Teachers Want the Basics as Well as Money

Money talks.

At least, Gov. Gray Davis hopes it does.

Borrowing a strategy from high-tech companies that offer stock options and other financial incentives to attract highly trained workers, Davis is trying to lure teachers into the state’s lowest-performing schools with a bevy of bonuses, loans, fellowships and tuition rebates.

That’s one reason the budget he will unveil Monday includes $2.1 billion more for primary and secondary education than last year, pushing his proposed total to $28.3 billion.

But although the financial perks Davis is proposing may make teaching under difficult conditions more lucrative, they don’t necessarily make it more attractive, teachers say.

To China Johnson, a first-grade teacher at Menlo Avenue School in Los Angeles who is taking classes toward a credential, more money would be welcome. So would a telephone.

When Johnson, 32, needs to call parents, she does so standing in the school office, from home or from the pay phone on campus. It’s irritants like that, she said, that “make us feel like we’re not professionals.”

Johnson and other teachers say they yearn for better basics: on-the-job training, more support from principals, smaller classes, more books and petri dishes in the lab.

In addition, Davis’ nascent drive for higher test scores is making teaching more stressful. Schools that do not raise test scores could eventually face a hostile takeover by the state. But those tests are not aligned with state academic standards, which teachers are obligated to help students meet.

“You feel like you’re set up to fail,” Johnson said.

The proposals are part of the $250 million the governor wants to spend on teacher recruitment and professional development efforts in the coming year.

More Money for Mentors

In an interview, the governor acknowledged the challenge young teachers face. “It can be pretty intimidating to ask a young teacher to go into a struggling school without a lot of guidance from their peers,” Davis said.

That’s why, he said, last year he supported more money to provide senior mentors for new teachers. He also is appealing to young people’s sense of civic obligation.

“I want them to see teaching like my generation saw serving in the military or the Peace Corps . . . as the single most important public service they can render,” he said.

Davis isn’t offering to raise salaries across the board, a point that rankles some educators. Instead, the proposals he sketched out in his annual address to the state this week include bonuses of as much as $30,000, $20,000 fellowships, $10,000 loans for a home down payment, grants of $2,000 for earning a credential, and forgiveness of college debts.

“The problem is thinking that little rewards like this are going to do the trick, as opposed to the reward of a well-equipped classroom that isn’t overcrowded and real professional support,” said Mary Bergan, president of the California Federation of Teachers union. “Those are more difficult to get at and more expensive.”

Davis’ budget will increase the state’s per-pupil spending by 4.7%, to $6,313. He said his budget will seek to spend $257 million more on public schools and community colleges than the constitutional minimum.

Some Democratic lawmakers are critical of Davis’ proposal to provide incentives to students. But they are expected to support increases for teachers. In addition to the financial incentives to attract teachers, Davis said he would remove the cap on how much retired teachers can earn without forfeiting their benefits, launch a nationwide recruitment drive and make it easier for professionals in other fields to enter the classroom.

“Those are four viable sources for new teachers, and we intend to mine each of them,” he said.

Behind Davis’ proposals is the need to hire as many as 26,000 teachers a year over the next decade, a shortage that hits hardest in schools serving poor children, where test scores are lowest. To be eligible for most of the perks, teachers would have to agree to work for at least four years in such schools, which tend to be located in central cities and rural areas.

Nationally, it is estimated that schools will need to hire 2 million teachers over the next 10 years because of rising enrollments and a wave of anticipated retirements. As a result, states are coughing up incentives to ensure that they will not have to go begging.

Massachusetts offers signing bonuses of as much as $20,000 to top college graduates. South Carolina is boosting salaries of teachers willing to work in the lowest-performing schools by 50% above the regional average, a premium of $10,000 or more. Many other states offer scholarships, tuition reimbursement and other lures to fill spots in low-performing schools or fields such as math, science and special education.

A study released in December by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, a public policy think tank in Santa Cruz, found that students at California schools with high proportions of poor and minority students are four to six times as likely to have under-prepared teachers as those at schools that are more affluent and serve mostly white students.

Margaret Gaston, the center’s co-director, applauded Davis’ proposals, saying they were “the right thing to do . . . if we’re going to ensure that every child has a fully qualified and effective teacher.”

But she acknowledged that improving working conditions also is crucial.

Maria Magana, a second-year intern teaching third grade at Ramona Elementary School in Hollywood, scoffed at the idea that the money Davis is offering would be sufficient to make teachers willing to work in the toughest schools. But she thinks higher salaries across the board would help.

“How do you buy a home on $30,000 [a year] starting salary?” asked Magana, one of 28,500 uncredentialed teachers in the state. “It’s like giving somebody a quarter to buy a car. It’s just a ridiculous idea.”

Some Educators Remain Skeptical

Even if the financial incentives are enough to get new teachers to start out in low-performing schools, some say they won’t be enough to keep the teachers beyond their initial commitments.

Arne Rubenstein, principal of 93rd Street School in South-Central Los Angeles, was skeptical of what she called “throwing money at the problem.”

At her school, she makes sure new teachers are able to learn by watching veteran colleagues, even if it means that she has to teach in their place. She said the state should make it possible for an experienced teacher to work full time with five or six newcomers, an investment she thinks would pay big dividends.

“They do tend to form bonds with people at the site and then they’re less likely to move on,” she said. Unless that happens, she said, “it’s a revolving door.”

Thomas Tang, a 1996 USC graduate, is in his second year teaching fourth grade at Normandie Avenue School in central Los Angeles. Normandie is in partnership with a local university that provides classes required for credentials right on the elementary school’s campus.

Tang can watch an experienced mentor who works in the classroom next to him, which he said is invaluable.

But he spends several hundred dollars of his own money each year on supplies and extra books to supplement the pickings at the school’s out-of-date library. And he and other teachers have been asking since September for enough math books so that he doesn’t have to write every assignment on the board for students to copy.

He also suggested that schools could give new teachers easier assignments. Now, though, the last hired get the rowdiest students with the most learning difficulties.

Because of high turnover at his school, Tang is already taking on a leadership role. He goes to science conferences and passes on what he learns to colleagues. He serves on several committees, including one scheduling a community cleanup at the campus.

It’s all rewarding, he said, but “I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing.”