Eroding Opportunity: COVID-19’s Toll on Student Access to Well-Prepared and Diverse Teachers by Michael A. DiNapoli Jr.

Teacher shortages are a worrisome emerging trend, as you can read about in this piece by Michael DiNapoli of the Learning Policy Institute that lays out the problem quite well.

-Angela Valenzuela

FEB 10 2021

Eroding Opportunity: COVID-19’s Toll on Student Access to Well-Prepared and Diverse Teachers

Author 

Michael A. DiNapoli Jr.

This post is part of LPI's Learning in the Time of COVID-19 blog series, which explores evidence-based and equity-focused strategies and investments to address the current crisis and build long-term systems capacity.

For decades, U.S. schools have struggled to provide all students with access to well-prepared and experienced teachers who reflect the rich ethnic and racial diversity of the country. Reports have repeatedly documented that students of color and other historically underserved students are disproportionately taught by new, underprepared, and inexperienced teachers—an inequity that is substantially responsible for persistent achievement gaps between students of color and their white peers.

Before the pandemic, districts across the country were grappling with ongoing teacher shortages. In the 2017–18 school year alone, these widespread shortages resulted in more than 100,000 teaching positions left vacant or staffed by individuals who were unqualified for their jobs. Likewise, nearly every state reported shortages of teachers in high-need subjects like math, science, and special education, driven by both teacher turnover and significant declines in those choosing to enter the profession. From 2009 to 2017, 340,000 fewer students enrolled in educator preparation programs, with the drop driven largely by financial concerns, including the high cost of comprehensive preparation, the burden of student loan debt, and the lack of competitive compensation. More than two-thirds of educators are weighed down with an average of $20,000 to $50,000 in student loan debt. Preparation costs and student loan debt are a particularly significant burden for students who are Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and contribute to difficulties in attracting and retaining a diverse teaching force.

COVID-19 has only served to worsen these pre-pandemic conditions. According to U.S. Department of Education data for the 2020–21 school year, to date 43 states are reporting shortages in math teachers, 42 in science teachers, and 44 in special education teachers. In addition to expected reductions in those entering the profession, we’re seeing concerning signs of increased turnover as stressful working conditions and health concerns are prompting some to seek early retirement and others to leave the profession. At the same time, school communities are grappling with layoffs that are destabilizing their educator workforce, including teachers and support personnel. And local and state policymakers are bracing themselves for future budget cuts—and the layoffs that go along with them.

In addition to expected reductions in those entering the profession, we’re seeing concerning signs of increased turnover as stressful working conditions and health concerns are prompting some to seek early retirement and others to leave the profession. 

Warning Signs of a Shrinking Pipeline of New Teachers

Unlike the Great Recession, when a weak job market drove up college enrollment, the pandemic is leading to a decline in enrollment in higher education. Data on teacher preparation program enrollment is not yet available, but early signs are worrisome. Undergraduate enrollment is down by nearly 4% (a concerning statistic, given that 80% of educators begin teaching with a bachelor’s degree). Enrollment declines are steepest among Native American and Black students. Enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which are a significant source of new educators, is down 5.5%. Alarmingly, 22% fewer students from the high school class of 2020 enrolled directly in college after graduation, with the greatest declines seen at schools serving students from low-income families, students of color, and students in urban areas.

Enrollment in community colleges, which are more racially and economically diverse than their four-year counterparts, has also dropped—by more than 10%—with public two-year HBCUs experiencing a more than 20% enrollment decline. These declines threaten enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs, as well as in 2+2 educator preparation programs, which help diverse candidates become teachers through partnerships between 2-year institutions of higher education and their 4-year counterparts.

An August 2020 Census Bureau survey provides insight into the causes for the drop in higher education enrollment. Alongside the shift to distance learning and their fears of getting COVID-19, survey respondents cited their inability to pay as a factor in their decision to forgo college. Pandemic-related layoffs have hurt low-income and BIPOC communities the hardest, including requiring recent high school graduates and current college students to forgo their education in order to help support their families.

A forthcoming LPI analysis will provide an up-close look at how the pandemic is impacting the teaching workforce in California. Soon, LPI will release California Teachers and COVID-19: How the Pandemic is Impacting the Teacher Workforce. The report details how teacher burnout, retirements, and resignations have exacerbated critical shortages in California districts and could lead to even worse shortages to come. The report describes how state investments can ensure a strong and stable teacher workforce by funding high-retention pathways into the profession and providing educator development and supports.

Unprecedented Teaching Conditions Spurring Turnover

Since the first COVID-19 restrictions were put in place last March, teachers have been on the front lines of an unprecedented effort to adapt teaching and learning to our new and often-shifting reality. The challenges they report include longer hours, inadequate support, and strain on their mental and physical health. For example, 75% of National Board Certified teachers surveyed last August and September reported working more hours, with 20% reporting working more than 15 extra hours a week. About one in five of these respondents—who are expert, experienced teachers—stated that professional learning supports from their schools and districts were “not at all adequate.” A survey of Colorado superintendents revealed widespread fears of teacher burnout resulting from the additional burdens associated with enforcing safety protocols, addressing the impact of lost instructional time, teaching in hybrid situations (online and in person), and abruptly switching to fully remote learning when classes must quarantine.

Since the first COVID-19 restrictions were put in place last March, teachers have been on the front lines of an unprecedented effort to adapt teaching and learning to our new and often-shifting reality. The challenges they report include longer hours, inadequate support, and strain on their mental and physical health. 

These and other factors are already taking a toll. Surveys from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), and the National Education Association (NEA) all show that many educators are planning to retire early, take a leave of absence, or exit the profession entirely. In an August 2020 poll, 45% of principals said pandemic working conditions were “accelerating their plans to leave the profession.” In the NEA poll (released in August 2020), 28% of all teachers and 43% of Black teachers said they’re more likely to retire early or leave the profession. This emerging trend is worrying, given the outsized role that turnover plays in teacher shortages. Prior to the pandemic, research showed that about 90% of the annual nationwide demand for teachers is created by teachers leaving the profession.

There’s also evidence of a shortage of substitute teachers to tap when classroom teachers fall ill, are quarantined, or are otherwise unable to work. For example, a fall EdWeek survey found that about one-third of schools and districts are unable to hire a substitute for roughly 50% of their absent teachers. Eighty percent of respondents reported leaving classes uncovered. Schools in California, Idaho, Michigan, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and other states have had to close temporarily when teachers quarantined and substitute coverage came up short. In some instances, the lack of qualified substitute teachers has resulted in states and districts lowering the bar for these positions, including allowing individuals with just a high school diploma to serve as substitute teachers. Jhone Ebert, Nevada’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, explained, in a January New York Times article, “We have to go to … extremes to get adults temporarily in the room to support our children.”

Raising Demands and Reducing Capacity: COVID-19 and the Educator Workforce

We’re hearing a lot of conflicting scenarios and projections related to the teacher workforce 

come fall. Indicators of teacher demand and supply—including the number of teaching 

and other positions funded, the number required to deliver instruction safely, turnover 

rates, and the supply of new teachers coming out of teacher preparation programs—

can help us begin to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the educator workforce. 

Read the blog >

News of Layoffs and Fears of More

Employment in public schools is at its lowest level since the year 2000, despite there being about 3.5 million more students in schools today. The latest job numbers indicate an over 8% decrease in public school employment, meaning students have access to about 676,000 fewer educators and school support personnel than they did at this time last year. Although many of these cuts are non-teaching positions, teacher layoffs have occurred or are anticipated, based on budget conditions, in Hawaii, Missouri, and New York, among others.

And this could get worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has projected that state budgets will likely see a reduction of 11% this fiscal year and 10% in the next fiscal year. An earlier estimate by LPI showed that a 10% reduction in state funding would result in a 5% reduction in the teacher workforce—or more than 173,000 teachers losing their jobs. During the Great Recession, cuts in teaching positions had the greatest impact on BIPOC students and students from low-income families. The cuts also had long-term implications for the profession, as the widespread teacher layoffs are widely believed to have been one of the causes for the significant drop in enrollment in teacher preparation programs.

The X in LatinX by Roberto Rodriguez

This piece by Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is about Latin@s shifting ethnic identity which is never static and always changing.  Even if such things are frequently harder for later generations, it is important for us to be mindful of the fact that that which we take for granted as "our identity" is also one that had itself undergone a shift—or various shifts in the span of time.

It's helpful to be flexible in life and also to grow.  Young people keep all of us on our toes.  And I'm thankful for that.

-Angela

The X in LatinX

June 7, 2017

 by Roberto Rodriguez

Twenty years ago, I wrote “The X in La Raza,” a political essay I referred to as an “anti-book.” I did so at a time when people were beginning to write Chicano or Chicana with an X as in Xicano or Xicana.

Though “The X in La Raza” was not a response to this development, rather, it was a response to myself, an essay I had written in 1981, titled “Who declared War on the Word Chicano?”
I responded to myself because I believed that people were misconstruing my work as some kind of nationalistic screed. If anything, in part it was to reaffirm a commonality with peoples from Central America who were fleeing their wars in the 1970s-1980s and who now lived in the United States. I believed then, and even now, that identity is about a spirit, as opposed to a name.
These ideas and terms mentioned above were controversial when they first became part of the lexicon and yet again, we find ourselves with a new controversial term on the block: XicanX or the broader term: LatinX.
To be sure, issues of identity are also always fluid. For some, however, identity is fixed and not subject to change or debate.
Now getting back to the topic of “The X in La Raza,” the “X” represented Indigeneity and it was generally associated with the Nahuatl language and is pronounced with an sh sound as in shicano or shicana. Many believe the word Chicano comes from Mexicano or Mexicana, pronounced as Me-shicano or Me-shicana as the ch sound does not naturally occur in the Spanish language. One theory is that the “Me” was dropped and Chicano and Chicana remained, though again, pronounced with the sh sound, and this purportedly was used to refer to peoples that lived somewhere in the Chichimeca territories, that is, somewhere in the north, perhaps in what is today referred to as the U.S. Southwest.

When did this change occur or when does the name Chicano or Chicana first appear in writing? Not sure, though a generation ago, while doing some map research on origins and migrations, I came upon the 1562 Gutierrez map that shows a city of Chicana generally near the mouth of the Colorado River. Chances are very likely that it indeed is an Indigenous pre-Colombian name. In popular barrio lore, Chicano and Chicana were reputedly used by pa-chucos and pa-chucas on the streets in the 1930s and 1940s, this, long before it was incorporated or borrowed by activist youth in what came to be known as the Chicano/Chicana Movement of the 1960s-1970s.

Because the Spanish language is gender specific, women activists began to use the term Chicana/Chicano and then later Chicana/o and then even Chicanao.

Some replaced the vowel at the end with the “@” symbol, thus producing the term Chican@s or Latin@s with a few other variations. Through this symbol, these terms came to refer to both men and women.

But now, back to ChicanX and LatinX. This development has happened due to issues relating to the fluidity of gender — a recognition that there is not simply a male-female binary. The X at the end is an affirmation of that fluidity and refers to people of all genders.

Why is this controversial?  Some people say it is only controversial to the older generations. One reason people bring up is that an issue arises because two languages are being mixed. For example, if Latin rather than Latino or Latina, or Hispanic, as opposed to Hispano/a was used, would not the issue be resolved? Avoided would be more correct.

For me, the X at the end is clunky, but perhaps when language changes, it is always clunky, especially when two languages are involved. Though to be sure, it is a progressive linguistic development. Whether it catches on in venues beyond activist and academic circles, I’m not so sure. The reason is that while the idea is progressive, issues of pronunciation may inhibit its more popular usage. For instance, how does one pronounce LatinX? I’ve heard it both with English and Spanish inflections, though it is more commonly heard in English as Latin-X.

For many whose ears grate when Latin or Hispanic are used to refer to people of Mexican or Central American origin — due to the perceived denial of Indigeneity —  Latin-X doesn’t cut it. Perhaps Chican-X passes muster, but then you get to words such as companerxs or amigxs? How do you pronounce these?

Perhaps what is written doesn’t have to correspond to what is spoken.

Perhaps there is one more issue here. For instance, as someone who indeed is from the previous generation, I have long wondered why it also isn’t African AmericanX, American IndianX or AsianX?

Perhaps it’s just a matter of time.

Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is an associate professor in Mexican American studies at the University of Arizona.

On the topic of Mexicanidad, or "Mexican-ness," by Dr. Roberto Rodriguez

On the topic of Mexicanidad, or "Mexican-ness," by University of Arizona Mexican American Studies professor, Dr. Roberto Rodriguez.  It's important to keep colonization in the equation for understanding the imposition of identity on U.S. Mexicans, even by U.S. Mexicans themselves.

-Angela Valenzuela

Affirming a Macehual or Gente de Maiz Identity 
by Roberto Rodriguez

June 5, 2017 / DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

A couple years ago, someone from California wrote me to tell me that: “Mexicans are taking over Chicano Studies.”

Apparently, the person did not know I was born in Mexico. And they knew less about what this topic triggers within me. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, I did become part of the Chicano Movement, and thus identified as such during that time, though throughout most of my life, my constant identity has been Mexicano. At times: Me-Xicano.

Because of my parents’ guidance and influence (stories), and because of my relatives from Southern Mexico, I have pretty much always identified as part of the original peoples of this continent, including as hombre de maiz (man of maiz), or macehual, a Maya-Nahua term, for a simple human being. Both of these are identities rooted to the land, though they have nothing to do with nation-states, nor do they acknowledge borders. Many peoples from maiz-based cultures identify as such and ask no one for permission to do so. In this country also, neither of these will be found on Census or any other bureaucratic forms, and they generally are also outside of the mainstream media.

Wells, Annie –– – 134872.ME.0308.walkout Sonia Salazar, 20, a UCSB student in 

Chicano Studies and Belmont HS graduate, joins over 1,000 people to 

commemorate the historic East LA student walkouts of 1968. 

They marched from Lincoln High School (in the background)

 to Hazard Park. The 1968 action launched the Chicano Civil Rights Movement . 

Photo by Annie Wells 03/08/08

I feel comfortable with my own identity, yet, when I received that above message, it resuscitated negative memories that I had from the early 1960s. That was the pre-Chicano movement era, an era in which I was reminded by Mexican Americans almost on a daily basis that I was Mexican as opposed to Mexican American. This was prior to the ascendancy of the terms Chicano/Chicana and Raza or La Raza or gente (people), in the latter part of that decade. But even then, that same attitude persisted while Mexican-Americans were exploring or adopting these new identities.

One of the identities they previously identified with was Spanish. This was not New Mexico, whose residents were notorious for denying their Mexican ancestry, but Los Angeles. Elsewhere, Latin or Spanish American was popular and “respectable.” As Chicano historian Rudy Acuña has noted, “Anything But Mexican.”

While we are not in the same political climate today, we do seem to be part of an era in which the identity of these same peoples continues to change. However, there is a difference between how one sees oneself, versus the “official” terms one identifies with in public.

For me, one’s identity rises to the level of sacred and thus, when the government, media and other institutions impose identities upon individuals, communities or peoples, it can be very violating. This is generally true in regards to peoples of any culture, but especially true for peoples of Mexican descent, that have a long and sordid history of having false identities thrust upon them here. This is referred to as epistemic violence.

After the height of the Chicano movement, umbrella terms such as the government-sponsored Hispanic or Latino/Latina, came to supplant specific terms such as Mexican, Guatemalan Puerto Rican or Peruvian, etc. These umbrella terms generally have always emphasized a European or colonial identity, as opposed to the Indigenous or African roots of the people.

But to be sure, false identities did not begin in this country in the past generation, but instead are rooted in 300-year colonial practices imposed by Spain upon the Americas, especially in Mexico. If one does not understand why this is a problem, it is akin to asking the slave to identify with the slavemaster.

Suffice to say that identities that connote “property of Spain” or Europe, don’t quite cut it in the 21st century — or even the 16th-20th centuries. While perhaps it is confusing to others, indeed, there are some constants here. Most identities are imposed and historically, most U.S. institutions always have suppressed and denigrated the Mexican identity. Incidentally, the word Mexico is of authentically Indigenous origins; it is probably the reason it is generally suppressed here.

That said, like most Mexicans, I will always be Mexicano — or Mexicana, for women — and will continue to identify as gente the maiz and macehual.

When that person warned me about Mexicans taking over Chicano Studies, I asked him if he was familiar with Luis Leal, the “founder” of Chicano literature; poet Alurista, author of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan; Chihuahua-born poet Abelardo “Stupid America” Delgado; journalist Ruben Salazar (killed on Aug. 29, 1970, in East L.A.); Chicano Moratorium co-founder Ramses Noriega; and torture survivor, Olga Talamante. All were born in Mexico and all central figures in the Chicano Movement.

I didn’t even mention Carlos Santana.

Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is an associate professor in Mexican American studies at the University of Arizona.

A Complex, Multicultural Vision of the World Promotes World Peace and Justice

Happy Sunday, everybody!

Here is a powerful piece by Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez in this month's Diverse Issues in Higher Education. He makes the strong case that Chicanos/as have been in a permanent state of insurrection.  I might prefer the word "continuous," as opposed to "permanent."  In any case, this is a worthwhile read.  I like this quote from within:

"In effect, what is being said here is that the state of insurrection(s) by native peoples on this continent has never been quelled. The reason is because it cannot be quashed unless all lands are returned, etc. No one has the authority to end it. It is akin to when the Mexican government in the 1800s sued for peace with the Maya. The Maya famously proclaimed to their enemies: “Go away and then there will be peace.”

Of course, settlers won't simply "go away," but the mentality that reproduces imperial projects can and should.  However, this calls for and indeed requires an opening of the mind to others' experiences, albeit with an epistemic humility and openness that help access this different, complex, and beautiful world.

So this "insurrection" about which Dr. Rodriguez writes, in my view, is as much about the political as it is about the moral and the epistemic, meaning the value system (or systems) that attaches to ways of knowing and being in the world.  

The antithesis—a monolingual, monochromatic, monocultural, ahistorical, commericalized, decontextualized, standardized view of the world—is tantamount to the death of the soul, of complex ways of knowing and being, that in their absence, render "insurrection," in Rodriguez' words, a necessary state of affairs.

http://tinyurl.com/7plvzkx

A contemporary of President Abraham Lincoln in the U.S., Mexico's greatest, most beloved president who also happened to be a full-blooded, Zapotec Indian, President Benito Juarez' time-honored, wisdom rings true not just for today, but for the ages:

“Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.

Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.”

In closing, a complex, multicultural vision of the world breathes life and justice into the stuff of social relations and in so doing, promotes world peace.  

And we are all the better for it.

 
Angela Valenzuela
c/s

Rodriguez: Resistance or Permanent State of Insurrection?

April 16, 2017

by Roberto Rodriguez

In Chicano Manifesto (1971), Armando Rendon made the radical claim that the United States and Mexico were technically still in a state of war (1846-1848) because the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was violated prior to even its signing, and that therefore, a state of war continues to this day.

Rendon’s claim was based on war having been waged against Mexico; half of its territories were illegally seized via war or threat of war during the 1830s through the 1850s; and several of the articles (Article VIII and XI) from the treaty were altered and one (Article X) was outright deleted​. These articles had to do with land rights and the human rights of the peoples that remained in the former Mexican territories.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Here, I am not agreeing or disagreeing, but actually positing something even more radical: that people of Mexican descent (including Chicanos/as) that live in this country, live in a permanent state of dehumanization and thus also part of a permanent state of insurrection that has been ongoing since the days of Columbus, Cortez and Pizarro and other “conquistadors,” one that never ended, and technically, can never end. These (Indigenous) insurrections and rebellions went on long after the official wars of Independence ended in the 1800s that rejected the more than 300 years of colonialism.

Continue reading here.