New Year, New Bill, Same Education Woes

A New Year, yet some things don’t change. Especially in education.

The lack of teachers in Wisconsin’s K-12 schools isn’t lessening. The State Senate has proposed another bill to combat it.

According to Republican sponsors Duey Stroebell of Saukville and Mary Felzkowski of Irma, the bill “would allow retired teachers or other former employees participating in the Wisconsin Retirement System to be rehired and work full time as a WRS employee for up to three years and still collect their pension payments.”

The real key is delaying collection of retirement benefits from 55 to 59.5 for all those under 40 at the time the bill becomes law, excluding “protective service occupations” such as police officers and firefighters.

The sponsors make some good arguments. Retired teachers could ease the suffering of strapped districts while they search for long-term replacements. It makes sense to delay payments because life expectancy has risen and people are able to work longer.

As a fiscal conservative, I applaud efforts to examine budgets and cut costs. In my view, some politicians have allowed for bad budgeting of education and ward off any attempts to change it with chants of “Don’t you care about the kids? It’s about the kids!”

I frequently find ways to improve my spending habits when examining my own budget. Take something as giant as statewide K-12 education and common sense holds that there are many opportunities to more efficiently spend.

Yet the bill reveals the depressing reality from which the powerful view education. Educator Peter Greene runs a blog called “ Curmudgucation.” Last year, I quoted from his excellent “ There Is No Teacher Shortage” in my post “ To Teach, Or Not To Teach.”

Because his argument is accurate, efficient and effective, I will again quote it:

“There is no teacher shortage.

There’s a shortage of willingness with respect and support. There’s a shortage of willingness to make the jobs appealing enough to attract and retain all the people the schools want to attract and retain. There’s a shortage of will to make the job appealing enough to hold onto the people who start out. There’s a shortage, not just of money, but of respect and support and empowerment. There is no mystery to what is happening, but to deal with it effectively, to actually face it, the People in Charge need to stop calling it what it is not.

There is no teacher shortage.”

The new bill only addresses symptoms, not causes. Yes, putting retired teachers in the classroom and raising retirement age will help save money and temporarily solve the problem.

But these efforts do not make the jobs more appealing, allow for the training of talented young teachers, address the disrespect that many teachers face from parents and administrators, among other issues.

The bill does not face the depth of what’s actually happening.

As Mr. Greene says, teachers need more money, respect, support and empowerment. Things long overdue.

I have seen and heard enough to know that many teachers, perhaps the majority, are unsatisfied. They don’t feel they are respected or paid enough and are tired of putting so much into a vocation which takes so much.

As I wrote in “ To Teach, Or Not To Teach”, there’s a great tradition of teaching in my family. Yet the negatives turn me away from continuing said tradition. The K-12 system has changed so much in the past generation or so. Once a promising, respectable career in public education has now arguably become a path to burnout, frustration and low compensation.

The People in Charge, to use Mr. Greene’s term, are trying something with this bill. I give them credit for that. It may be an important part of healing Wisconsin’s fractured education system.

Yet, if the People in Charge only propose these kinds of methods, then there will be fewer and fewer teachers. Recruiting retirees, nor altering the retirement system, is nearly enough.

The school choice movement grows, which could be part of a solution. With Vice President visiting Madison this week, Wisconsin is poised to play key role in future education debates. Hopefully the traditional and school choice crowds can somehow work together. It’s about the kids, not ideology or politics, right?

Last fall, I found a recruiting video from my high school. It begins with the words “Education is monumental…”

I want to see the People in Charge act with those words in mind, not simply mouth platitudes.

What say you?

Originally published at https://theprimacyofpolitics.blogspot.com.