Is North Carolina facing a crisis in its classrooms? According to a report released August 2004 by the North Carolina Center For Public Policy Research, state officials must take action immediately if they hope to avert a critical teacher shortage and stem the flow of teachers out of North Carolina classrooms.
What this new study does not take into account are projections of a decrease in the school-age population in North Carolina by 2013. The National Center for Education Statistics predicts a modest 0.9 percent drop from 2001 K-12 enrollment by 2013. Governor Mike Easley’s suggestion that North Carolina schools will experience “exponential growth” is unsupported by national data. In addition, North Carolina’s own demographic projections show a marked shift toward older residents and retirees throughout the 2010 to 2030 period.
Of interest is the fact that county-level estimates show that some districts will experience growing school enrollments, while others are likely to shrink. This will complicate the problem of resource allocation among school districts.
In some districts such as Wake or Mecklenburg, strained taxpayers and school budgets could get a welcome break from continuous building and recruitment demands. But even if large urban districts continue to grow, lowered demands elsewhere in the state may help relieve competition for budget dollars and staff. Districts that have considered strategies such as conversion of traditional-calendar schools to mandatory year-round operation may need fewer conversions, or may consider temporary conversions instead.
Education policy changes in North Carolina will still create a need for more teachers. Easley’s plan to reduce the student-teacher ratio in lower grades adds to demand. If class-size reductions include additional grade levels, or if the recently announced proposal to lower the student-teacher ratio below the original 18-1 benchmark is adopted, the number of additional teachers needed will rise.
Even the “highly qualified” requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind law makes it more difficult to obtain qualified teachers. Strict state certification requirements affect existing and new teachers, as well as teachers entering laterally from nonteaching careers.
What about high teacher turnover and teacher shortages? Some districts in North Carolina have relatively high five-year average turnover rates, but averages obscure the fact that year-to-year teacher turnover rates are highly variable. Of the seven counties that experienced more than 20 percent teacher turnover in the 2001-02 school year, only Hoke repeated that high rate in 2002-03. Likewise, counties with the lowest five-year average turnover rates often have relatively high rates in specific years.
In September 2002, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction celebrated a 12.5 percent teacher turnover rate — the lowest since the 1997-98 school year. This rate has continued to decline. In 2002-2003 it fell to 12.4 percent, down 1.52 percent from the 2000-01 high.
As for shortages, these can only occur when the offer price — in this case teacher salaries — is too low to attract takers. North Carolina’s teacher pay, properly calculated, is already above the national average. The real problem is the lack of ability to structure salaries according to market conditions. North Carolina does not offer subject-differentiated or performance-differentiated pay.
Because of this, teachers in fields such as mathematics, the sciences, and special education could be underpaid relative to the opportunities they face elsewhere. The current method of raising pay for all teachers in a “credentials-and-seniority-based” system fails, because it ignores true market conditions.
Across-the-board pay raises also create perverse incentives in the market. The lowest-quality teachers will find that their opportunities elsewhere, at comparable pay, are worse than before. Low-quality teachers will stay, while high-quality teachers exit teaching.
The No Child Left Behind accountability system, which measures student achievement but not teacher performance, has had some predictable effects on how teachers focus their efforts. Students who are “on the cusp” of expected yearly progress — whether just below or just above — will command the lion’s share of teachers’ attention. These students can literally “make or break” a school’s standing in the federal accountability system.
Students who are very far above or below the standard receive less instructional effort. Early evidence from North Carolina schools seems to confirm these predictions. High-achieving students did not make significant achievement gains in the latest tests.
Finding and keeping quality teachers in North Carolina are legitimate issues — a challenge, but not a crisis.
Dr. Karen Y. Palasek is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.