UPDATE:
After criticism (see original post below) about not appointing teachers to a task force investigating why teachers are leaving the profession, Gov. Greg Abbott appointed teachers to the teacher’s task force.
ORIGINAL POST:
As promised, Gov. Greg Abbott appointed a committee to study why Texas has a teacher shortage.
And on one point we were completely wrong. We guessed not one current teacher would be appointed to the task force and we were wrong wrong wrong. One current teacher was appointed out of 28 members. And, to be fair, one teacher — Jean Steepy — only left the profession two years ago and her experience in Highland Park ISD certainly mirrors the experience of most other school districts around the state and especially of teachers in other inner city school systems like HPISD.
Those two are the only teachers named to the task force. The others are mostly school superintendents. Some have titles like Executive Director of Talent. Of the 28 appointees, 20 of them have at least some teaching experience, even if that experience was as much as 23 years ago. Dallas ISD, Houston ISD and San Antonio ISD — covering the three largest cities in Texas and three of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. — are glaringly not represented at all. And no, even though Highland Park is surrounded by Dallas, it doesn’t in any way represent Dallas.
So what do we expect to hear from this task force? Nothing much. We already know the reasons teachers leave the profession — disrespect, expectation to do so much more than teach, salaries that have decreased over the past 10 years, book banning and threatening teachers if they discuss race, gender or other controversial topics.
This task force is like the boss trying to figure out what’s bothering his employees and asking only upper level management without asking the employees what’s wrong.
— David Taffet
