Does USED Have a Real Teacher Plan?

Earlier this month, Education Secretary Cardona issued a statement about USED's plan to "supprt and elevate" the teaching profession, to "recruit, prepare, and retain great teachers." In other words, take some federal action to reverse the Great Teacher Exodus. Is there anything useful there, or is it just some federal smoke-blowing? Welll.....

When Cardona first pitched the plan (during an address at the Bank College of New York), he led with a description of the problem that sort of gets it. 

A great teacher in every classroom is one of the most important resources we can give our children to recover from this pandemic and thrive. Yet, even before the pandemic, many states and communities experienced shortages in qualified teachers, including in critical areas such as special education, bilingual education, career and technical education, and science, technology, engineering, and math education. The pandemic has only served to make these shortages worse—falling hardest on students in underserved communities. It’s not only our responsibility but our commitment at the Department of Education to encourage, invest in, and lift up teachers across America. The future of our country and our children’s futures depend on it.

"Lift up" is a great rhetorical beat, and "support" is a lovely word. But teaching is a field where broad rhetoric has to be turned into specific, concrete actions (eg "Today I will teach pronouns" is not an actual plan). So what have we got here.

Cardona brings the receipts for the argument that teacher pay is too low. 20% less than other college-educated workers. In 38 states, teachers who are head of four person household qualify for two or more government benefits. But this is not something the feds can fix, so "President Biden and Secretary Cardona have called on states and districts to increase teacher salaries" is a nice idea, but of no real practical use. My wife's local is currently in contract negotiations; pretty sure "the President said you should give us a raise," is not going to get them anywhere.

The "fact sheet" for this release includes ideas such as using Title I and IDEA funds to boost teacher salaries. Not sure how that plays out on a local level.

Cardona proposes to "invest in a strong and diverse teacher pipeline" which is a nice idea, and there is apparently some money to do... something. $132 million for Teaching Quality Partnerships, which is supposed to make teacher prep programs better, except that you can only improve programs that exist and dropping enrollment has led, at least in my neck of the woods, to program cut backs. We've lost actual capacity in the pipeline, and that will have to be built back somehow, but that can't happen if there is no demand. 

Cardona also calls for a $350 lump of money for the Education Innovation and Research Program to give it "a new charge to improve teacher recruitment and retention." This is not particularly encouraging; the old charge for the program is "create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students" and then evaluate them--the "entrepreneurial" tells is this is some more neo-liberal "the private sector can do it better" baloney. 

Other "strategies" sound pretty fluffy. "Supporting teachers in earning initial or additional certification in high-demand areas" could mean anything from paying their bills to sending them a weekly "attagirl" email. Also, the specific high-need areas listed are special ed and bilingual education instead of, say, everything.

Or "supporting teachers by providing them and students with the resources they need to succeed, including mentoring for early career teachers, high-quality curricular materials, and providing students with access to guidance counselors, social workers, nurses, mental health professionals, and other specialists." These are some good items (though "high-quality curricular materials" could mean anything), but how to provide them? Federal grants to hire some of these positions? 

Or "creating opportunities for teacher advancement and leadership, including participating in distributive leadership models," which is okay, I guess. Not as cool as that new representative engagement council for parents' groups that includes even the astro-turfy National Parents Union. 

There's one good, concrete idea on the list-- helping teachers pay off their student loans.

The fact sheet mostly lists an assortment of grant programs, thereby underlining one major detail here, which is that USED isn't so much proposing new initiatives and ideas as much as they're just trying to get Congress to inject some more money into the programs that already exist. On the one hand, I see how that might be an easier sell; on the other hand, if the existing programs were providing great solutions already, we wouldn't be where we are now.

Look, I'm delighted to have a secretary of education who is not openly or passive-aggressively hostile to public education and the teachers who work there. That may be a low bar to clear, but we don't clear it very often, so hooray for that. And I have always had some serious doubts about what can be done on the federal level that will actually help out on the classroom level. 

So my expectations are low. But teachers are kind of up against it at the moment, and a nothingburger of "We're going to do some more supportive stuff kind of like we've been doing all along, only maybe with more money." It's nice that Cardona notices and makes some of the right noises, but the plan doesn't really rise to the level opf specific, concrete actions that can help.