Presidential Teacher Corps: Building a 21st Century Teaching Force

In his State of the Union address, President Obama made a passionate plea for young people across the country to consider a career in teaching because it would offer them a unique opportunity to "make a difference in the life of our nation."

I couldn't agree more.

My time at the Denver Public Schools taught me there is no harder, or more important, job than being a teacher. With more than 1 million teachers expected to retire over the next few years, there has never been a more critical time to bring a new army of talented teachers into the profession.

But the reality is our approach to hiring and retaining people to teach in America's classrooms is fundamentally ill-equipped to meet the demands of the 21st century. Currently, nearly 50 percent of teachers who enter the profession leave in the first five years.

All across this country, we face persistent shortages of talented professionals to teach subjects like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). We often hear about the fact that we are losing the race for mathematicians and engineers, but what is often overlooked is that we are also losing the race to produce people to teach our children to become mathematicians and engineers.

In rural communities, we still struggle to attract teachers to the classrooms. And students with disabilities and English language learners do not have enough teachers prepared to meet their unique needs.

We need to create a system of incentives that inspire people to enter and stay in the profession.

Over the last two years, I have worked with a broad coalition of education leaders on a plan to improve the way we prepare and inspire people to teach and to mobilize an army of 100,000 talented teachers to work in high-needs schools.

Under my Presidential Teacher Corps (PTC) proposal, teacher preparation programs would compete to train a diverse set of candidates to form a new teacher corps. These preparation programs, and the teachers they produce, would be held accountable for their results. Teachers would also receive the support they need to improve their craft and get results for our kids.

The PTC proposal would also provide highly-effective teachers serving in high-need schools with a new kind of portable license. It would allow them to move between high-need schools in states that have opted to participate without facing the same burdensome re-certification process they face today. It simply doesn't make sense to perpetuate a patchwork system of teacher certification that creates barriers for teachers to work in the schools where they are needed most.

Whether it is through the PTC proposal or another program, any effort to bring new teachers into the profession must focus our limited resources on high-need schools. We need to inspire a new army of teachers to work in the schools where they are needed most. And we must provide them with the support they need to become great leaders in the classroom and to educate our kids.

With Congress expected to take up the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind this year, we can start with retooling our approach to attracting, rewarding and retaining great teachers to the profession; not by imposing mandates from the top-down, but by incentivizing action and unleashing innovation at the local level that leads to better outcomes for our kids.

Ensuring all kids have access to an effective, talented teacher needs to be a national priority. We must support the men and women who will provide our children with the skills they need to ensure that this century is, once again, an American century.

 

Follow Sen. Michael Bennet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/senbennetco

Comments

[allis1]

02:20 AM on 04/03/2011

We need more teachers and yet half of those trained and motivated to become teachers leave
during the first five years? maybe that's the question that needs to be addressed. What is the point of
creating all these programs when half of them will leave anyway. The real issue is what can we do to make the people who wanted to teach and made the personal investment, stay. Right now I see
the politicians doing everything they can intentionally or unintentionally, to drive the people who are
qualified and invested, right out the door.

[Jnewman84]

01:15 PM on 02/13/2011

Sounds nice Senator Bennet but why don't you tell the 5,000 teachers who are about to be laid off in Los Angeles that we need more educators. When somebody tells me they are planning on becoming a teacher I respond with a very adamant "reconsider now". Becoming a teacher was the biggest mistake of my life and I only wish I could find a way out (my impending layoff will help me accomplish that goal). This is not because of my students but because of incompetent school officials, disrespect by the media and the annual threat of layoffs. Teachers in this country get paid nice lip service but are given incredibly low social standing.

Soon I will be taken my Ivy League education to another field, how I dream for that day.

[Peter007]

09:02 AM on 02/14/2011

Teachers in my school district make about $70,000 for a 10 month year. Many make $100,000./ yr. The administrators are all over $100,000. They have a hard time getting new principals from the teachers ranks because the benefits of being a teacher are usually better than the $120,000/ year/ 12 month job of being a Principal.

[Martha T]

11:25 AM on 02/13/2011

Latest story just posted on Huff. Obama seeks to make changes in Pell Grants. Read the article. What does he and others in the top 3% have to worry about? Their children will make it to U of Chicago, Harvard and other top schools because they have $$$$$$$$. And all of us have -nots and our children will sink to new lows. What the hell is happening . I read it and it looks like TONS of savings....Once again, on the middle and lower class citizens in this country. What the hell is going on?

[carmenalex]

10:23 AM on 02/13/2011

The fact is...its easier to blame the teachers..Im talking about central falls here.....but it is impossible to teach when the students do not want to learn and or not held accountable for their responsibility in their education and the parents responsibility that their child stay in school and put the effort necessary in learning. It was IMPOSSIBLE for me to drop out, not because of teachers..but because my parents would never let me. They where ON MY BUTT constantly and it was because of this parent/teacher union that I went on to college.
But if the child is a disrespectful irresponsible slacker and the parents dont give a sh** and the child KEEPS BEING PROMOTED you are TEACHING THAT NOT GIVING AN EFFORT PAYS!
When the parents are HORRIBLE examples and the kid is a SLACKER that is constantly DISRESPECTFUL how then is it the teacher, who pays for materials needed out of pocket, who busts her butt day AND hours at night (I'm a teacher, I know) is totally at fault? We can only do so much during the day but as soon as the child leaves the school its the parents responsibility to make sure the child stays in line...there is so much one person can do.

[carmenalex]

03:18 PM on 02/12/2011

Could it be that we teachers do not receive a living wage? I am a teacher and remain so because of a deep commitment and love of what I do...but I can't afford to send my child to a good school, the public school near me has violence issues and my family has never taken a vacation because we cannot afford one. Each summer, because the private school I work for only employs a handful of teachers for summer school and does not pay vacation time, I'm jobless and on unemployment for two months every year. My husband lost his job and can only find part-time work. Anybody would reconsider being a teacher if its not a deep vocation.

[Peter007]

08:58 AM on 02/14/2011

My neighbor is a kindergarten teacher and she makes $100,000 year in the public school. Perhaps if there were less teachers making that much money, they could pay the average waged teacher more.
They live in a million dollar house and they just built a million dollar house for their son. .

[veteran teacher]

06:28 PM on 02/14/2011

Beginning teachers in my district make in the mid 30's. If they have to purchase a family health insurance plan, they pay $1,000 a month. I guarantee you I don't know a teacher living in a million dollar house.

[traceydouglas]

10:41 PM on 02/14/2011

Where does this teacher work???

[saxmusic48]

09:59 AM on 02/12/2011

What planet is this guy from? In Ohio, we're laying off teachers. Our voters now believe that taxes for "Government Schools" are a waste of money. The Nuns taught us for free. Why should we pay a bunch of educated, evolution, climate change, round earth, believing pointy headed liberals to edumacate our children away from God. Look at the Success the Saudis have had with their Madrasses (Taught for free by Imams)

[trinity]

11:48 AM on 02/12/2011

Gee, sounds exactly like your neighbor Indiana..except our voters believe the rhetoric from our Governor that business run charters are the way to go..can get away with paying teachers below poverty pay with few benefits and no pension, much more fiscal responsible...

[shiloh2020]

10:14 PM on 02/14/2011

Texas will be laying off tens of thousands of teachers in the coming months. Most charters here are ranked in the lowest quarter.

[Julia Reeb]

08:50 AM on 02/12/2011

I could not agree more that we need to find a way to make teaching a "wanted" profession - perhaps targeting the top high school students across the country, offering free or very reduced college tuitition for teaching degrees, and then providing support and resources (financial and other) while they are teaching??? The worry I have with the current system is that many places (such as Philadelphia, where my children attend public school) are considering cutting staff/faculty that have been with the district less than 3 years - and increasing class size - while these are the very teachers we would want to retain!

[nmeemn]

11:29 PM on 02/12/2011

How about paying people well so that those who graduate from top schools and are interested in teaching will be able to say, "yes, I'll teach" instead of, "no, I need to pay my student loans, and one day I want to buy a car and a house?"

[Martha T]

11:10 AM on 02/13/2011

yes Julia but you are buying into the propaganda that the Old teachers should be let go first. That is wrong for many reasons. WE mentor new teachers because contrary to all you hear in the media, teaching is an art form, one that requires learning on the job. Nothing in a college classroom or technique class prepares you for the real children that enter each day with baggage that is unbelievable. How to reach each child on a social and emotional level while still instructing them is an art form, and one few new teachers are prepared to deal with. WE are fortunate to have in our school 3 new teachers that came in loaded with what it takes to be a great teacher. They still come to us each day with questions and for advice. While the intent of your comment may not have been to disparage the veteran teachers, it is still important to enlighten the general public about the merits of teaming veteran and new teachers.

[allis1]

02:25 AM on 04/03/2011

great comment

[Venicelady]

12:34 AM on 02/12/2011

Some sources that might interest readers of this article:

"Harris Seeks New Insights Into Persistent Achievement Gap"
www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/08/0616/gap

"A Clear Vision For Closing The Achievement Gap"
www.macalester.edu/educationalreform/Book%20 reviews/Adamkpdf

"Poverty and Race"
prrac./org/newsletters/sepoct2004.pdf

"Racial Disparities In Education - What Do We Know?"
www7.nationalacademics.org/cnsta/Farkas.doc

These are just a few of the many articles that have been published about the problems plaguing public schools, particularly in the inner cities.

[IGNSTHMD]

12:11 PM on 02/12/2011

“schools have never been a mobility vehicle for the poor... Children of immigrant poor, since before the end of the century, have not been taught skills or provided with values that would lift them out of poverty and into the bosom of the middle class… rather than being instruments for democratization, equalization, and leveling of invidious differences, our educational institutions have discriminated against the poor.”(Orleans)“An excluded underclass, rooted in inferior education, is being created. It is not necessarily true that lack of education leads to poverty, but it is certainly true that being poor increasingly leads to participation in an inferior educational system.”(Macarov) “More than 10,000 schools have been put on NCLB's infamous list of "schools in need of improvement" and face an escalating series of sanctions that address neither their needs nor their challenges. Thousands more will be added to the list in the next few years as increasing numbers of schools are squeezed in the tightening vise of unreachable "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) test targets and inadequate resources.”(Karp)"it will take more than a few Black elementary school principals to offset the despair which now encloses these (ghetto) children. It will take... the knowledge that they will one day come of age and inherit the society in their own right, a recognition which most White children have never lacked, yet which may, at last, turn out to have been a delusion unless their Black neighbors come to share it with them.”(Orleans)

[Laura Hayes]

12:03 AM on 02/12/2011

How about not laying off veteran teachers. There will be no 21st century teaching corps if they are all TFA and under 30. We are deprofessionalizing teaching and it will have dire connsequences

[Goldie Goldwire]

11:51 PM on 02/12/2011

Exactly! Fanned!

[CVales]

11:52 PM on 02/11/2011

I advocate for a classical education from the age of 10-17. Philosophy, rhetoric, and poetry-then mathematics and science. The real problem is the curriculum for the flat earth public school classroom is laughably fatuous. Get rid of textbooks. They’re boring, expensive and unnecessary. This is why really bright people look at teaching as settling. Class sizes are also too large and teaching communities are too hermetically sealed by grade level. Students should be paired by academic ability not birthday. A publishing apparatus in K-12 would create a scholarship environment with an emphasis on peer review and excellence. Teachers need the aspiration of-six figures. This will attract more dynamic men; I agree that education is over-populated by un-ambitious women who know more about social promotion than they do about theory and rigor. This is why merit has left K-12, now replaced by a useless cult of self-esteem.

Schools are too large and too coked up on sports to be academically serious. There should be a law that academics cannot be outspent by sports.

The arts and languages should not be ‘electives.’ You can’t understand the western tradition by reading about it; you have to participate in it.

Last but not least, parents need to have less say about pedagogy. It’s public school, home school, or private school. Those are the options. A student’s parents should sign a binding arbitration agreement to prevent them from suing the school over academic matters.

[IGNSTHMD]

05:19 AM on 02/12/2011

thought you left out the languages for a minute.

[trinity]

09:06 AM on 02/12/2011

Good comments...When I was in 1st grade back in the late 70s, they were trying the "grouped by ability" strategy. I remember taking Reading/LA in the 2nd grade pod and math in the 3rd grade pod. That idea fell by the wayside soon enough. Some schools nowadays still group reading groups by level and sometimes math, but that is about it. The all powerful "TEST" has affected a lot of it. They do not want to let a 5th grade student work at 4th grade math (even if that is where they are at ability wise) because they have to pass the 5th grade math TEST. Thus today's classrooms have a huge range of abilities (though in our district gifted or high ability have their own classrooms). That TEST also forces teachers to abandon more exciting and thought provoking teaching techniques for the same old boring textbooks.

The Arts and Languages?...forget it, it's not on the TEST. The horrid restrictions that have been placed on public schools...And they still go by birth date when starting kindergarten, not if the child is ready or not. So a very immature child has to start K, if the birth date falls into that range (whether he/she is ready or not), while a more advanced child may have to wait a year because the birth date misses the mark (In our state August 1)...

[poeticjustice4all]

10:56 PM on 02/11/2011

Obama Effigy Hung In Rhode Island School That Fired All Its Teachers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/obama-hung-in-effigy-at-r_n_504746.html

Superintendent Frances Gallo, Rhode Island Department of Education spokeswoman Nicole Shaffer told The Associated Press. Shaffer said the department would not have any further comment.

Superintendent Gallo told the AP that the foot-tall Obama doll that she saw Monday was hung from its feet from a white board and was holding a sign that said, "Fire Central Falls teachers."

"I was deeply saddened," Gallo said. "It's a horrific – a startling – kind of picture when you walk in and see that."

[ajsgmajc]

11:08 PM on 02/11/2011

What is your point here?

[Venicelady]

11:14 PM on 02/11/2011

He doesn't have one.

[poeticjustice4all]

11:19 PM on 02/11/2011

My point is that if teachers want respect, they'll have to earn it.

The posters Venicelady and Teacherof39years complain that "they never provide links, only opinions and biased ones at that."

I provided a link to back up my very biased opinion that the present teacher workforce -- and their unions -- have failed miserably.

[Laura Hayes]

11:58 PM on 02/12/2011

You know what's even more horrific? Obama stating "Whatever it takes" when the Central Falls teachers were fired, even though he knew nothing about these teachers. That was disgusting. I will never vote for Obama again.

[carmenalex]

10:00 AM on 02/13/2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/16/central-falls-high-school_n_578085.html

[poeticjustice4all]

12:59 PM on 02/13/2011

He knew they had failed to make progress three years running. He knew scores were getting worse, not better. He knew that the students were not getting even the basic education ALL of America's children are promised. He knew failure was unacceptable.

[EmmaNYC]

10:55 PM on 02/11/2011

Building a 21st Century teaching force?

With all the relentless teacher bashing, with the reduction of salaries, benefits and job security, with the continual attack on professionalism, with the constant cry for more accountability, more testing and more micromanagement, and with the increasing interference of the instant 'educational experts' without the most basic knowledge of teaching and learning, I doubt there will be a teaching force after the current crop of system captives either retire or escape.

My suggestion to anyone who is contemplating entering the field of education: Become a waitress in a donut shop instead. You'll get more respect, have more control over your work situation and be much happier on a day-to-day basis.

[chillis]

12:37 AM on 02/12/2011

You are absolutely correct. I have taught for ten years in public schools, and I am sick of hearing about all of the things that we are doing wrong. People espouse all sorts of pie in the sky theories about how to save education, but I am more concerned with the real learning that goes on in classrooms every day. I want to enrich and inspire my students, but I am held to account for a laundry list of testing objectives. So, I try my best. Every day I try my best to enlighten, enliven, and inspire my students to learn, and I do this within the narrow parameters that my testing objectives will allow.

Most of us are teaching a narrower scope of subject matter in order to teach to the almighty test, and it's still not good enough to satisfy the public or the powers that be. If you are considering a career in education, be prepared for constant criticism and discounting of what you pour your heart into each day.

[Luis Sanchez]

06:59 AM on 02/12/2011

"the increasing interferen­ce of the instant 'education­al experts' without the most basic knowledge of teaching and learning,"

This is a problem. The reality is that if teachers complain about something, the public sees them as whiners who are not held accountable.

Everyone ignores that kids in K-8th are socially promoted, and are conditioned to not have to meet expectations in school.

This does not happen in the most under-developed nations. We should take a lesson from the poorest nations and respect teachers and hold students accountable for learning before they are promoted to the next grade level.

[teacher39years]

08:25 AM on 02/12/2011

I think that the real problem is the Curriculum (What Teachers Must Teach). Textbooks follow the Curriculum and there is also an Instructional Focus Calendar, which tells teachers what to be teaching every day. This assumes that every Child is exactly alike and any Child that is different gets lost right at the start. Many younger children simply don't have enough language to comprehend the "High Standards for Language Arts" and get lost right from the start.

[ajsgmajc]

10:46 PM on 02/11/2011

The first staff meeting of each new year began the same way at the school where I worked. Our wise principal stated that on any given day, one or more children would come to school:
hungry
tired
angry
depressed
scared
homeless
sick
etc. It was now our responsibility to teach the children that we had, not the ones we wished we had and find a way to make it work. So many teachers do this very same thing each and every day.

[Venicelady]

11:21 PM on 02/11/2011

Too bad there don't seem to be many of those types of principals around any more.

[ajsgmajc]

11:33 PM on 02/11/2011

Isn't that the truth. Unfortunately, she, like so many of the rest of us, suffered burnout, and resigned.

[Martha T]

11:02 AM on 02/13/2011

and oh so true!

[nmeemn]

10:24 PM on 02/11/2011

We don't need to create new "portable credentials." The credentials around the country should have reciprocity, period, especially for experienced teachers.

I'm a 7-year teacher in California and contemplating moving out of state (not due to my job, but due to my S/O's job). Every state I've considered, it's a pain in the REAR to try and get re-credentialed! I have a professional credential, have had perfect evals for 7 years, am highly qualified in my subject area (and have taught every course my credential allows) - but I have to take a bunch of tests to prove states like Washington that I am ok to teach there. AND I'll be taking a huge pay cut.

[teacher39years]

08:26 AM on 02/12/2011

Exactly.

[lorraine s]

01:55 PM on 02/12/2011

Successful completion of a college teacher training program ought to get one a national certificate. If your college degree says that you have done and passed what is necessary, should'd that be proof enough? States and locals create all these licensing fees as one more way to collect monies without calling it "taxes." I agree about the credentialing process, it is excessive and expensive, and a complete turn-off in trying to become a teacher.One improves skills by being in the classroom over time. There has to be a better way to do this!

[Martha T]

11:04 AM on 02/13/2011

yes. We are obviously in a profession that by seeking to improve your job placement and status you are PUNISHED rather than rewarded.

[trahub]

08:55 PM on 02/11/2011

We don't have the money in TX to educate, feed, provide healthcare for children; but we ALWAYS find the corporate welfare for the socialism of building taxpayer funded billion dollar football stadiums to host super bowls.
In TX, children are not a priority.

[trinity]

09:00 PM on 02/11/2011

Only if the children are future football players...

[raechel]

09:11 PM on 02/11/2011

You have my permission to secede if you like, but please leave Austin behind.