retire, and find new jobs. New York Times states, “every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the
The United States has many conflicts, one of them is funding on public education. Despite the fact that funding on public education will not help students succeed academically with the money provided to the schools, every school deserves to get as much money because students will receive more proper education and will be more successful students in the future.
There is a huge problem in school fundings. Each year there are a school that are being shut down due to low school fundings. Sometimes there is even libraries that are being shut down. The cause of the problem is because of the bad economy cutting down the funds for schools. Also due to people not voting to help out schools with funds. One solution to solve this problem is raising taxes to provide to schools. Another solution is to ask huge organizations to donate money or help out . Once they have helped, this can then help their taxes be reduced. Another thing that can be done is using land funds for schools.
Public school teachers around the United States are not earning fair pay. When compared with other fields such as computer science, engineering, or the medical field, teachers earn among the lowest pay grade of all jobs. The thought of living on a low-income frightens many potentially amazing and well qualified students from pursuing a degree in education. Teacher pay is beginning to affect students education as well; therefore, causing children to not obtain the education they deserve. Teachers should be receiving more money because valuable teachers are walking away and superior education begins with quality teachers.
Lurking over our great country is a troubling issue that is plaguing the professional educational workforce. When compared worldwide, American teachers work the most hours, yet are paid in the lowest brackets when related to the top 32 nations (Teachers Pay). In addition, when you compare a teacher’s salary to other four year degree salaries, teachers are among the 5 lowest paid degrees (O’Shaughnessy). Not only are the salaries among the lowest in the American workforce, a typical teachers at home workload exceeds all other professional jobs by 20% (Current). Furthermore, teachers were only given a 2.3% salary raise in 2009. Yet the rate of inflation rose to 3.1% causing a loss in purchasing power and creating a hardship on the
Education is the most important possession a person must have. It is the keys to success, wealth, and knowledge. It is the only possession that cannot be taken away from a person and it will open up the windows of opportunities. Education will help us grow as an individual, have better understanding of life, and give us a financial stability; but what happens when education get cuts down. By making budget cuts to education, is this helping out education or letting it down. In the news article, “Highlights Impact of Budget Cuts to Education” by State School Chief Jack O’Connell, his claim is that governor should not cuts down education budget, but instead protect education and invest it in the future.