Shortage of teachers a growing crisis

With the staggering turnover of Hawaii’s public school teachers, the community must come to grips with the fact that the shortage of public school teachers is a community crisis and it is going to take the community to end it.

The school system cannot survive a 50 percent turnover of new teachers every five years. Increasing number classrooms are staffed with substitute teachers or emergency hires.

Using the U.S. Department of Labor formula, a 300-teacher turnover each year is costing the state $16,769,361 per year or $83,846,805 over five years. All figures include hiring, training and lost productivity costs. Our students deserve better. And we can’t afford it. So, what can be done?

First, let’s stop bad-mouthing public schools. Everyone. It is hard for teachers to stay with an enterprise that is dismissed as unimportant and often viewed as a failure. Hawaii has the second-oldest public school system in the United States. We should be proud of it.

The Department of Education should celebrate itsteachers. If the DOE makes the community aware of the great things going on in the public schools, it will make teaching more attractive to local kids. Public relations firms could do pro bono work for the DOE to publicize the good things in public schools. They did that once; they need to do it again.

We need more local teachers. The department is employing over 1,000 new teachers a year, but our local education institutes are producing about 700 graduates. So, we must recruit more Hawaii residents as well as mainland teachers. Greater effort should be made in recruiting minority students as well as more males. Expand Teaching As A Career (TAAC), a cooperative project of the DOE and Higher Education Association.

Teacher salaries must be raised. Former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that teachers should be earning between $60,000 and $150,000 yearly. In Hawaii, corrected to the loss of purchasing power and the cost of living, the figures would be $75,000 and $186,000. But, higher salaries alone will not solve the problem.

Teacher housing is needed. State-subsidized low-cost housing is critical to recruit and retain teachers. Perhaps some developers can be convinced to create teacher workforce housing as part of their development. Maybe Larry Ellison will put up teacher apartments on Lanai to help attract and keep teachers there.

The Legislature should create the Hawaii version of the National Defense Education Act to help students who want to go into teaching handle college costs — either a loan or grant program. As a loan program, it would have a low interest rate and 10 percent yearly would be forgiven for each year a recipient teaches in a rural school or a school with a high number of students with free or reduced lunches.

The state should encourage more tuition assistance programs from the private sector. Each of Hawaii’s 500 largest businesses could underwrite the tuition, books and supplies each year for a student with a commitment to teach in Hawaii’s public schools.

A comprehensive induction program should be put in place. When I started with the DOE, I had a beginning-teacher supervisor (BTS) who worked with me for a full year. Some BTS’s worked with their teachers for their entire probationary period. Combine this program with an expanded mentoring program. The Legislature must give DOE the funds to employ more mentors. The data both locally and nationally shows that programs such as these help to retain teachers.

Expensive? Yes. But, I believe that the public is willing to pay more if they are convinced that it will help students. The turnover must not continue. If we take these steps it sends a clear message to teachers that the community values them and wants them to teach in Hawaii’s public schools. Instead of saying we can’t afford it, let’s do it. As the late Gov. John Burns said, “If I must choose between the dollar and the child, I choose the child.”

Joan Husted is retired executive director/chief negotiator of the Hawaii State Teachers Association.