Education Reform Idea: Give Teachers Some Respect

One of my earliest assignments as a reporter--we’re talking some 28 years ago--involved the glut of teachers in Nebraska. The college pipeline was pumping them out faster than the schools could hire them.

Here were the figures for the Omaha public schools as the 1970-71 school year approached: 2,000 applicants for 400 openings. That at least suggests schools back then could pick from the best the teacher colleges had to offer.

That memory serves to underscore my ongoing surprise and lament that, a generation later, California can’t find enough good teachers to put in its classrooms. How is it possible that a state that considers itself on the cutting edge of everything can’t find enough good schoolteachers? Why can we find great university film-school professors and not enough great third-grade teachers?

It’s a complicated subject, but that doesn’t erase the bottom line: This generation of students isn’t getting matched with enough good teachers. Saying these things are cyclical doesn’t help much; students get one crack at school. You can’t come back when you’re 17 years old and start third grade again.

Those of us on the outside find it comforting to blame the system. Between the teacher colleges and school district administrations, we can tab plenty of suspects.

We should look in the proverbial mirror.

What role do the rest of us play in guaranteeing that kids’ only shot at education is their best shot?

Answer: a rather large role. If we insisted that our schools be top notch, they would be. Don’t tell me we don’t have the money for it. We seem to have the money for everything else.

Mary Jo Rado is an art teacher at a Tustin middle school. She loves teaching and, even with more than 10 years of experience under her belt, has retained her idealism.

Here’s what she heard, though, as she pursued her credentials in the early 1980s:

“I remember going to get a teaching job and no one wanted one. The pay was low and people were saying, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ ”

Even her husband at the time thought there wasn’t enough payoff for the time she was spending in search of a degree.

If you insist on teaching, she was told, get credentialed in something like science. Teaching art, however, was her passion, and she stuck to her guns. “I never had a problem getting a job,” she says today, “and I love what I do, and I’m so glad I couldn’t pass biology.”

That’s a good punch line, but she’s also telling a more textured story: Teachers need more than good jobs and good pay; they also need appreciation from the public they serve.

Since she was hired several years ago, “my salary has almost doubled,” she says, “because the salary schedule and raises brought it up to a normal rate. We were way below average. When that happened, we started attracting more and better-qualified people. That was the goal of everyone.”

But moral support is still lagging, she says.

“You hear weird things, people who yell mean things in the newspapers or on TV--that the kids are not learning. But every time I meet someone and they ask me what I do, they’re so generous. They’re all so supportive, one to one, but in the public forum, it’s so negative, it’s disheartening.”

Politicians say this should be the year of education in California and across America. The push to reduce class sizes means we’ll need more teachers. Teachers who really know their stuff.

Should it really be that hard to pull off? How about one loud national voice saying--make that shouting--that teaching is as noble a calling as there is and that we’ll create a system to back up that statement?

And, by the way, if you’ve got a passion to teach art, we won’t try to talk you into teaching science.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers can reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.