by David Safier
(TASL)“We Deserve Math.” “It’s Our Right.” You gotta love those middle schoolers who walked out of school and waved those hand made signs over their heads to protest the fact that they don’t have a permanent math teacher.
And you gotta be angry at an education system that leaves 93 TUSD classrooms without permanent teachers.
And then you gotta ask if Karen Bynum, a district spokeswoman, is being honest when she says she doesn’t know why so many of the vacancies are in Southwest Side schools.
I don’t know the specific schools with vacancies, and Southwest Tucson covers a lot of ground, but am I wrong to think that many of the students are from lower income homes, and a fair proportion of them are Hispanic? If so, the students have their backpacks filled with socioeconomic and language hurdles they have to jump over if they want to succeed. It’s tough teaching in schools like that.
Let’s apply a simple economic model to the problem. We have trouble finding enough math teachers in particular, and enough teachers in any field willing to work in the schools where you find yourself struggling twice as hard to get half the results.
What would the business world do if it needed highly trained people to work in undesirable locations? I think they’d offer all kinds of salary enhancements, and maybe some job sweeteners as well.
What do we give the teachers who work in those schools? A slap on the wrist for their students’ low AIMS scores.
All teachers should be paid more, and those teaching in hard-to-fill curriculum areas and hard-to-teach schools should get extra financial incentives, along with some other non-economic benefits to sweeten the pot. Teachers aren’t in it for the money, but trust me, if there’s a way for teachers to make more money, you’ll see a line stretching out the door of teachers waiting to sign up.