Editorial: Teacher vacancies
Entering the current school year, the Clark County School District was short 881 teachers. That number was 171 just two years earlier. The increased shortage — largely a result of growth — has attracted the attention of community groups that are urging the district to more aggressively attack the problem.
In a commentary below, the folks at Nevadans for the Common Good outline why they believe the issue should be front and center. And on Tuesday, members of Nevada Succeeds offered a preview of proposals they back to reduce the shortfall.
Nevada Succeeds bills itself as a “nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of business leaders committed to improving the state’s education system.” To that end, Nevada Succeeds suggests encouraging more parental involvement, offering teachers who don’t aspire to become administrators an alternative career path, and more rigorous recruitment and training of principals.
None of these ideas could be described as radical. The downside of parental indifference is well known, particularly in at-risk schools. And expanding opportunities for those who prefer to remain in the classroom may indeed help retain veteran teachers while encouraging newcomers to enter the profession.
More comprehensive orientation for principals also makes sense, especially given the state’s plan to move toward the “empowerment school” model, under which those in charge of individual campuses enjoy increased fiscal and staffing autonomy. Indeed, the empowerment approach might itself be a powerful recruiting tool, given that many teachers who leave the profession cite frustration with top-down administrations or one-size-fits-all instructional edicts.
There are also plenty of other potential approaches that could be part of the mix.
Easing barriers that discourage experienced teachers from relocating to Las Vegas from other states would help. So would beefing up programs designed to transition professionals from other fields into teaching. And district recruiters should expand their efforts beyond education schools to lure students majoring in other disciplines — too often, pedagogical credentials outweigh knowledge of the subject matter, particularly in math and science classrooms.
Some will argue that higher pay must be part of the equation, but district salaries are eminently reasonable — the schedule now starts at $40,900 and tops out at $90,877 in addition to generous retirement benefits. Unfortunately, a four-year-old push to implement merit pay — hardly a radical concept in the private sector — remains a victim of bureaucratic inertia.
School district officials report that applications currently far exceed the number of projected openings for the upcoming 2016-17 school year. That’s good news, depending on the quality of the applicants, of course. Meantime, this issue has dogged the district on and off for decades. There’s no excuse for allowing that to continue.