Part 3 of Dakotafire‘s coverage of South Dakota’s teacher shortage wonders if the Blue Ribbon panel’s 30th recommendation should have been recruiting moms to teach:
“Being a teacher was not an option because of the pay” when Angie Baszler was in college. “I was going to do something that made a lot more money, because money was the most important thing, but when you have children, you realize that that is not the most important thing.”
Now 34, Baszler is entering what she calls her “encore career” and thinks other stay-at-home-moms might make good teachers, too.
“Moms who are returning (to work)—and who were able to be a stay-at-home-mom—might not be doing it for the money,” she said. “If we can’t change pay, then we need to figure out how to get people who are excellent teachers to go back and do it for something other than the money” [Anna Jauhola and Wendy Royston, “Mothers Can Bring Experience to Classrooms Through ‘Encore Careers’,” Dakotafire, 2015.11.23].
DeSmet is lucky to have Baszler working economic development, substitute-teaching, and seeking her teaching certificate to contribute more to its schools. DeSmet is lucky to have a mature family woman whose husband makes enough money that she can afford to teach “for something other than the money” (and let’s remember: every K-12 teacher in South Dakota does it for something other than the money).
But luck is no basis for sustainable education policy.
South Dakota’s reliance on luck and moms got us into today’s teacher shortage. For a couple-three generations, we could count on a large labor pool of farm wives in every rural county from which we could recruit teachers. These second-income women didn’t expect full professional salaries for the professional services they rendered. Pin money, maybe some benefits not provided by family farm income, the chance to get out of the house and contribute in another meaningful way to their communities—that was plenty for those good women, and we had plenty of them from whom to choose.
Those women are now mostly gone. Thanks to corporate agriculture, we don’t have enough farm wives to fill the teaching workforce any more than we have enough farm wives buying bibbers and socks to keep J.C. Penney’s open in Madison. Thanks to corporate profits built on stagnating wages, fewer couples have the luxury of one parent taking underpaid work for something other than the money. Thanks to increasing requirements, fewer moms qualified to teacher are going to settle for South Dakota’s low K-12 wages when better jobs are available. And thanks to greater mobility, both in daily commuting and permanent relocation, fewer qualified professionals will make the choice Angie Baszler is making to limit her choice of career, encore or otherwise, to Kingsbury County.
I’ll reiterate: I’m immensely grateful for skilled professionals like Angie Baszler who will sacrifice earning potential to serve their communities by teaching. But legislators should not look for a statewide corps of sacrificial moms to solve our teacher shortage. Clinging to that out-of-date labor pool fantasy only extends South Dakota’s mooching, our strange sense that we are entitled to great teaching without paying full price. We snuck by with that mooching fantasy for nearly a century. Our luck has run out.
For someone with a student loan, a car payment and a mortgage, teaching isn’t a viable option in South Dakota anymore unless one is tied down to a particular community for family reasons or someone has a spouse or other source of income to help pay the aforementioned costs of living. When we are $8,000 – $9,000 below our neighboring states for teacher pay we are beyond the tipping point where too many good people are turning away from the teaching profession. No, money is not everything. But when retirement time comes, decades of working in an underpaid job could make for a very sparse final 20 years of life.
Do it for something other than money? That is what educators have been doing for an eternity in South Dakota! All we ask for is a wage that is commensurate with our contribution to the future of our society. We are not asking for anything more than a fair wage for doing a very good job.
I don’t know one couple, where both are not involved in bringing home the bacon. That’s a reason teachers need more money?
You could come to the shop and weld for 20-25 an hour over a 12 month period.
I believe a lot more people than just teachers need more money in SD!
Good post. My mom did the very same thing, except started as a full time teacher later going to substituting. You’ll love this CH: her second year at Aberdeen public schools circa1950. They didn’t do accurate pre-year enrollment canvasing then and 65 third graders showed up day 1. Took them six weeks to hire another teacher for a second section. Ever have 65 kids in an all day class?
Teaching is a professional position and should be paid as such. The paternalistic, sexist thinking expressed here makes me think I came home in a time machine and it’s the 1960s. No wonder the young people all move away, especially if they want to be teachers.
Do nothing like usual and say you tried.Blue ribbon committe give me a break.
Back in the day when many farm wives were teachers the school board set individual teacher’s pay based on the board’s perception of the spouse’s economic well being.
Well noted, Rose.
There is an economic problem with retaining teachers in this model: second income, especially one that is low, is not an anchoring factor in staying in teaching. Reliance on the charity model of teaching makes teachers even more susceptible to economic pull (taking them from their teaching positions) factors of the family. If the primary wage earner in the family gets a better offer someplace else, the second wage earner (the teacher) moves. If teaching were better paying, then fewer would leave from being pulled by better job offers for the primary wage earners. I have seen this, especially with younger wives who teach and leave because the husband got a better job somewhere else.
Rose has the right idea: treat teaching like a profession; pay teachers as such. That is the only sustainable model for the success of our students.
Les, “I believe a lot more people than just teachers need more money in SD!”
I agree. I take your point as a reason to take action, not to deny action. We should never choose to not address problems because there are other problems as well to address.
With farms getting bigger there are a lot less farm wives than in the past. Now many farm workers are illegals. Do you want someone who can not speak English well teaching your kid. Old methods that worked then may not work forever. If we want big family corporate farms, we will need to pay the teachers more as well.
@Mr.Elgersma – A human being can’t be illegal. He or she may do an illegal thing but none of
God’s children are “illegal”.
Thank you Porter! You nailed it – humans simply cannot be considered “illegals.” The use of that term is no different than calling blacks “nigg*rs” – it makes no sense and only tends to demonize folks who want nothing more than to work and support their families. Anyone can commit a crime, but there is not a single person in the world that is somehow “illegal.”
And to that end, it seems incomprehensible that anyone would knowingly attack and demonize someone for trying to make a living wage and support their family, regardless of their compliance or lack thereof of immigration paper rules, especially when such rules prevent the efforts to come and work absent waiting the many years it takes to get a visa unless you are already rich enough for EB-5.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/08/us/immigration-visa-long-waits/
What rational person is willing to wait 17 years for permission to get a job that will support his family?
Yes, O, I agree and don’t deny they should be properly compensated.
Teachers as a general rule run together. If they stepped out and worked as hard at bringing parity to all wage earners in SD, it would be a much louder and more convincing voice.
Think for a moment about an immediate increase in wages for teachers alone. The cost will hit those who can least afford it the most without a boost to help carry the extra burden. You may have all the remedies for a fair tax but it won’t come immediately. Ya ya to all the waste, fraud and regressive taxes, that end won’t come quickly either.
An income tax would miss those least able but teachers have been a major vocal against that tax, right up with the big business men threatening to move across the border into Wy. That was 15ish years ago as my failing memory recalls.
Les, so now teachers have to act as labor advocates for everyone, not just themselves? Good grief, how much work do teachers have to do to earn a professional wage?
That said, I don’t think you’ll find any teacher who will argue with the contention that wages stink all around. I recognize that kids are hungry all around the world, but that doesn’t paralyze me from opening the fridge, getting out the salami, and feeding my kid a sandwich.
Maybe the solution to low wages is for all South Dakota workers to organize, unionize, and advocate.
When your own industry fights the quickest tax (income) to make the quickest adjustment to their wages, you better be ready to go to work and organize another method, Cory.
Not all teachers deserve the same wage no different than attorneys etc professionals do.
Neither of those criticisms gets us anywhere, Les.
You seem to be saying that my own industry (teachers, right? SDEA?) is opposing the income tax. Are you saying SDEA should advocate the income tax? I’ll advocate it… but I’ll also acknowledge that few if any players have the courage to advocate it in South Dakota. One of our own commenters (96Tears, I think) has said too many Democrats have thrown themselves on that sword to no avail. I have much more tolerance for kamikaze advocacy of the best policy, but I understand the political calculations. I don’t see how you can assign any unique blame to teachers for not advocating a policy that darn near everyone else is as afraid to advocate.
On not all teachers deserving the same wage—sure, no doubt. As with any profession, there are great teachers and there are teachers who should be drummed out of the corps. But how does that truism have any impact on the observation that the profession’s average salary is far below regional and national competitive levels and the argument that we should raise teacher pay to attract a larger talent pool?
I’m saying it was the teachers, not sdea, Cory. It’s been many years, 15-20? since this issue was really hammered. Teachers in our area made it well known with their students how they felt. I’m not up on whether sdea is leading or following teachers at present.
As to the income tax, I’ve never paid much tax based upon my business ability to purchase business needs and drive taxable income down. That is where a fair tax based upon buying gets less regressive with basic living costs taxed at zero.
Get ur thinking cap on and come up with more than the old song of more money.
I’ve rarely met anyone that brags, “I’ve never had to pay much income tax…” that didn’t need an audit from USA to just make sure our country is getting it’s fair share.
What’s that last name, again Les?
Just joking wit ‘ya, Les. Only a Pat Powers would recommend a liberal for an audit. Merry Christmas, buddy :)
If your comprehension was adequate, Porter, you would note that I ask for a fair tax based on spending. That you could look at someone taking legal tax breaks and call it bragging and not loyal to Ceasar doesn’t surprise me from your constant aggressive rhetoric here.
Obviously I didn’t get the joke, Porter!
Apologies, sir. My jokes should be left to a professional. However, the real joke is a fair tax based on spending. Poor people spend 100% of their income and the super wealthy (who are deficient in paying their share) rarely spend more that 50% of their income and virtually none of their wealth is taxed. Our tax system is quite fair in it’s design…until Ron Reagan cut the top bracket to almost nothing, claiming “trickle down” benefits to USA. “We’ve all seen the down now where’s the damn trickle?” – Al Sharpton
Les, I’m just confused about what you’re saying about teachers. Clarify for me: are you saying teachers only deserve higher pay if they become active political advocates for tax reform and higher wages for all workers?
As for my same old song… holy cow, Les! There is no other song here! South Dakota doesn’t pay competitive wages. South Dakota is losing teachers. What other song is there to sing than, “Dang: we’d better offer teachers competitive wages”? I can tap dance and juggle and striptease all you want, but that won’t change the song the market demands: higher wages!
You are uneducated on the fair tax Porter and as such you choose to personally attack. The fair tax hits those who spend well beyond the basics which are not taxed. You appear to love the regressive taxes of our state. Another joke from the Colorado clown?
The most educated group in SD has no ability to stake a political claim for more wages backed by a plan to do so which doesn’t hit our least capable of paying more taxes, Cory? Or accept an income tax? Yep, I’d run with that.
I will concede that advocating a pay raise for teachers paid for by a regressive tax—i.e., by taking a disproportionate share of the money from the pockets of people earning less than teachers—makes the Blue Ribbon plan less palatable… at least to legislators with a sense of social justice.
But there’s the problem: we’re not dealing with a majority of legislators with a sense of social justice. We’ll dealing with a majority of legislators who either dislike or fear teachers, who campaign dishonestly but passionately and effectively against any progressive tax, and who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge even the simple fact that we have a teacher shortage, not to mention that we have to spend money to fix that shortage. Being either tired, pragmatic, or both, the Blue Ribboneers, SDEA, and other major players compromise from the start, conceding half of the field and accepting more regressive tax as the only practical path toward raising teacher pay to something closer to the regional average.
Again, I don’t like that tired pragmatism. I’d rather go for the whole enchilada. But I understand where SDEA and the Blue Ribboneers are coming from, and their tired pragmatism, their attempt to deal with the political landscape as it is rather than trying to remake it as it should be, does not disqualify the merits of their basic claim: South Dakota must solve its educational crisis by paying teachers a competitive wage.
Very good analysis, Cory!
A few thoughts.
The revenue promised education from the gambling/video lottery industry did go to education. We just lost other revenue to balance that act by the state. Net gain, zero plus or minus.
The real estate taxes in our state are horrendous and affect the housing costs for the poor. The imbalance between ag and housing taxation is also grossly unfair displaying a need for a different method of funding education. Yes, I own ag land and commercial real estate and fully understand all the arguments.
It appears Montana and North Dakota have some things figured out that wouldn’t take much study or effort to implement. Why the struggle here?
Public schools and the teachers that go with them are socialism,which wingnuts hate with a passion unless it benefits the koch bros. Charles koch bros claims he is against welfare for the rich.but doesn’t appear to mind enormous tax breaks and subsidies for oil and other industries he is part owner of.
Les, every adjoining state has figured something out that South Dakota hasn’t. Teachers in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming all get much better pay than South Dakota teachers. Do those teachers work harder? Unlikely. Do they engage in more political activism for higher wages and progressive taxes? Hard to say.
I doubt they are more politically active, if as active as our SD teachers.
We are in a broken state and they are not. I expect the most educated of us to better understand what needs to be done, not just for their sake but for the sake of all in this wonderful place in the universe!
Imagine the political force an organized and ambitious teachers union could be in SD.