State aid, curriculum, technology, school boards. All are important factors in K-12 education; none educate a single child.
That task is of course in the hands of teachers. It follows that teachers are the most important employees in schools, and arguably the most important employees in the public sector. After all, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites send their kids to spend the bulk of their childhoods learning from these employees. It only makes sense for the public to treat teachers with respect. But, as Alan Borsuk argues convincingly in the Journal Sentinel Sunday, this is not always the case.
I have written numerous times about the increasing financial burdens placed on teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools and across the state. In general, districts offset some or all of last year’s 5.5% per-pupil reduction in revenue limits by increasing employee contributions to health and pension benefits. This means that teachers across the state received a cut to their take-home pay totally unrelated to their performance. It is easy to see why teachers felt they were being disrespected.
In one district, New Berlin, there appears to be some blowback. According to the Journal Sentinel, “50 of New Berlin’s 314 teachers have resigned or retired so far this year.” Even more interesting are the reasons why; notably absent from the list is the reduction in take-home pay:
“Based on interviews with more than a dozen employees, the resentment appears to stem from feelings that their input doesn’t matter, that the administration doesn’t communicate well with them, that they aren’t supported or appreciated by people in the district, and that changes meant to be good for kids are poorly executed and fail to improve teaching.”
Some seem inclined to dismiss what is happening in New Berlin as nothing more than whining from teachers upset about their weakened union (read the comments below the linked article at your peril). I am not so inclined, mainly because I asked myself this question:
What happens when you take a high-performing school district and replace a third of its teachers?
Take a look at the stats (from the Department of Public Instruction) on New Berlin public schools:
- The district’s four-year graduation rate is 95.5% (compared to 87.0% statewide).
- About 90% of New Berlin students score advanced or proficient on state tests in reading and math, well above state averages.
- The district’s average composite ACT score is 24.3 (compared to 22.0 statewide), and their ACT participation rate is 86% (compared to 60.4% statewide).
Cleary New Berlin teachers are doing something right. More impressively, performance indicators have remained high despite an upward trend in the percentage of economically disadvantaged students served by the district. In 2001 only 4.2% of New Berlin students qualified for free and reduced lunch, today 12.1% do.
It is difficult to see how the district will be able to continue its impressive track record when a considerable number of the employees actually educating students are gone. Schools are also likely to see substantial changes in their cultures because of the significant teacher turnover; that too is worrisome.
The next couple of years will reveal if the blowback in New Berlin negatively impacts student performance. I am hoping it does not, but logic suggests it will. As of now it is a cautionary tale on the need for mutual respect and collaboration between district administration and teachers. While elected board officials have every right to govern as they see fit, teachers, as New Berlin demonstrates, have every right to leave a district in favor of one that makes them feel respected and appreciated.
Personally, I prefer to have my children in front of a teacher that feels appreciated. I do not think it is a stretch to assume most Wisconsin parents feel the same way.
It’s not how many leave but rather how many qualified applicants there are for the openings that will tell if the changes were a step in the right direction or a step too far.
I agree though that when performance had generally been good, one should proceed with caution.
Comment by John — July 2, 2012 @ 2:35 pm
That is a very good point John.
Comment by Mike Ford — July 2, 2012 @ 2:37 pm
New Berlin is the “canary in the coal mine” to the exodus of talented young teachers from the state of Wisconsin or re-careering to more lucrative (and more appreciated) career fields. Overlooked in Borsuk’s article are the demographics of the fleeing teachers. The most marketable teachers are the ones who are seeking greener pastures in other states or other fields. Science, math, technical education, special education, and Advanced Placement teachers are leaving New Berlin & Wisconsin in ever-increasing numbers.
As an Advanced Placement science teacher nearing the end of a 30+ year career, I am spending some time this summer tutoring two young middle school science teachers in my suburban Milwaukee district to assist their efforts to re-career out of teaching. For both of them, this will be their last year in teaching before going back to school for 2 years to re-career into the medical field where their starting salaries will be double or even triple their current (and declining) $40,000-$43,000 salaries. By leaving teaching, they are also leaving a career choice where they are scorned and actually hated by a majority of Wisconsin’s citizens.
The outright hate and anger unleashed towards Wisconsin’s public school teachers won’t abate or diminish for at least 20 years. For all young talented teachers still in Wisconsin, New Berlin is the harbinger of your future. Within five years, all districts will be doing what New Berlin is doing.
To all talented young teachers, if you love teaching, do it in a state that appreciates the contribution you are making to the future of it’s young people and the future success of the state.
Remaining a teacher in Wisconsin is economic suicide for you & your future. Under the base wage calculations modified by Governor Walker before being adopted by the WERC, your current salary is the highest real salary you will make in your career. Merit pay in the form of $250-$500 bonuses is being implemented in lieu of salary schedules that rewarded teachers for increasing their teaching skills & education. Teaching in Wisconsin is a Dead End job.
Comment by Jim — July 2, 2012 @ 5:00 pm
Jim, thanks for a fine post. Yes, I see this not only on a large scale but also within my extended family of generations of longtime Wisconsin educators. More than half a dozen young nieces and nephews earned education degrees but have left the state, advised to do so by their parents and other older relatives in K12 here. At least those in K12 have received raises; two of us working for UW faculty, with no raises in six years now and hits to take-home pay that put us where we were ten years ago are counting down the days until we also can leave the state and have advised the young ones against plans to get graduate degrees. But the reasons are, as in New Berlin, not financial as much as psychological, after giving our lives to public service only to be despised and demeaned (especially by the JS, so we all found Borsuk’s apologia to be laughable). We are enjoying busier social lives than usual, going to farewell parties for other faculty — some retiring, some younger ones leaving the state, as we counsel others in early or mid-career to leave Wisconsin, too.
Comment by Gee — July 3, 2012 @ 10:37 am
Jim and Gee,
Thanks for the comments, frightening, but important. Do either of you feel there is a way to reverse the teacher migration out of Wisconsin that you describe? Are you aware of any districts that are doing things substantially different than New Berlin?
Comment by Mike Ford — July 3, 2012 @ 11:17 am
Hi, Mike. Well, we could change governors. . . .
I’m not being facile. I don’t think that this can be reversed while we have Walker, as he simply is not trusted by many public employees, including teachers. Or he needs better speechwriting, as indicated by his response just this week to the report on pensions — a response carefully crafted with weasel words. Of course, those immediately were the focus for any public employees, no matter his alleged attempt at reassurance.
As long as we have Walker in place — months, according to some; many years, according to others — perhaps the only hope is to have him Stop. Talking. About. This. Period. However, he apparently does have plans to continue taking actions aimed at public employees, and actions speak louder than words.
If he could be convinced to Stop. Talking. About. This. Period. . . . then, have someone whom teachers (and teachers of future teachers; see below) trust issue reassurances. The DPI head might do it for K12. That won’t do it for other state employees. For them, the need is to get rid of Huebsch, whose intro to the pension report also was cause for greater worry.
And also aim any reassuring messages — and, again, actions — to the teachers of the future teachers. I can tell that I have seen and heard a lot about those messages in the last year and half, as I have progeny earning a teaching degree (perhaps to head out of state with it, too). And at a private college, not in the UW. Her profs have done good work in trying to help Ed. students understand all of this, as other parents also have been talking to their progeny about getting out of the Ed. major/Ed. schools. But because the profs have done a good job, they have told the truth . . . and it’s not a pretty truth.
But of course, the “brain drain” is not new to Wisconsin; now, we just see more teachers joining it. Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton worked hard to reverse it. But — bygones. What we have is what the majority of Wisconsinites wanted, so to reverse it would take changing the minds of the majority of Wisconsin voters. That can be done, but it won’t be done by the party currently in power, nor by the other powerful voice on this, the major media, and especially the Journal Company via its Journal Sentinel and WTMJ radio. They fed this beast, and it’s out of the cage.
Comment by Gee — July 4, 2012 @ 5:34 pm
Gee is absolutely correct in his analysis that the current anti-teacher venom is EXACTLY what the majority of Wisconsin voters wanted to happen. Unlike Gee, I don’t blame Walker for causing this hate towards teachers. Like many highly successful politicians, Walker was smart enough to recognize that demonizing teachers was reflective of the general public attitudes towards teachers in Wisconsin. Walker realized that he would be lauded as a “hero” by a majority of Wisconsinites when he broke teacher unions to dramatically cut wages and benefits of teachers. His overwhelming victory in the recall should put EVERY teacher in Wisconsin on notice that the demonization of teachers is just beginning in Wisconsin, not a brief phase that this state is going through.
Understand Mike, that I do not take lightly my advice to young teachers to either re-career or leave the state of Wisconsin. Born and raised in Wisconsin, if I thought the current demonization of teachers was a passing fad or a knee-jerk response to a purported state budget deficit, I wouldn’t be advising young colleagues to flee Wisconsin.
There are those of us who have been chronicling the overt displays and escalation of anti-teacher venom in Wisconsin during the last sixteen months. Besides the Journal Sentinel media monopoly, in most media markets, AM talk radio has been leading the teacher bashing drumbeat. Sixteen hours per day of talk show hosts calling teachers “fat pigs, lazy, underworked, stupid, fat bitches, crybaby whiners, thugs, goons, moochers, leeches, ugly whiners, part-time”, has so demonized teachers in the eyes of the talk radio demographic listeners, white males ages 24-54. Vivid pictures and You Tube videos showing a 40 something burly white guy wearing a “Don’t Tread on Me” T-shirt spitting in the face of a female teacher wearing a “Teachers Care” shirt at a New Berlin School Board meeting in August 2011. In the video, you can clearly see the spit from his mouth hitting the teacher.
Teachers across Wisconsin have had to remove the “Teachers Care” bumper stickers from their cars because of road rage incidents on Wisconsin highways. Complete strangers will walk up to female teachers in store parking lots and verbally berate them as “lazy, overpaid whores who are bankrupting this state-parroting the slurs toward teachers that they hear on talk radio everyday in Wisconsin.
Newspapers across Wisconsin have had to turn off comments for obituaries of teachers because any story that mentions a teacher in a good way, even an obituary for a teacher who taught for 30-40 years in a community is quickly filled with comments like, “glad he is dead”, “he was a lazy, overpaid piece of #$#$”. THIS, too, is Wisconsin 2012.
Those teachers who left New Berlin for other school districts in Wisconsin didn’t go far enough. With the majority of Wisconsinites actually HATING teachers, soon ALL school districts will be just like New Berlin. Young teachers who plan to stay in teaching need to leave Wisconsin.
Those of us who have been chronicling the emersion of this venomous anti-teacher hate in Wisconsin are working to make sure that all prospective teachers in Wisconsin become aware of the magnitude of the hate towards teachers in Wisconsin and how that will affect their employment, career earnings, and job satisfaction should they choose to teach in Wisconsin.
As Gee noted, the education professors are being honest with future teachers regarding the true state of teaching in Wisconsin. The results of our research & monitoring of the last sixteen months of anger and hate towards teachers in Wisconsin will be readily available on multiple Internet sites by late summer 2012. That way, all current teachers and prospective teachers will be able to make an informed decision on whether a teaching career in Wisconsin is a viable choice for their future.
Comment by Jim — July 7, 2012 @ 11:27 am
Teacher Turnover in New Berlin a Cautionary Tale…
Mike Ford:State aid, curriculum, technology, school boards. All are important factors in K-12 education; none educate a single child. That task is of course in the hands of teachers. It follows that teachers are the most important employees in schools,…
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