Will We Go the Way of the Codfish?

Math and Science Teachers in the United States: Will We Go the Way of the Codfish—or Will Our Country Invest to Rebuild Our Stock?

(Note: I wrote this piece in the fall.  Some of the data may already be dated.  If you have relevant data on this issue, please send it to me via the comment facility of this blog--or point me in the direction of data if you know where I should look.  Thanks.)

Many public and private reports over the last decade have spotlighted the pipeline crisis faced by schools as they try to place qualified teachers in classrooms. President Bush, in his 2006 State of the Union address, brought unprecedented attention to the problem. It’s clear that our country is threatened by a crisis in education that undermines the sustainability of America’s future as a world technological and scientific leader. Solving America’s crisis in mathematics education requires unprecedented steps to recruit, develop and retain qualified new math teachers. But, surprisingly, there seems to be very little organized effort to quantify the problem or model strategies to solve the crisis, let alone sustained national effort to address the crisis with policies and programs and dollars.

The America COMPETES Act authorizes over $345 million for the next three years for the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship programs through the National Science Foundation. But this program is diffuse and chaotic, funding universities to develop their own programs to address the national need. At $100 million per year, and with tuition costs of $25,000 and up, this program might take 1000 per year through their undergraduate programs.

This year, as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, Congress authorized the TEACH program that provides up to $16,000 in scholarships to undergraduates and $8000 to students seeking master’s degrees who go on to teach in high-needs schools. The 2008 allocation to the program is $375M, or funds to provide loans to approximately 20,000 students. But while this program is an excellent one, there is no guarantee that it will produce large numbers of new teachers. Most of the recipients of these scholarships will likely be current students planning careers in teaching and seeking ways to fund their educations.

The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) is the umbrella organization for teacher education programs nationally. The early inquiries to AACTE from students seeking information about TEACH have been from those current students. While the TEACH program makes it easier to pay for a pre-service education program, it creates no specific incentives to attract young people to the fields of math and science teaching.

Rising Above the Gathering Storm

Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a report issued in 2006 by the National Academies of Science spotlighted the crisis posed to STEM professions by the small numbers of teacher entering the profession. Following the release of the Academies’ report, the Chancellor of the California State University system convened a summit of university, education and business leaders. At the summit the Chancellor’s office reported that California is losing math and science teachers at the rate of approximately 3000 per year, but that only 1000 new teachers per year were entering classrooms. California is not unique. The crisis is national.

Interestingly, while phrases like “50% of new urban mathematics and science teachers quit after their first year” and “75% of new math and science teachers quit within three years of starting their careers” have become a colloquialisms in education circles, there seem to be no large-scale data studies of the problem, and often scant supporting evidence to support the statements that one hears. Although there have been many local studies that look at a some of the factors contributing to the drain of math and science teachers form U.S. classrooms, it is not clear that our nation really understands the problem. In 2005 at a meeting at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, a member of the Mathematical Science Education Board presented the findings of the Gathering Storm report to a national audience. In the discussion that followed his presentation he acknowledged that the Academies gathered no data in developing Gathering Storm and that the internal view of those that put together the report with respect to the teacher pipeline crisis in STEM areas was more dire than what they cited in their report. This was shocking—more for the fact that the scientific report seemed to downplay the extent of the crisis for political reasons that for the fact the shortage of teachers is dire—something that has been reported widely.

Even where there are active attempts to address the problem, most are local, and most are not sustained. At the CSU conference, for instance, the Chancellor’s office reported that in the history of CSU, no program to address teacher recruitment has ever lasted more than three years. In New York City, Dean Posamentier at CCNY, champions green card programs to import teachers from Eastern Europe to teach in NYC and incentive pay for teachers in impacted curriculum areas. But in spite of such efforts to stem the tide, the teacher shortage continues to get worse. From my own vantage point, as a national publisher of highly mathematical materials, I see a steady decline in the numbers of teachers in the field able to work with texts that require deep understanding of mathematics. And increased pressure to somehow magically turn teachers in our classrooms into “qualified” has been counter-productive, tipping the balance for many as they weigh alternatives to teaching under intolerable conditions for low pay with declining room for professional autonomy in our systems. Many positions in schools are filled with unqualified teachers—not because administrators want to, but because they can’t find qualified teachers.

And math and science positions are hardest to fill. Legislation to demand that every teacher be qualified won’t change anything unless there is a sufficient supply of mathematics and science teachers to meet the demand. And there is not. An informal survey that I’ve made in recent years of teaching programs in California universities reveals that big-name institutions are dripping teaching candidates into the pipeline. As a result, California school districts, thinking that somewhere there’s an oasis that they can tap, send recruiters to New York to look for math teachers, while New York school districts send recruiters to California thinking the same.

Compounding, the national teacher shortage is the fact that all teaching jobs are not created equal. Urban districts, where teaching conditions are difficult, where living costs are high, and where teachers are under most “accountability” pressure to make “adequate yearly progress” without necessary resources are particularly ravaged by the shortage. Students of color in urban districts bear the weight of our failure to commit to and fund national policies and programs that could address the crisis.  Our kids aren't failing—our nation is failing our kids.

While we might all agree that the problem exists, do we understand enough about the crisis to know what the critical factors are in reversing the declines we see? I think not. My recurring nightmare is that from what I know about the mathematics of populations, populations don’t decline linearly when they are under extreme duress, they decline in non-linear trajectories, eventually collapsing rapidly when conditions pass some tipping point and survival becomes untenable. Could we be witnessing such a decline with respect to the populations of math and science teachers? As the pressure for achievement in our schools gets turned up, and accountability measures are directed at a dwindling and “greener” number of young people in math and science classrooms, will young people abandon the profession and leave our classrooms empty? Will math and science teachers go the way of the codfish off the shore of my summer home in Nova Scotia? Ten years ago they were abundant. Today they barely exist, leaving communities that relied on them in ruin.  Sometimes I feel like an aging codfish wondering where all the little codfish have gone!

Step 1: Collect Some Data—Develop a National Census of Mathematics and Science Teachers

I have an emloyee at KCP Technologies who is an active member of the Audobon Society.  Kirk joins fellow birdwatchers every year in the San Francisco Bay Area for a weekend in the field counting birds.  I am positive that the birdwatching organizations know better how many birds there are in our nation and what the trends are in their populations than our states and federal government know about the populations and dynamics of the mathematics and science teaching profession!

In addition to simple population numbers, we need a wide array of useful data: teaching credentials granted by state authorities over the last decades, graduation numbers from institutions of teacher education over, employment statistics from school districts, age demographics of teacher populations, professional plans of the population, etc.  Think of the long form of the U.S. census—taken by a volunteer force of of census takers (like Kirk) at  a regular time each year.  NCTM and our state and local affiliates reach into virtually every school in the United States.  We can do the math!  Working together, as an organization and with various branches of government, research and policy organizations, we can collect the data we need to get our arms around the issue.  (Thanks to my friend Dr. Patrick Callahan at the UC Office of the President for inspiring me with the census idea.  I've been obsessing about the modeling step below, but hadn't thought about taking a census!)

Step 2: Develop a Model that Can Simulate the Problem and Test Solutions

An ambitious attempt to understand the nature of the teacher shortage is the starting point for addressing the crisis in our population. Again, we have the brain power in our ranks to do the work. Such an effort could identify variables affecting the teaching population: pay, higher education costs, classroom environmental and performance pressures, geographic demographics, urban/suburban/rural demographics, competition from other jobs, etc., and describe the effects of these variables on the population. It must be possible to combine these in a model that simulates the national workforce of math and science teachers. Just as we need to model the crisis of global warming in order to bring people together to address the range of actions that might change the current course, we need to do the same in our own field of math and science teaching to address what could be the collapse of our “species.” With a robust model that can serve as a shared resource across the nation, we could build consensus on the nature of the problem, attach metrics to the problem—time, money, teacher numbers, etc.—and test solution strategies. Would raising pay of math and science teachers solve the problem? Do we need to subsidize students in STEM majors during college? Do we need to recruit future teachers while they are still high school students? And which of the many strategies we might develop is the most critical?

I have discussed this problem with many people over the last two years. There are two similar complex problems that I have come across for which robust models exist.

For instance, the field of studying fluctuations in animals is called “population viability analysis (PVA).” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_viability_analysis.) There is a leading model of animal populations that dominates in the academic study of declining and endangered animal populations; it’s called VORTEX and it’s linked at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry. It’s easy to imagine how the population of math teachers might fit such a model. There are birthrates—teachers entering the field—death rates, environmental stresses, predators, etc. A recent NY Times obituary of Dr. Ransom Myers, a leading fisheries biologist from Nova Scotia who worked at Dalhousie University, drew my attention because biologists also view their work related to the world of work. The paper cited “Dr. Myers’s efforts to solve ‘the major problem in fisheries science,’ predicting in one season how many fish larvae will survive to young adulthood in the next.” It went on to say, “Scientists call this ‘the recruitment problem….’ Dr. Meyers solved the problem, Dr. Pauly said, by assembling a large base of stock data and developing a complex model to sort it out.”

The second is the problem that the U.S. military faces in recruiting. The military apparently maintains a comprehensive model that it uses to address its needs for personnel. Perhaps one could apply that model to teaching.

In my own limited view, the biological model seems more promising. First, access to the model will not be a problem. Research on populations is not classified. Second, the models of populations situate species in complex ecosystems, in much the same way that teachers operate in educational ecosystems. Third, the military problem is largely solved at the time of enlistment—soldiers sign up for duty and serve, even if they become disillusioned with their work. Teachers are not bound by such constraints and can leave the ecosystem at any time they become sufficiently fed up.

Whatever the appropriate model (there are many more conventional models for examining workforce fluctuations), we won’t be able to address the pipeline crisis facing teachers in STEM disciplines without data. Some institution with the capacity and the commitment to make an important contribution to STEM education in the United States must take on the challenge of understanding the problem scientifically.

Step 3: Invest to Rebuild the Stocks of Math and Science Teachers

Of course, a model won’t help us survive unless we make use of it. Sadly, it seems that our country makes a naive assumption that someone will always be around to teach math and science. Why should we assume that? Teaching is a profession of choice. We could face a teacher when young people, especially those with STEM backgrounds will not make that choice.

If we want to survive as a population, the mathematics teaching community (or perhaps the mathematics and science teaching communities together) must be proactive. We must develop a proposal as unprecedented as the crisis we face. Let’s use an analysis of the problem to offer a national plan to rebuild the stock of mathematics teachers in the country, rejuvenate the mathematics teaching profession, and redeploy our workforce to address the needs of under-resourced, poorly-performing schools in our urban areas. Let’s change the culture of K-12 math education by recruiting energetic new teachers, by re-energizing skilled veterans, and by providing teachers generally with improved resources, expanded opportunities for professional development, and access to practices and relationships known to improve teaching and job satisfaction. I estimate that a $10-20 billion program could recruit, prepare, place, and support 100,000 new mathematics teachers over the next decade.

Why 100,000? In the absence of a data model of the country’s teacher population, 100,000 teachers seems to me like a plausible number of new teachers to make a dent in the problem. I estimate that there are 450,000 jobs for mathematics teachers in middle school and high school across the U.S., and if each teachers 20 years, we need 250,000 new teachers per decade. If we’re always going to have some attrition, and we’re in a state of population decline with current induction levels, 100,000 new teachers on top of current “births” ought to help reverse the decline.) At any rate, whether 100,000 is the right number or not, it is a number of new new teachers (two “news,” like the new new math) that is an order of magnitude greater than existing programs are going to create. (If TEACH brings 20,000 new teachers into the profession each year, and if even 10,000 are new new teachers, and if half are general elementary teachers, and if one-fifth of the remaining teachers are math teachers, that’s 1000 per year or 10,000 per decade. And that’s premised on a lot of “ifs." If you reduce this and offset it with other scattered programs, perhaps you get back to 1000 new new math teachers per year. That ought to scare us.

Who Owns the Solution?

Clearly the money needs to come from government. And college programs of education (the members of AACTE) need to do much of the “fish farming.” But the professional community itself must play the pivotal role. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is the organization with the experience, expertise, and reach in every facet of mathematics teaching and mathematics education required to implement this program. The problem is fundamentally a "people problem.” And it needs a “people solution.” Advocates for mathematics in schools, recruiters for young talent, hand-holders for new teachers are all important players.

NCTM is an organization of 100,000 mathematics professionals with members in most schools, most colleges and universities organized in over 100 affiliates covering every state, county, and territory of the United States with a 75 year successful track record of professional development and support. Through an infrastructure developed under a national initiative and supported by mobilizing its entire membership, NCTM could provide 1-1 mentoring and support for every new mathematics teacher brought into the field, sustaining them and developing their skills through direct contact mentoring and/or distance mentoring.
This extensive support program would guarantee substantially higher retention rates of newly recruited teachers and would enable their development into the effective teachers required for America’s future.
Clearly, NCTM would have to develop many partnerships (with math organizations like MAA, universities, etc.) and with colleges of education (perhaps organize through AACTE), but NCTM could be the organizer and driver of the initiative.

Possible Elements of a Solution:

What might a solution look like?  Why do I size the effort at $10-20 billion?  Here's a bit of my thinking.

• $30,000 tuition subsidy in last two years of education for the new teachers (last year of college, fifth year of certification or 1-year of masters) (Could be packages with state and local subsidies. Could be in the form of a student loan, with one-third of the amount forgiven each year for the teacher's first three years of teaching.)
• $15,000 stipend for a skilled experienced teacher to serve as a 1-1 mentor to each new teacher over the first three years. This provision makes the initiative simultaneously a retention and an induction program. While the additional money is an important component of the proposal, perhaps of equal importance is the opportunity for professional growth by the mentor. Many veteran teachers become disheartened and leave education at a time when they still have much to contribute. The chance to work one on one with a fledgling teacher would be an incentive for some to stay in the schools. Many strong teachers are pulled out of the classroom to assume leadership roles, which they seek as a natural part of the progress of their careers; this program would allow them a forum in which to develop as leaders without sacrificing their expertise in the classroom. A mentoring model rather than a coaching model keeps the accomplished teachers in the classroom.
• NCTM manages a foundation to provide all teacher stipends to avoid issues of differential pay through schools and districts.
• $30,000 for professional development (variety of options) for each new teacher in the first three years ($10,000/year) (Consider extending this also out to five or six years, at $5K/year. The longer time period is more likely to establish a career-long commitment to continued development, and provide incentive beyond the first three years. And perhaps this should also include the mentors, to participate in professional ddevelopment with their mentee as a pair.)
• $10,000 per teacher planning, development, and administration fee to NCTM ($1 billion over ten years)

Provisions for New Teachers in High-need Schools (assume 50% of new teachers take such positions):

Any solution to the teacher-shortage crisis must recognize the existing disparities in classrooms between urban and suburban districts. Our urban classrooms, with large populations of students of color, are the hardest hit by the crisis. Many students go through years of schooling never encountering a “qualified teacher.” Any national initiative needs to address this head on.

• $30,000 stipend for the new teacher to commit to teaching in a school in need of qualified math teachers ($10,000/year for three years--payable at end of three years)
• $15,000 per new teacher to extend service at the high-need school over years four through six. ($5000/year for each year)
• $15,000 stipend for a veteran mentor teacher to move to a mentee's high-need school. (This is in addition to the mentoring stipend itself, and is paid at the rate of $5000/year for the first three years in the school in need.) This provision moves veteran teachers into classrooms of schools in need. (Assume 50% of new teachers at these schools are mentored by veteran teachers who have moved.)
• $30,000 for instructional materials over the first three years. ($10,000/year for three years, for materials chosen jointly by mentor and mentee and for use by both. It's important to front-load this provision to get materials into the classroom quickly.) This provides a considerable incentive to the school in which the new teacher works.

I wonder whether there should be some way to improve the situation of current teachers in high-needs schools. For those who are not mentors, what do they get out of it when a new teacher gets all these perks that were not available to them when they started teaching? That's for you to think about—send me your comments!

Provisions for All Teachers:

NCTM could make online courses for teachers available free to all mathematics teachers in the nation. (Cost to be determined.)

NCTM could publish all online professional development materials (preservice and inservice) for use in the initiative, but available to all.

Organizing the Initiative:

• The total cost of the program is $85,000 per new teacher ($8,500,000,000) plus $82,500 per new teacher in high-needs schools ($4,125,000,000), or $13 billion.
• While large, this number triangulates with other successful programs with a similar purpose. Math for America, New York’s successful program, spends approximately $150,000 per new math teacher to produce a teacher leader for New York schools.
• $10-20 billion (the cost of fighting the war for one or two months in Iraq and Afghanistan) may be too low.
• A single source of money, channeled through a foundation, perhaps led by NCTM, allows for efficiency and economy of scale.
• The entire membership of NCTM, including state and local affiliates, should be mobilized to carry out this initiative.
• NCSM and ASSM must be prominent named participating leadership organizations.
• This NCTM initiative addresses issues of equity in educational resources from the local to the national level. NCTM’s affiliates focused on equity, the Benjamin Banneker Association, TODOS, Women and Mathematics Education, could play prominent roles in developing plans.
• Special education should be an important part of the plan, as should research based responses to the particular needs of low socio-economic status students and second language learners.
• NCTM could partner with NSTA to do both math and science achieving additional efficiencies of scale and making for "one-stop shopping" by school districts for STEM teachers.
• NCTM, in cooperation with AACTE, could develop a plan for programs for preservice preparation that any qualified college or university of education in the U.S. could offer under contract with the funding foundation (allowing for local institutional adaptation). This contract would be required in return for the student tuition subsidy.
• Subcontracts could go to successful and proven professional development providers, but the goal is to create a sustainable infrastructure under NCTM auspices.
• NCTM could create a nationwide affiliate for all mentors and mentees to strengthen their commitment to the profession and to the organization, and broaden the networking for both the veterans and the newbies to achieve the most from their respective roles.
• The Math Forum has software that could be redirected to create online mentoring network (based on Ask Dr. Math and Teacher to Teacher).

Comments

[Leigh Nataro]

You have put much thought into finding ways to increase the ranks of math and science teachers in urban schools. However, I think you are missing a few key factors for why teachers choose not to teach in those schools - lack of parental (and often administrative) support and safety issues.

Given the choice between teaching in a school with a metal detector students must walk through each day and a school without, I choose the one without.

Given the choice of teaching in a school where I am told, "you must teach to this test and use this scripted curriculum" or using my skills and knowledge as a teacher to teach the important mathematics, I choose the school where I have the freedom to make choices.

Given the choice of teaching in a school where a parent says, "I don't know why she's even taking algebra anyway." when I tell her that her daughter is failing and a parent who says, "what can I do to help, my daughter's education is important"...well, you get the idea.

Although monetary incentives and a strong mentoring program will help, these will not solve the problem. Money isn't everything - teaching students who want to learn, working with parents who support and value education, having the freedom to have control of what is taught and how it is taught and personal safety are more important.