INTASC Standard #9
The teacher intern is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or her choices and actions on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community) and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally.
NCTE Standard 2.3
This shows my involvement in professional organizations. I read an article found on the NEA website and wrote a response to it for my class in Spring 2008.
Here is a response I wrote to an article on the NEA website. The article itself is below.
“If you really love the profession, you’ll make it work.” This quote at the end of the article bothers me. This basically implies that you should do a job you love, even if they pay you in potatoes. Yes, teachers generally enter the profession because it’s what they love; but they still are human beings who need adequate salary to live comfortably. Today 2/3 of grads have student loan debt. That’s not the way to start a career- in debt. I think people are discouraged to enter into teaching because of this debt from school (and other costs, like the Praxis tests).
As teachers, we’re doing a community service. It’s a respectable job that helps the next generation flourish. We aren’t making millions for ourselves doing it; so why should we have to pay so much to get the position? Shouldn’t our desire be enough? The Praxis one and Praxis two tests are extra costs every teacher has to pay. The Praxis one test is basically easy, so I don’t have too much of a problem with it since most people only take it once. The Praxis two for English content, however, is exceptionally difficult (I believe one of the questions asked me the name of a famous author’s wife?) I won’t even say how many times I had to take (and pay for) this test. They make it this way, in my opinion, to get more money out of test-takers. To me, this test is something required for licensure; and if it’s something required, then we should not have to pay for it. If it was an additional credit or pay raise tacked on to the base pay for passing, then yes, it should come out of pocket.
And what about those seasoned teachers who have already served for twenty years? That generation of teachers is now being told they may need to go back and pass a test to prove they are “qualified” for the job (which they’ve been doing for many years already). This seems silly, but I guess the argument is that if they take the test, they should pass, so there shouldn’t be a problem.
There seems to be a dilemma: NCLB (and the media) want highly qualified teachers- but nobody is willing to pay enough to make this happen.
*Jan08 NEA article
NEA MEMBERS ARE STRUGGLING WITH STUDENT LOAN DEBT OF UNPRECEDENTED PROPORTIONS. HERE'S WHY IT MATTERS, EVEN IF YOUR COLLEGE DAYS (AND BILLS) ARE A THING OF THE PAST.
Funny thing about educators, they're good at math. Some of them even teach it. So they know that if they make $28,000 a year and owe $15,000 on student loans, they're in big trouble.
That's the kind of arithmetic that a growing number of them, especially new teachers and current education majors, are agonizing over as college costs balloon and salaries stagnate. Many young people, increasingly savvy about their future income-to-debt ratio, are making decisions about careers based on the reality of having to repay loans. So at a time when there is a great need for qualified teachers, young people are discouraged from entering the profession.
Today, two-thirds of four-year college graduates leave with student loan debt, compared with less than a third just 10 years ago, according to the State Public Interest Research Group's Higher Education Project. And they carry twice as much debt as they did 10 years ago, too.
"We absolutely see a chilling effect," on public service professions, says Robert Shireman, director of the Project on Student Debt. "Students are setting their sights on the future and saying, 'I Can't afford to be a teacher or a social worker.'"
Estimates by the research group found that 23 percent of public college graduates leave school with too much debt to manageably repay their loans on a starting teacher's salary. It jumps even higher for students leaving private colleges. Because of the cost of living and teacher salaries, graduates are in the worst shape with unmanageable debt in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Vermont, Utah, Maine, South Dakota, Montana, Connecticut, and Minnesota.
After completing his undergraduate career at Alabama A&M University, Anthony Daniels owed more in loans than he would make as a starting teacher. In part to defer the loans, and hoping to improve his salary prospects, he went to graduate school. Now he's $58,000 in debt and considering walking away from teaching in favor of law school. "Unfortunately my situation is not unique," says Daniels, the chair of NEA's Student Program. "In fact, it is becoming the norm. We are losing too many qualified teachers because of student loans. It's not just a burden, it's a barrier."
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
There is no "in my day, we walked five miles uphill in the snow to get to school" corollary for what's happening to today's college graduates. "Things are different for this generation compared to the last," says Shireman. "People say, "Oh, I got through college and managed to pay,' but that's just not the case anymore because the costs are growing so significantly."
Since 1994, debt levels for graduating seniors more than doubled to $19,200, according to the Public Interest Research Group. (For 8 percent of graduates, their loans top a whopping $40,000.) Factoring in inflation, the average student debt burden in 2004 was almost 60 percent higher than in 1994.
Black and Hispanic college graduates are hit even harder than their White counterparts, according to the Project on Student Debt. Black graduates have a higher amount of student loan debt and more of them have debt than White graduates. The number of Hispanic Students with debt is on par with Whites, but they carry more debt.
Among NEA members specifically, a majority of those who have been teaching less than four years have student loan debt, according to a 2006 NEA Member Benefits poll. For half of that group, the bill totals more than $15,000.
Why did this become, as one author dubbed it, "Generation Debt"?
For starters, tuition costs are rising faster than inflation--they've ballooned 42 percent in the past five years (and inflation is outpacing teacher salaries, too). That's been the trend for nearly two decades. And wages have stalled. In 2006, the median U.S. household income dropped 2 percent. Consider that families are increasingly squeezed by health care and housing costs. Then factor in that the previous Congress hiked interest rates on student loans and cut $12 billion from the Federal Student Aid program. At the same time, today's economy dictates that one needs more than a high. school diploma to join the middle class. College graduates earn $1 million more during their lifetime than those without a degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. "So it's becoming increasingly important and increasingly expensive," to pursue higher education, says Shireman.
When it's time to find the money, students are more and more often turning to private lenders who loan money freely but often on less-favorable terms than government loans. A decade ago, private lenders were responsible for only 5 percent of the education loan dollars in use. Now they comprise 20 percent and it's become a $17.3 billion market. Sallie Mae, the largest private lender in operation, reported $1 billion in profits last year. At one online retailer, 20 bucks buys a T-shirt that states in bold, black letters, "Property of Sallie Mae.",
TWO GENERATIONS OF DEBT
Some households would need two of those T-shirts. As career-changers enter the profession from other fields and current teachers go back to school for master's degrees in the hopes of eking out a better salary, their bills are mounting, too.
Susan Knable, a 46-year-old special education teacher in Collins, Ohio, has $51,000 in student loan debt. She accrued it between 1990 and 2000 while working to get her undergraduate and master's degrees. Living in a rental apartment, Knable--a divorced mother of four--says she would probably be able to own a home by now if it weren't for her loans, which she likens to a 20-year mortgage. Each month, one of her paychecks goes to rent and bills. The second paycheck goes to the student loan. "I have a personal goal to get rid of that debt by 50, but I don't know if I'll make it," she says. "I might extend it to 52." Her children have now graduated and they, too, have loans. But, she points out, when her son finished college and went into the Air Force, his starting salary as a second lieutenant was a figure she didn't see until her eighth year of teaching.
Fellow Ohioan Terri Crothers, a 44-year-old art teacher in Gallipolis, carries $50,000 in student loan debt, which she started accumulating in 1996 after switching careers. That was the amount that she came up short even after investing $20,000 of her own savings in her schooling. Like many teachers who have debt but have been working for a number of years, Crothers is left out of legislation that offers loan forgiveness. Provisions that allow for cancellation of Perkins and Stafford loans for teachers working in low-income schools are limited and available only to those who got the government loans on or after October 1, 1998. Many people don't understand that "a lot of the legislation is focused on people about to come out of school," Crothers says. "But I'm in a situation where my kid has braces, we've got a mortgage, and I've got student loan debt."
On her salary, something has to give, and it's the student loans. Crothers admits that she is six months behind in her payments, a delinquency that keeps her awake some nights, wondering how she will ever catch up. "We're teachers and we're providing a public service," she says. "Since our pay certainly isn't keeping up, we could use help on this."
Even members who aren't personally hampered by student load debt will feel its effects. Lobbying strength at the bargaining table and in legislative hails is sapped when young members aren't involved because they're overwhelmed by student loans. Worse, their debt makes them susceptible to viewing union membership as a non-essential expense. Mike Langyel, a high school teacher in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and a veteran member of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association bargaining team, sees the corrosive effect on union advocacy in his area.
"These young people are really getting killed on student loans," says Langyel, who points out that many of his young colleagues work second jobs to stay afloat. "To try to get them involved in union activities when they are struggling with student loan debt isn't going to work." Teachers are also pressured to go back to school for advanced degrees to get more money, Langyel says, meaning higher turnover on school staffs and deepening debt for them. Everyone wants their schools packed with highly qualified teachers, but when it comes to financing those advanced degrees, educators are on their own.
Observing the bind his younger colleagues are in, he thinks, "this is going to be a tough life for them."
FIGHTING ON THE HILL TO LOWER THE BILL
Assistance for future students came this past summer with the passage of legislation providing $20 billion to increase grant aid for low-income students and cut subsidies to student loan companies. The new law increases the Pell Grant program to $4,800 next year (and $5,400 by 2012) by replacing the $12 billion cut previously. Also, it slashes in half the interest rates on subsidized student loans.
This College Cost Reduction and Access Act is a sweeping piece of legislation being compared to the G.I. Bill. Student lenders fought the reform vehemently. Left out of the final law--thanks in part to pressure on legislators by NEA members mobilized by the Association's "College Affordability Concerns Me" campaign--was a troubling amendment that would have given student loan companies more than $4 billion at the expense of the grant aid to students.
But the work isn't over. NEA is redoubling its efforts to push for a $40,000 starting salary for all teachers, says Bill Raabe, director of NEA Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy. "We have a real opportunity to help engage younger members," he says. "We can show them that involvement with the Association will help them help themselves to improve salaries to, in turn, pay off those loans."
And NEA continues to advocate for legislation that will make it easier to consolidate loans. Daniels, a leader in the affordability campaign, also calls on educators to be careful observers of what candidates in the 2008 races have to say about making college more affordable. If they say nothing, or give unsatisfactory answers, they must be pushed by grassroots activism, Daniels says. "We must hold these people accountable." He'll be visiting college campuses this year, urging students to register to vote and to cast their vote based on their education priorities. "We're going to make this a turnout issue," vows Daniels.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Despite all the financial obstacles facing those with student loans, they are optimistic about their work. "I see in our young teachers a real goodness," says Milwaukee's Langyel. "They are really committed and they're really caring. The big challenge for us is to help them survive."
A little help is all Kristi Uzzo, an earnest suburban Chicago teacher, is asking for as she begins her career with a $37,000 salary and a $15,000 student-loan debt. "If you really love the profession, you'll find a way to make it work," says Uzzo, who has wanted to teach since second grade--the very grade she teaches now. "I'm committed to budgeting my money and making it work."
Wouldn't it be nice if she didn't have to "make it work" just to be able to do her work?