Arizona’s public school teachers have a message for those such as Lisa Graham Keegan who are still bent on dismantling public education: Stop undermining teachers and our profession in an effort to keep the failed education reform movement on life support.
In their recent column on March 15, former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham Keegan and Tucson Unified School District Superintendent H.T. Sanchez proposed lowering professional Arizona teaching standards as a way to address our state’s teacher shortage.
Let’s be clear — this is the wrong answer for a serious problem. With over 60,000 certificated teachers in this state, but only 50,000 choosing to teach in classrooms, Arizona’s problem isn’t teacher certification; it’s that we have a shortage of certificated educators willing to teach.
The exodus of Arizona’s classroom teachers is a reflection of poor working conditions and grossly inadequate salaries. We attract new teachers from all over the country; they just don’t stay — at least not in Arizona classrooms. They leave to teach in other states, or they leave the profession entirely in debt and tears.
Using this plight to advance an agenda that undermines teacher quality offers just another failed reform tactic. Part of Keegan’s reform plan is to allow some school districts and charter schools to certificate teachers — not add to their expertise as teachers, but initially credential them. School district officials have not asked for this added responsibility. They asked for, and received, more time for out-of-state applicants to meet current certification requirements.
Rather than the usual attack on stable and sufficient education funding, this latest gimmick from the reform camp aims squarely at the teaching profession. Not only will it fail to produce properly trained teachers, it will actually increase Arizona’s teacher shortage. We know this because teachers who come out of fast-track, shortcut preparation schemes are among the most likely to leave. In fact, one of the best known quick-prep programs is built on the premise of a mere three-year teaching career.
Several reports from the Arizona Department of Education’s Teacher Retention and Recruitment Taskforce echo national research in identifying low pay and lack of respect as the main reasons for Arizona’s teacher shortage. Nowhere in the reports was certification listed as a roadblock to recruiting teachers; in fact, the report cited recent policy changes that opened the door wide for teachers coming from out of state.
Keegan cites studies showing the benefit of hiring quality teachers but curiously ignores research showing that fully certificated teachers are better prepared to teach in the classroom and more likely to stay in the profession than teachers prepared through an alternative pathway. Well-trained, fairly compensated, and well-supported teachers educate students and create the stable communities in which they learn.
This latest quick-fix had its day before Gov. Doug Ducey’s Classrooms First Initiative Council — itself an incubator of the reform agenda — and was soundly rejected. The last five Arizona Educational Foundation Teachers of the Year, including the current holder of the title, publicly opposed this watered-down approach to teacher quality.
For too long, Arizona has pursued the chaos, contradiction, and confusion of the reform camp with little to show as the result except an exodus of the teachers we should be proud and committed to retain. Voters and taxpayers have identified education funding and keeping our teachers as among the state’s top priorities. It’s time for policymakers to reject the reformers, invest in our students, and honor those who educate them.
