As Louisiana elementary and secondary education has climbed its way slowly from the basement of achievement, another tool presents itself to accelerate this.
Recently, the state’s Department of Education released result from a task force convened on improving teachers’ experiences. The latest data available showed in academic year 2023 15 percent of teachers left their positions, and of those hired three years ago only about three-quarters remain on the job. And academic research reveals that the most prominent reasons teachers leave the profession aren’t those related to issues of compensation, resource availability, relations with administrators, and the like, but with teachers encountering impediments to actual instruction, or what prevents them from devoting their time to teaching.
The panel, convened three months ago by Superintendent Cade Brumley and called Let Teachers Teach, was comprised mainly of ground-level practitioners with the odd politician thrown in. Their recommendations mirrored the research, identifying reforms that would let teachers focus on classroom instruction.
Some address aspects of the job that use time inefficiently that could be used more productively. Required evaluations, meetings, and professional development activities should be made less duplicative and more relevant. School employees also have to undergo a myriad of training that doesn’t address instruction, with some having requirements set in statute such as seizure treatment and suicide prevention, and others legally mandated but regulated by LDOE such as communicable disease prevention and coping with adverse childhood experience, that through statutory and regulatory changes could be delivered as effectively but with reduced time utilization – if even needed, as the report also notes that teachers should be relieved of student mental health counseling responsibilities with these transferred to professional avenues for resolution.
The recommendations also advocate for ameliorating the necessity of teachers having to deal with student behavioral problems. Removing disruptive students from classroom should be facilitated and if need be to alternative classrooms, along with reducing teacher involvement in the bureaucracy of handling truancy. A change in school accountability scoring also would help, as currently higher degrees of suspensions lower these scores, which has the perverse effect of encouraging disruptive students remaining among others who want to learn, magnifying classroom management challenges.
And, the report argues for greater flexibility in performing classroom duties. It suggests more autonomy for accomplished teachers in lesson planning and ease in documenting this for all, while reducing requirements in most instances to lecture directly from teaching manuals and asking LDOE to provide more guidance and materials in curriculum delivery, striking a balance between a rigidity that could aid newer teachers but with leeway for the better and more experienced ones to use their best judgement in this.
A portion of the wish list actually will come into effect as a result of this session of the state legislature. Bills just awaiting the signature of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a supporter of the suggestions, will go into effect that will mandate a growing practice among local education agencies, banning in almost every instance cell phone use in classrooms, and adding compensation for nonacademic work. Another takes steps towards reducing the teacher counseling burden.
Many of these as yet unaddressed the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education can put into practice, but some will require legislative intervention, including more money either from the state or in the form of unfunded mandates at the local level. Regardless, continued progress in educational delivery depends upon keeping good teachers in the classroom and the recommendations if implemented should improve retention rates and thus instructional quality from that. Whatever remains of this agenda should be pursued.
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