The Milwaukee Post

Shocking violence met with predictable response September 4, 2015 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 OPINION By OWEN B. ROBINSON The public education industry has lately been pushing a story that there is a teacher shortage in the nation and, in particular, Wisconsin. A closer look at the facts paints a more complex picture than that. Nationally speaking, there are more teach- ers than at any time in our history except for a brief blip in the last decade. In fact, the U.S. has been on a decades-long teacher-hiring binge as the nation has added teachers six times faster than the number of students since 1970, according to the Cato Institute. This has driven the student-teacher ratio from 22.4 in 1970 to 15.6 in 2015. Meanwhile, over the same period, student achievement has remained essentially flat. If there is a teacher shortage, it is partially self-inflicted as we have flooded our education system with teachers without the benefit of a correspon- ding improvement in student outcomes. The statistics cited most often as evidence of a teacher shortage in Wisconsin are the amount of teacher turnover and the number of open positions. According to the Wisconsin Education Career Access Network, there are about 1,000 open positions across the state as the school year is beginning. That is a few more than are usually open at this time. Considering that this is roughly 1 percent of all of the public education jobs in Wisconsin, that does not seem particularly trou- bling. Some of the busi- nesses in manufacturing and technology envy the low vacancy rate of public education. The turnover rate for teachers is difficult to pin down. Most studies pin it at about 17 percent nationally, with most of the turnover happen- ing within the first five years of employment. But it fluctuates based on many factors. For example, teacher turnover tends to increase during strong economic cycles because the regimented wage scales negotiated under union contracts were not attractive in a booming economy when other jobs are plenti- ful. But even at 17 percent, it is hardly in the upper echelon of industries when it comes to employee turnover. So is there a teacher shortage in Wisconsin? Except for some specific subject areas, no. For example, according to Ted Neitzke, superin- tendent of the West Bend School District, they still receive more than 100 applicants for every normal K-8 teacher position that is post- ed. This is similar to what other district are experiencing. But when it comes to some spe- cialized subject areas, there are fewer people in the labor pool. According to the Teacher Shortage Areas Nationwide Listing from the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin has a shortage of teachers for things like special education, business, science and math. What is being misinterpreted as a teacher shortage is really the introduction of market dynamics into what used to be a very rigid, closed labor market. By reducing the rele- vance of the unions and giving school dis- tricts more freedom to manage personnel, teachers are more mobile than ever and school districts are being forced to respond. Before Act 10, the path for a public school teacher was fairly defined. After graduating from college, they got their first job in a school district. They might change school dis- tricts in the first few years as they established a family, but after that teacher turnover was rare. After Act 10, teachers have much more free- dom to move between districts without being penalized. School districts have been forced by Act 10 to participate in an active labor market. No longer can they rely on the fear of losing sen- iority to keep teachers from leaving. School district administrators can use the power from Act 10 to shed bad teachers and actively recruit better teachers for their district. For the first time, good teachers whose skills are valuable are being called by other districts and offered jobs. School administrators are calling their own good teachers and working with them to keep them on board. For good teachers, this has been a golden age of opportunity. For bad teachers, it is a time of uncertainty and fear. There is not a general teacher shortage in Wisconsin. Instead, there is a competitive labor market for specialized teaching posi- tions and great teachers that is causing some uncertainty. There are a lot of winners in this new education paradigm. Students and good teachers are benefiting the most. One final note: If there really were a teacher shortage, one way to alleviate it would be to allow educated, skilled profes- sionals to enter the classroom without oner- ous education and licensing requirements. But the public education establishment fought to keep that out of the budget. (Owen B. Robinson is a West Bend resident whose column appears occasionally in The Milwaukee County Post. He can be reached at owen@bootsandsabers.com.) Is there really a teacher shortage in the state? BY JESSICA MCBRIDE The shooting of two young journalists in Virginia was anything but usual — the sus- pect, as you all know, purposely tried to create a viral snuff video. On that he succeeded, as news sites all over the country ran the video or screen captures of the most terrifying frames. How horrific. It's hard to even know what to say anymore when these tragedies happen, other than that some people are terribly imbalanced in the deepest depths of their souls. There was typical reaction, though, from some corners, as politicians rushed to politi- cize the tragedy in the never-ending quest to figure out "why" and to assess blame. Isn't it possible that evil simply cannot be understood, and that this shooter was just a bad guy? Isn't it possible that the system didn't do anything wrong here because government is not very good at creating conscience? But politicians are very good at running around and blaming the system. We always get the hand-wringing — as in, what could society have done to stop this? Society can't stop every evil act by an indi- vidual. Maybe the solutions and causes are individual, not systemic. Hillary Clinton immediately trotted out generic drivel on guns. She called for more gun control, saying, "We have got to do some- thing about gun violence in America. And I will take it on. It's a very political, difficult issue in America. But I believe we are smart enough, we are compassionate enough, to fig- ure out how to balance the legitimate Second Amendment rights with preventive measures and control measures so that whatever moti- vated this murderer who eventually took his own life, we will not see more deaths, needless, senseless deaths." Where's Megyn Kelly when you need her? Does Hillary Clinton ever get asked a tough question? How about asking her which gun law would have prevented the Virginia shoot- ings? Which preventive measure would have stopped this latest lunatic? Oh, that's right — likely none. The Virginia shooter, by all media accounts, had purchased his gun legally. The ATF confirmed the shooter passed a back- ground check at a store. Notice that I haven't used his name. The media shouldn't give these nuts the glory they seek. Yes, he clearly had signs of instability. This guy had a screw loose, and lots of people saw that. But there's no evidence he was ever involuntarily committed, preventing him from purchasing a gun. We already have laws preventing the severely mentally ill from get- ting handguns. Yes, maybe he should have been committed, but by whom? Because he had ranted at colleagues and accused them (even falsely) of racism? Involuntary com- mitment should be an extremely high standard. Clinton's comments are empty babble, as unwork- able as Trump's nutty mass deportation scheme, but she never gets asked any tough questions by the media. Both Scott Walker and Trump then criti- cized Clinton, saying the country needs to make more mental health services available but that it's wrong to call for more gun control. They're right. I am not convinced that having more mental health services available in soci- ety would have stopped this madman, either, but it still strikes me as something good. Are there too many guns in criminal hands? Yes. However, this particular madman wasn't a criminal before he used it. Meanwhile, local TV outlets are playing a video of a woman being stomped and beaten outside a Milwaukee gas station. Was it a hate crime? The details are sketchy. This would be a good opportunity for the politicians to remind people that, sometimes, carrying a gun for protection makes sense, too. A gun is like any tool. It can be good or evil — it all depends on how you use it. Yes, we need reasonable restrictions to make it harder for criminals to get guns. But those wouldn't have stopped this tragedy. Removing the instrument would not have healed the Virginia shooter's troubled mind. Hard to see how you could create a law to pre- vent him from obtaining the gun when, as noted before, he obtained it legally. He was not a criminal; he had not been committed. So to take the gun from his hands pre-crime, you would have to argue for a gun ban for non- criminals or just for people whose co-workers think they are kind of crazy. You'd have to argue for a complete repeal of the Second Amendment, basically. Which would be wrong. Or you'd have to argue he SHOULD have been committed, but then you're not real- ly arguing for more gun control. You're argu- ing for intervention. He might have just found another instru- ment to commit the attacks with, anyway. He certainly seemed determined. A pipe bomb, a knife, a box cutter, his fists — who knows? I don't have any easy answers. No one does. Maybe people should stop pretending they do. (Jessica McBride is a Town of Merton resi- dent and journalism instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her opin- ions are her own and don't represent UWM. You can reach her at jessicamcbride05@live.com.) McBride Robinson

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