It came as no surprise last week that the Indiana State Board of Education tried to rationalize the significant decline in the number of new teachers in Indiana. It’s par for the course.
The same panel also has long ignored the votes of 1.3 million Hoosiers who in 2012 chose Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz to oversee the state schools system. Instead, the governor-appointed board members and Gov. Mike Pence have circumvented Ritz, the only Democrat in statewide office. The Republican-led General Assembly capped the process by diminishing the powers of her office, blaming Ritz for somehow — despite being wildly outnumbered — perpetrating the dysfunctional relationship.
In winning her office, Ritz unseated a national star of the school reform movement, former superintendent Tony Bennett. His defeat deeply stung leaders of the one-party ruled Statehouse.
With that backdrop, the State Board of Education’s dismissal of the Indiana teacher shortage and its root causes was predictable.
Last month, the Indiana Department of Education, which Ritz oversees, released statistics showing the number of first-year teacher licenses had decreased by 18.5 percent between 2009 and last year. Numerous school district leaders — the people who would know — attributed to dropoff to tightened state funding for public schools, high-stakes testing pressures, low starting pay, and the “blame the teacher” mentality fostered by state leaders who repeatedly referred to “failing schools” and “bad teachers.”
As a result of that atmosphere, one of Indiana’s primary new-teacher recruiting tools began drying up; demoralized veteran teachers have backed away from encouraging young people to enter their profession.
The State Board waved off such conclusions last week. The panel pointed out that, well, yes, first-year teacher licenses are down 18.5 percent since 2009, but the drop is only 6 percent if you use 2008 as the starting point. (Of course, Bennett didn’t take office until January 2009 and then triggered the reform wave, but never mind that.) Plus, the shortage of new teachers is global, not just Indiana, the board emphasized, citing statistics of declining numbers in Great Britain, as well as “pro-union/non-reform” states California and New York. The board even manages to blame the teachers for spreading the blame-the-teacher mentality, mentioning a story in Education Week that is “a historical look at teachers discouraging students from entering the profession that goes back decades.”
Two key state legislators — Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn), chairman of the Senate Education and Career Development Committee, and Rep. Robert Behning (R-Indianapolis), chairman of the House Education Committee — were moved enough by the dropping new teacher numbers to form a study committee that will meet Oct. 19 in the Statehouse. There is irony in the Legislature probing a predicament it enabled, but the study committee offers hope for a better environment for the dedicated Hoosiers who serve as teachers.
The participating legislators should listen closely to typical, classroom teachers, principals and administrators of public schools, rather than the rationalizations promulgated by the State Board of Education. It’s time for the educators to be heard, not blamed.