A Marshall Plan for Teaching
September, 1999

Just as the world is entering the information age where ideas and knowledge are the harbingers of success, New York State and the nation are on the verge of an education crisis. The Third International Math and Science Study shows that out of 21 countries, American 12th graders outperform their competitors in only Cyprus and South Africa and at the end of the 1998-1999 school year, New Yorkers were shocked to learn that half of the state's fourth-grade students could barely handle basic written and oral work. Beginning this school year, New York high school students will be required to pass Regents exams in English in order to graduate. Had those exams been implemented last school year, roughly 25% of New York twelfth-graders would have failed to graduate from high school.

Education experts have sought to address the crisis in our schools by promoting a variety of measures including implementing national student standards, ending social promotion, repairing school infrastructure, and by creating charter schools. All of these ideas have merit and must be part of a comprehensive solution to improve education. But the most important requirement of a world class education system is recruiting and retaining the finest available teaching force.

According to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, teacher qualifications account for over half of the difference in student's reading and math scores. Yet, despite a growing body of evidence, actions designed to bring new, qualified teachers into the system are lagging far behind. For example, twenty-five years ago more than half of all teachers were under 35 years of age. Today, only a quarter of all teachers are under the age of 35. As teachers reach retirement age, the number of school age children is growing. But by the year 2006, 2 million new teachers will need to be hired to teach America's 54 million school children. New York State is expected to need 40,000 new teachers in the next four years.

The crux of the problem is that it is difficult to attract the best young minds to teaching when salaries are so low compared to other professions and when there is little incentive, financial or otherwise, to improve as a teacher through professional development. In the past, when even the best and brightest women were locked out of many professional fields, so regardless of salary, top quality women went into the classroom. But a woman who chose teaching as a profession twenty years ago, is more likely to choose law, communications or business today.

Although these two factors have led to a quality drain in the public schools, a recent survey of college students gives some cause for optimism. Nearly 10% of all college students today are seriously considering teaching as a career. But how many of these students will actually choose to teach, and of those that do how many will remain in teaching? The fact is that only 60% of college students who major in education who choose to teach, and nearly half of all new teachers will leave the profession within five years.

The following is a Marshall Plan for Teaching that is designed to address the teacher shortage and the quality drain in our schools. It will make teaching an exalted profession, on par with medicine and law. The Marshall Plan for Teaching will:

• attract young, qualified individuals to teaching by forgiving all student loans for those who teach for at least five years;
• retain promising young teachers in their early years when they are most likely to leave the profession by creating a Mentor Teacher program whereby the best teachers adopt young teachers and help train and counsel them in matters of teaching, discipline, and curriculum development;
• increase the earnings power of teachers without raising local property taxes by creating a tax deduction for credentialed instructors who teach in low income school districts;
• make teachers better by providing grants to school districts to cover 75% of the cost for teachers to complete a one-year intensive program to become board certified;
• connect home and school by providing grants to create Family Learning Centers in schools where teachers and parents come together to make sure that students come to school ready to learn; and
• recruit experts in the fields of math, science, history and English, through a public service campaign that encourages those who have concluded their careers in other professions like law, medicine, journalism and engineering to consider teaching in the public schools during their retirement years.
  

Across the nation school districts suffer from serious teacher shortages. As the bulk of America's teachers reach retirement, school districts are struggling to recruit a new generation of educators. For example, in 1975, 53% of all full-time teachers were younger than 35 years old. By 1993 only 25% of teachers were under the age of 35.

Student enrollment, which hit record highs last this fall, is projected to grow rapidly during the next decade. By 2006, America will educate almost three million more children than today — more than 54 million youngsters. Over the next decade, 50% of our nation's teachers will retire and America will need to hire two million teachers to stay in place.

Over the next four years alone, New York State will need nearly 40,000 qualified teachers to fill the classroom. (Need more NYS stats — what is the shortage in NYC, Syr., Roch., etc.)

The issue isn't simply quantity, it is quality. Nationwide, 77% of urban school districts have immediate shortages in high-need areas, 67% need math teachers, 96% need science teachers, and 64% need bilingual education teachers. (Need more NYS stats — anecdotes are fine, for example — in the Albany public schools only 2 science teachers have a science background — stuff like that.)

Many young people who may be interested in teaching do not find the profession attractive because of the relatively low pay. Those who do choose to teach often quit within the first three years because they have difficulty in the classroom. The Marshall Plan for Teaching attempts to address the issue of low pay and teacher attrition.

Raising the Earnings Power of Teachers
Following a period of decline in the 1970s, public school teachers' average salaries increased during the 1980s peaking in 1991. Since then, not only have salaries have teacher salaries decreased in real terms, but relative to other occupations they have decreased substantially.

• By the mid-1990s, the average salary of all income-earning bachelor's degree recipients was almost 20% higher than the average salary of public school teachers ($45,773 compared to $38,456).
• Over the last 25 years, the median salary (in real dollars?) for teachers under the age of 35 dropped by nearly $2,000 — from $31,102, to $29,119.

Given these trends, it has been difficult to recruit the best and brightest into the teaching profession.

The Marshall Plan for Teaching will attract more top quality young adults to teaching by forgiving student loans for those who teach for at least five years. (Need the average indebtedness of those who go into teaching).

For new teachers saddled with college debt, this provision will save them roughly $2,000 per year. But the savings only kick in when teachers have completed five years in the classroom. This will help to attract new teachers and to retain young teachers who more often than not, leave the profession within five years.

To attract teachers to low income areas the Marshall Plan for Teaching will make all or most of a teacher's salary tax-free if they teach in poverty school districts. The plan calls for making up to $40,000 in teacher salary tax deductible for those who instruct in districts where up to 50% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches (give examples of eligible areas). A single wage earning household headed by a teacher would save approximately $2,500 in his/her tax bill.

In order to qualify, elementary school teachers must have demonstrated teaching skill and general subject matter knowledge. Middle and high school teachers would have to have subject area knowledge — either a bachelor's degree or higher, with a major in their teaching area, or they must have demonstrated excellence in their educational background.

Making Teachers Better at Teaching through Professional Development
In recent years, concerns regarding the qualifications and professional preparation among our nation's teaching force have grown. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future reports that more than 12% of all newly hired teachers enter the workforce with no training at all, and another 15% enter without having fully met state standards.

According to recent National Center for Education Statistics data, only around half of all full-time public school teachers participate in professional development. As states impose more academic rigorous standards, the importance of providing teachers with professional development opportunities grows. Yet even as classroom management becomes more complicated and public demand for improved student performance builds, recent surveys indicate that public school teachers themselves are concerned that their level of professional preparation may not adequately prepare them for culturally diverse, technology rich twenty-first century classrooms.

Meanwhile, because resources are scarce, less than 3% of school district budgets are spent on professional development of teachers.

Public school teachers' views on their ability to meet key goals

Goals	Very well	Moderately	Somewhat	Not at all
Implement state/district curriculum	36%	41%	20%	3%
Integrate educational technology	20%	37%	34%	9%
Address limited English proficiency needs	20%	33%	30%	17%

Participation of teachers in types of professional development activities

	Technology Training	Teaching methods in subject field	Subject field study	Student assessment	Cooperative classroom learning techniques
U.S.	48.8%	64.0%	29.8%	51.1%	50.8%
N.Y.	37.0%	57.6%	25.0%	43.0%	44.3%

• More than 50,000 people who lack the training required for their jobs have entered teaching annually on emergency or provisional licenses;
• Fewer than 75% of all teachers have studied child development, learning, and teaching methods, have degrees in their subject areas, and have passed state licensing requirements;
• Nearly one-fourth of all secondary teachers do not have even a college minor in their main teaching field — this is true for more than 30% of mathematics teachers;
• 64% of urban districts allow non-certified teachers to teach under an emergency license while 40% allow for hiring of long-term substitutes;
• Students at public secondary schools with a high poverty level were more likely to be taught core subjects by teachers who had not majored in that subject than students at public secondary schools with low poverty levels.

In New York, state officials have taken measures to increase the number of fully certified educators; nonetheless teacher certification remains spotty in many districts across New York State.

New York State: Levels of Teacher Certification

	Teacher Certification
County / District	% Permanent	% Provisional	% Other
Albany	79	14	7
Buffalo	77	20	2
New York City	66	23	11
Rochester	66	21	14
Syracuse	75	18	7

The Marshall Plan for Teaching provides grants to school districts to cover 3/4 of the cost of teachers seeking board certification through the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Board certification requires that teachers undergo a rigorous testing and assessments based on actual classroom teaching, lesson plans, and student work samples.

Teachers seeking board certification are also required to pass written exams designed to test subject matter knowledge, curriculum design, and student assessment techniques. This process takes nearly a year and costs $2000. Teachers shouldn't be penalized for wanting to become better in the classroom, the federal government should help.

The Marshall Plan for Teaching also provides grants for a public service campaign and top cover the cost for a one-year course to obtain a teaching certificate to recruit retirees in other professions to teaching. There are 104,000 practicing medical doctors over the age of 55, some of whom would love to teach science, chemistry or biology in the public schools if given the opportunity. This program will recruit doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, journalists, civic leaders, accountants, computer programmers and other professionals nearing retirement age to train and teach in the public schools.

Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in the Classroom
Across the country, nearly 20% of new teachers leave the profession within their first three years of service, nearly 10% within their first year. On average, nearly half of all new teachers will leave the profession by the end of the fifth year of teaching. (Need New York Numbers)

Many new teachers feel cut adrift in the classroom. They struggle with discipline, curriculum and sometimes with parents. The salary level of teachers, as discussed above, is also a contributing factor to the high attrition rate.

The Marshall Plan for Teaching provides grants to school district to create and expand mentor-teacher programs that help guide teachers new to the profession. Top quality local teachers will provide in-class support and direction to new teachers. They will help them learn ways to keep discipline in the classroom, excite students about learning, handling troubled students, identifying students who have emotional difficulties and to keep gifted students interested. These qualified, experienced teachers will guide and coach new teachers during their critical first three years in the classroom — the years during which school districts lose over one-third (or one-fifth? see stat above) of their teachers.

A Mechanism to Promote Parental Involvement
Studies of education achievement and families show that parental involvement is more important to student success than family income or education. Among teachers, student's preparation for classroom learning and lack of parental involvement are the two most serious problems facing their schools.

• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, parental control over student absenteeism, reading in the home, and excessive television watching — explain nearly 90 percent of the difference in eighth-grade mathematics test scores and American students reading scores.
• 89% of corporate executives identified the biggest obstacle to school reform as lack of parental involvement.
• Even students seek greater parental involvement: among student's aged 10 to 13, 72% said they would like to talk to their parents more about schoolwork, among 14 to 17 year olds that number was 48%.

The Marshall Plan for Teaching will create Family Learning Centers that will help parents and teachers work together to raise student achievement. These centers would provide mentor teachers with training in methods designed to improve family involvement both in preparing students to come to school ready to learn, and to help integrate family activities and the curriculum in order to create a seamless educational web for students. These centers could be run at by school districts, regional entities within states, such as the New York's BOCES, or partnerships between for profit and not-for profit enterprises.