A bitter lesson: Extended version

Below is a longer version of today's story about how the proposed cuts to education statewide my tighten the flow of talented would-be teachers into the state's teacher education programs.

Take a look at the published story and photos by clicking here "A bitter lesson"

The overarching message here, based on extensive reporting, is that any mass layoff of teachers could compound the state's well-documented inability to provide enough excellent teachers to keep student-to-teacher ratios low and public education quality high.

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After earning her bachelor’s degree in 2005, Alli Cooper was spirited about her next move — becoming a teacher.

So Cooper enrolled in the Cal State San Bernardino teacher credential program. Upon completion, Cooper had just one concern.

Alli Cooper, first year art teacher facing layoff due to state budget cuts

“I worried about getting a job, but I wound up getting one fairly quickly,” Cooper said.

Cooper took her credential in mid-2007 and by August was hired as a middle school art teacher in a Riverside County school district. Six months later, Cooper is one of about 14,000 teachers statewide facing a foreboding future, thanks to a budget crunch that may result in schools downsizing their teaching staffs.
“The thought never crossed my mind that I would get a job as a teacher and get laid off,” Cooper said.

With California’s budget, schools and teachers staring down one of the most daunting fiscal crises in a generation, some education experts and officials at teaching credential programs wonder if mass layoff notices inflict a lasting scar on the profession and dissuade bright students from going into it.

At least one area private school is experiencing slackening enrollment in its credential programs.

“The fact is we just don’t know if there is going to be an impact” on the number and quality of students matriculating into credential programs, said Carolyn Eggleston, an associate dean in Cal State San Bernardino’s College of Education, which has about 1,100 budding teachers in its program. “But we have to expect that an impact is possible.”

Teaching has never been about the money, but it has long had the appeal of stability. Starting salaries for teachers - a job that usually requires a four-year degree and post-grad work - stand at about $32,000 nationwide, slightly higher in California.

But part of the profession’s appeal has been its stability.

Teachers who remain dedicated and solid have traditionally been able to count on long careers, steady pay increases and strong retirement packages.

There is some concern that this latest budget crisis,if it sends teachers scrambling en masse for new work or new certification, may tarnish that reputation. The result could be a further brain-drain, as bright, capable young would-be teachers veer into other professions.

“Long term, if there are jobs in education, people will pursue them,” said Tim Stranske, a professor and director of Biola University’s Masters in Education program. “But short term, there are going to be many people who say ‘I’m not going to pursue this profession because it’s not where the jobs are now.’ But public schools are going to take a hit because I think we’ll probably have fewer people wanting to go into teaching for a while.”

Cooper, a 34-year-old first year educator who took a long route through college and speaks of the need for art programs for the children as much as she does about the fate of her own career, may soon find herself among the ranks of out of work teachers.

With a four-year degree and post-grad teaching credential, she started last fall at about $44,000 per year. The work was taxing, almost overwhelming at first, she said, but within months she began getting a handle on the sundry projects and long after school hours.

Teaching was, for her, always more about service and stability than money, Cooper said. If those tenants are stripped away, she may become another statistic: One of the roughly 30 percent of teachers who are out of the profession within three years, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

“I don’t think I would be able to get another job teaching anywhere right now,” Cooper said. “I guess I’ll have to go back to bartending, I don’t know what else to do.”

Biola, a private university where a one and one-half year credential program may cost around $15,000, saw dropping in interest in teaching before word raced across the state that teachers may face layoffs.
“We have up to 60 students per semester receiving credentials,” Stranske said. “But this year is one of our lower groups, about 25.”

Stranske added that last semester’s graduating class is facing a tough market for their skills.

“A good number of them are looking for jobs right now, and it’s a hard time,” Stranske said.

But while this year may turn grim for thousands of teachers, not to mention the students whose classrooms they’d be removed from, officials in the Cal State University system - the nation’s largest teacher training institution - say the this year should be a historical anomaly.

“We are going to have very high demand for teachers in the coming years,” said Joan Bissell, CSU’s director of teacher education and public school programs. “There is a long term structural demand for teachers,” she said.

The CSU churns out about 15,000 new teachers per year, 55 percent of the output of California and 10 percent of all new teachers nationally, Bissell said.

Bissel cited several reasons the teaching ranks will continue to grow in the next 20 years, making any chilling effects from the state’s budget crisis this year temporary.

One was the length of the training program, that students are unlikely to discontinue. Additionally, high rates of turnover among younger teachers and retirements will also keep teachers in demand. About half of the state’s 300,000+ teachers are over 45.

Bissell also pointed to CSU programs helping teachers pay off student loans and a federal grants kicking in in July of up to $4,000 annually for students studying to teach in high demand fields, like science and special education.

“We are going to need 33,000 new teachers in the coming decade just in math and science,” Bissell said.

Regardless of future projections, an air of crisis hangs over many young teachers bombarded with news that the profession they’re studying for could be in for a major contraction.

With that in mind, Katherine Thomerson, Cal State San Bernardino professor in the liberal arts teachers training program, focused her first class of the Spring quarter Wednesday on reinforcing her undergrads’ resolve in their career paths and assuaging fears in the profession’s future.

“I’m already hearing students having doubts, asking if they should finish this or change their majors,” Thomerson said. “This is the time we need to catch them, so my first class is on why teachers are going to be desperately needed.”

Jerrold Pritchard, coordinator College of Liberal Arts at Cal State San Bernardino, which most teachers go through as undergrads, said enrollment is already plummeting.

Since 2005, liberal arts majors at the college have dropped from about 2,200 to about 1,400, Pritchard said. He added that liberal arts majors are down by more than one-third in the CSU system.

“You have teachers who did everything right facing layoffs,” Pritchard said. “This has a lot of (students) nervous, and I see that contributing to a big mess, a lot of teaching jobs to fill, three to five years from now.”

Research has shown that teachers take five to seven years to become fully proficient in their craft.

At Cal State Fullerton, the drops aren’t precipitous, but the trend was still slightly downward even before the specter of mass layoffs.

From 2006-8, full-time equivalent teaching credential students have fallen from about 1,700 to 1,635, said Carmen Zuniga Dunlapcq, associate dean of the College of Education at Cal State Fullerton.
“The trend is down a bit, but it doesn’t cause us any alarm,” Zuniga Dunlap said. “The fact is that we are in the middle of a period of graying of the teaching force, and the need for new teachers is going to hit us full-force.”

But for all the long-range indicators, the fact is that the Governor seems intent today on closing the state’s $16 billion budget gap, teachers across the state could be on the chopping block. Nearly $5 billion in cost-cutting could be the order of the day for public schools, much of that taken out in the form of salaries.

In Rialto, more than 400 teachers could lose their jobs. In the once-fast growing Temecula School District, where Cooper works, more than 100 teachers could be out of work.

“I’m just kind of keeping my fingers crossed,” Cooper said, “and trying to stay positive.”

And regardless of what happens in the next decade, the threat remains that hundreds, even thousands, of talented young teachers may be cast off and soured from the profession should mass layoffs come to pass this years.

Like thousands of others across the state, Cooper is eyeing May 15 less than one year removed from earning her teaching credential and being hired.

On that judgement day for many teachers statewide, Cooper will find out whether she’ll be teaching a fresh crop of students next year or mixing dry martinis. She said her biggest concern is her students.

“When I was first told about all this, I was very upset,” Cooper said.

But Cooper said now it’s almost surreal:

All that education to go into a profession renowned for stability, only to face a layoffs because of situations beyond her control before the first year is up.

“The thought of this happening never crossed my mind.”

robert.rogers@sbsun.com (909) 386-3855