How Concerned Are You?

In this episode I share some of my concerns about the future of education and ask that you join me for a conversation on the topic.

Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is usually a
solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an episode with a
guest or multiple guests in this week's
particular episode i want to do
something a little bit different the
point of this is to try and initiate
some kind of dialogue around some
concerns that i've been seeing in cs
education and just education at large so
this is the first episode that i've
recorded since csta national conference
happened over the summer and first of
all i gotta say thank you to everyone
who said they listened to the podcast i
really appreciate it i was averaging
about four hours of sleep each night at
the conference after having gotten back
from a 15 hour time zone difference i
was pretty tired but hopefully through
my sleepiness i was able to at least
convey that i really did appreciate
everybody coming up and chatting with me
about the podcast and cs education in
general if you want to be a guest on the
show please let me know there's a
contact me button on my website at
jaredoleary.com and those conversations
at csta national in chicago and then the
following week when i was in wyoming one
of the things that i was asking other cs
educators was what their thoughts were
on the future of the field not just cs
education but also the field of
education at large and i gotta be honest
with you i didn't really get many
optimistic responses from people and i
keep asking this question hoping that
somebody has some optimism to share
because everything that i'm reading
honestly gives me some concerns for the
future so for some quick numbers you can
just search for teacher shortage you'll
find news articles several a day coming
out but at the moment of this recording
there are 28 000 fewer public school
teachers than there were before the
pandemic right now florida has over 8
where i live has over 2 000 jobs open
illinois is reporting that 88 of
districts have a teacher shortage right
now dallas has over a thousand unfilled
openings three out of four educators
wouldn't actually recommend this
profession to others myself kind of
being one of those i have a lot of
caveats for anyone who's interested in
going into education i'm like okay well
here are some things you got to consider
it's great teaching kids but and then
long list of things three out of four
educators also say that kids are more
difficult now than they ever have been
especially before the pandemic and they
often report that parents and sometimes
even admin will defend the kids instead
of believing the teachers eighty percent
of teachers indicate that burnout is a
problem in the field is one of the
reasons why i ask question on interviews
with different guests i'll ask how they
try and stave off burnout and in
september there's going to be a super
cut just like there have been for the
last two years of suggestions for
preventing burnout more than 50 percent
of educators are planning on leaving the
field earlier than they originally
intended when they first
started teaching and then others are
saying okay well we might not have a
problem right now with teacher shortage
instead we're going to have a teacher
surplus in a few years because of
falling birth rates now there's a lot of
different reasons being floated around
in terms of why is it that the field of
education feels so doom and gloom right
now part of is just like general lack of
respect for educators we're often
treated as babysitters there's a lot of
monitoring going on and policies being
put into place to prevent educators from
engaging in culturally relevant and
ethical pedagogical practices the pay is
low for example when i was teaching in
the classroom they counted nine years of
teaching experience two of which were at
the university level and then the rest
were at k-6 and k-8 schools they counted
a phd even though i was finishing up the
dissertation and yet i made less than 45
there's the high-stakes testing where
some schools will have like a few weeks
worth of testing throughout the year so
the thing that like most educators i
speak with go into the field for the
actual you know teaching facilitating
stuff like that happens so infrequently
because they're having to do all these
tests now to try and like incentivize
people actually staying in the field or
joining a district there's a bunch of
signing bonuses being offered in some
districts some like in california are
actually providing subsidized housing
they're trying to increase the pay and
again it's still low some districts are
providing four day school weeks and then
others like in my home state are trying
to lower the qualifications of what it
means to be an educator so for example
in florida they're making us so that hey
if you've been a veteran for x number of
years then you can start teaching even
if you've never had any classroom
teaching experience in arizona they're
saying now hey you don't even have to
finish your degree you can start
teaching without one they've even made
it so that for several years now it's
the principal who determines whether or
not you're highly qualified so you
actually don't even need a teaching
certificate to teach in arizona which is
funny because i could not get a full
elementary teaching license in arizona
because i never took a phonics class it
doesn't matter how long my cv is which
is linked to on my website what matters
to the department of education is that i
have to take a phonics class and for the
cherry on top with that it wouldn't tell
me which courses counted towards that
credit until i completed the course and
submitted the transcript so even if i
signed up for and completed a course it
might not actually count towards that
credit that i am apparently missing so
needless to say i don't have my
elementary teaching certificate anymore
because that's just absurd and in
arizona again it's the principal who
determines whether or not you're highly
qualified or not and some districts
across the country like some of the ones
that i know in arizona are actually
recruiting and hiring teachers from
outside of the country to try and fill
these teacher gaps these shortages are
having an impact on so many educators
like there's a cs educator that i'm
working with who had so many teacher
shortages throughout the school year
that they rarely were able to actually
teach their high school cs classes
because they're constantly having to
cover the core classes like ela or math
or whatever so even if you are teaching
in a school you might not actually teach
the subject areas that you're hired to
teach like cs education so i guess like
broadly speaking what i'm hoping to do
is start a conversation around this and
i'm actually posting a discussion forum
post about this in csta's virtual
community and it shares the same title
as this episode and i'll include a link
to it directly in the show notes which
again is at jaredaler.com or you can
just click the link in the app that
you're listening to this on now
questions that i have are how concerned
are you regarding the future of the
field both in terms of cs education in
k-12 spaces and then k-12 education in
general but also how concerned are you
about the state of education in your
school district state country etc every
location is going to be different so
while your district might be great what
about in other counties or in other
states what actions can we as
individuals or as a field do to mitigate
your concerns about the future of the
field is this outside of our control or
are there things that we can control and
act upon to try and improve things and
then also what's something you're
optimistic about for the future of
education i don't want to just end on
bummer notes hopefully somebody's got
something that they can share that's a
positive or that they're optimistic
about but i'm also interested for the
teachers who are leaving where are they
going like i know many who have gone
into real estate and become realtors i
know others like myself who are not
working in the classroom but are working
in education non-profits and then how do
they feel shortly after the transition
and then what about years after leaving
having spoken with so many different
educators around the country and around
the world many people are just leaving
education altogether and in cs education
in particular the incentives especially
related to pay and whatnot are much
larger than some other domains so for
example my phd's in music education
being a music educator generally
speaking can be more lucrative and more
stable income than just being a
performer for many people but if you are
a software developer you could double
triple quadruple your pay and maybe even
have better benefits depending on where
you're at so i'm honestly concerned not
just for the shortages but also just
seeing so much turnover in different
districts across the nation but i want
to know what you think so i'll include a
link to the discussion forum post on
csta's virtual community in the show
notes and then what i'd like to do is if
people respond to that is i want to be
able to read off some of the responses
in an upcoming episode to kind of help
amplify the conversation both in terms
of here are my concerns or here are
potential actions we can take or here
are some things i'm optimistic about so
hopefully this episode kind of sparked
some dialogue and honestly i hope it
lowers some of the concerns that i've
got but i know this was a different
episode i appreciate you taking the time
to listen to it and hopefully responding
in the virtual community and again thank
you to everyone that i spoke with at
both the csta conferences in wyoming and
in chicago again apologies for being so
tired july was a rough month at two of
her three dogs die i was only getting a
few hours of sleep etc etc but i'm
finally back to recording episodes after
having not recorded any since like june
something so thank you so much for
listening please consider sharing this
with somebody else stay tuned next week
for another episode until then i hope
you're all staying safe and are having a
wonderful week