USED Has A New ABC Dream (But with cool charts)

A recent policy brief from the U.S. Department of Education carries the not-very-poetic title "Eliminating Educator Shortages through Increasing Educator Diversity and Addressing High-need Shortage Areas." It offers much of the same old same, but it includes one feature that makes it a must-bookmark.

What it addresses is rather old news, though it rightfully reminds us that the teacher exodus is not strictly a COVID thing, but an old thing that COVID made worse.

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, low wages in the education profession, the high costs of educator preparation, inequitable funding practices, poor working conditions, and other factors contributed to a decline in new educators entering the field and high rates of educator attrition, particularly in schools serving large concentrations of students from low-income backgrounds and students of color.

The department's response is some bureaucratic programmy "call to action" thing called "Raise the Bar: Lead the World," 

Raising the bar means recognizing that our nation already has what it takes to continue leading the world—if we deliver a comprehensive, rigorous education for every student; boldly improve conditions for learning; and ensure every student has a pathway to multilingualism and to college and careers.

When the bar is raised in education, all our nation's students will build the skills to succeed inside and outside of school. Our students will reach new heights in the classroom, in their careers, and in their enriched lives and communities, making a positive difference in the world, for generations to come.

Which is a well-massaged piece of verbage. And it comes with goals cleverly packaged as an alphabetic mnemonic-- ABC, Really.

A is for Achieve academic excellence. That means "accelerate learning for every student" and get those "student achievement levels" (aka Big Standardized Test scores) up to higher than pre-pandemic levels, plus closing opportunity gaps. Also, "develop a comprehensive and rigorous education for every student with high-quality instruction that prepares them to be active, engaged, and lifelong learners." The "also" portion is somehow both aspirational and familiar, like someone asked Chat-GPT to write a summary of every school district vision statement. The first part? Yes, we'll accelerate learning, because everyone already knew exactly how to teach more, faster, but they just weren't in the mood. Closing opportunity gaps? Great goal that nobody has figured out how to accomplish in decades.

Each of these goals has a link to another page of strategies, likewise aspirational jargon.

B is for Boldly improve learning conditions. First goal here is to eliminate the educator "shortage" by "ensuring that schools are appropriately staffed, paying educators competitively, and strengthening pathways into the profession." Sigh. The first part is a tautology-- we will reduce the teaching shortage by making sure we aren't short of teachers. The other two are hard-to-impossible to achieve from the federal level, and in fact the details use the verb "support." 

Second goal is to increase school-based health services for students. Yes, that would be good.

C is for Create pathways for global engagement. This boils down to "make all students multilingual" and is, well--

Ensure every student has a path to postsecondary education and training, including by establishing and scaling innovative systems of college and career pathways that integrate high schools, colleges, careers, and communities and lead to students earning industry-recognized credentials and securing in-demand jobs.

So, college and career ready to be useful meat widgets. Okay, then.

So what is so unmissable about this particular page? Data and charts.

One chart allows you to select a state and see how race/ethnicity break for teachers and K-12 students. I can quickly see that in Illinois, 82% of classroom teachers are white, but only 46% of students are; I can also see that there are more Hispanic/Latino students than Black in the state. In Texas only 53% of classroom teachers are white, but only 26% of students are (and 53% are Hispanic/Latino). California? Students are 56% Hispanic/Latino; classroom teachers are 26%. In addition, this chart breaks down Education Preparation Program enrollment--are there teachers of color in the pipeline (in Texas, yes; in Vermont, no)?. I could go on--this is fascinating and the visual is very easy to take in.

Next we get a chart that breaks down classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, and school leaders. Texas shows only 33% of paraprofessionals are white, and only 49% of school leaders. States like New Hampshire and Maine are just as white as you think they are. 

The third chart breaks down student race/ethnicity within the EPP pipeline by program (traditional, alternative IHE based, alternative other). In Pennsylvania, alternative non-IHE programs have a far higher percentage of future teachers of color; in Texas, it's traditional programs that have a higher percentage of TOC.

Finally, a graphic that shows which teacher specialty areas are hurting in how many states. No surprise-- special ed positions are struggling in 45 states, followed by math and science at 37 each. You can also look state by state to see who's having trouble finding what. 

These charts give very broad strokes, which in many states hides some extreme differences between rural and urban districts, but it's still a quick, clear source of data, most of it from within just the last year or two. You can read through the department saying more or less the right things, or you can just skip to the cool charts and graphs to see what things look like in any state you're interested in.