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Teacher Recruitment and Retention Legislation
April 2007

Presented to House Education Committee
By Paul Johnson, Coatesville Area School Director

April 10, 2007

Good afternoon. My name is Paul Johnson and I am a school director with the Coatesville Area School District where I have served in that capacity for the past four years.1 I'd like to thank Chairmen Roebuck and Stairs for the opportunity to testify on teacher retention and recruitment - an issue that is vitally important to the Coatesville Area School District and its students.

Coatesville Area School District is located in the city of Coatesville and is considered an urban district even as farmland now surrounds the city. For the past four years, we have struggled with recruitment and retention of high quality teachers. I'd like to first direct your attention to Table 1 (see Tables), so you can see Coatesville's struggles. Table 1 contains Coatesville's teacher turnover data between the 2003-04 school year and the 2006-07 school year. In just four years, 188 of our teachers have resigned with 68% of these resignations due to Coatesville's lower salaries. Table 2 (see Tables) shows average teacher salaries for the school districts in Chester County and neighboring Montgomery and Delaware counties. According to data from the 2005-06 annual financial reports, Coatesville Area School District paid $6,545 less than the average full-time salary in Chester County, $9,226 less than the average teacher salary in Delaware County and $14,816 less than the average teacher salary in Montgomery County.

As you can see, it is difficult to retain teachers, particularly for science and math, in the Coatesville Area School District when the vast majority of districts in the southeastern region of the Commonwealth have the financial capabilities to pay their teachers higher salaries. My fellow school board members and I are cognizant of the burden of school property taxes on our taxpayers. Over the past two years, we have reduced our millage and for the 2007-08 fiscal year, our board approved a resolution not to raise taxes above the index established by Act 1 of the Special Session. We are doing everything within our power to keep property taxes down, recruit high quality teachers, compete with the teacher salaries in our region and provide our students with an education that meets the Commonwealth's academic standards. However, you can see by the numbers in Table 1 that our efforts have not been successful.

Additionally, it is hard to attract minority candidates to our district. Only 4% of Coatesville's current teaching staff is comprised of minority individuals, while 43% of our student body is classified as non-white. To address this problem, Coatesville participates in the Delaware Valley Minority Association. Our Director of Human Resources attends career fairs at Lincoln University and the Delaware Minority Recruitment fair, and with principals from Coatesville's schools, is a member of the Chester County Intermediate Unit's recruiting team.

This being said, I recognize that Coatesville is not the only district in the Commonwealth that is experiencing teacher shortage and retention problems. The 2006 report from the Governor's Commission on Training America's Teachers found that 52% to 67% of districts report teacher recruitment problems for science, math, world languages and special education.2 The teacher recruitment and retention issues that Coatesville experiences are also problems for many other districts in the Commonwealth.

So what do school directors, education policymakers, higher education institutions, and teachers do to correct this obvious problem? We should not solely focus on recruitment proposals that provide financial assistance to new teachers or educator support programs in districts with high turnover rates. While these initiatives are important, I urge this committee to also examine the teacher preparation programs provided by the Commonwealth's colleges and universities. According to the results of a Governor's Commission survey, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade teachers feel their initial preparation - college training-was insufficient to help students achieve Pennsylvania's academic standards, demonstrate proficiency on standardized tests, "differentiate instruction for diverse learners, use assessment data to improve instruction, and integrate technology into instruction."3 In order to ensure that teachers stay in urban districts, like Coatesville, we must ensure that teacher-training programs prepare individuals for teaching diverse learners in nation that is driven by No Child Left Behind and the evaluation of assessment data and steer students into teaching shortage areas. The proposed changes to Chapter 49-2 include provisions to address both of these issues.

The initiatives outlined in House Bills 919, 921, 923, and 924 are a good starting point for the Commonwealth to prioritize teacher recruitment and retention in urban and rural school districts. Nevertheless, PSBA believes that further improvements should be made to the legislation in order to improve their intent and administration.

First, House Bills 921, 922 and 923 authorize PDE to develop policies, procedures and rules for the administration of programs for teacher signing bonuses, urban educator recruitment and beginning educator support and training (BEST). These bills do not include distribution formulas or definitions of "critical shortage" and "critical shortage area," "high turnover rate," and "economically disadvantaged" - terms that are critical to the administration and distribution of funds to school districts. This leads to the following questions - What is a critical shortage? Does it encompass only teachers of certain subjects? What is a critical shortage area? Is it a region of the state? Is it a school district? Will the term include charter schools? What is a high turnover rate? What years would PDE use to determine districts' turnover rates? What constitutes an economically disadvantaged school district? House Bills 921, 922 and 923 leave these questions for PDE to answer. PSBA maintains that the parameters of the proposed programs should be spelled out in law and not excluded from the legislation. Department policies, procedures and rules can change more easily than statute and districts that qualify for the programs one year could later be disqualified if a policy or rule is changed. Including specific requirements for the programs in legislation ensures that: 1) your intent is carried out and 2) only you can authorize changes to the programs necessary to improve their administration.

Second, PSBA supports the loan forgiveness proposal in House Bill 919, but questions if eligible teachers should only be required to teach for five years in a district. After five years, the teachers in districts with lower salaries will most likely seek higher paying positions in other school districts. Unless Coatesville substantially raised taxes in order to compete with our neighboring districts, which I remind you we can no longer do because of the enactment of Act 1, our teachers will still seek substantially higher salaries in our neighboring wealthy districts.

Furthermore, loan forgiveness awards would not be guaranteed for teachers in high need districts. Loan forgiveness would be awarded to qualified applicants based on a random lottery system. When recruiting new teachers, districts would only be able to guarantee that they would be working in districts whose teachers are eligible for loan forgiveness. Whether or not an individual receives loan forgiveness would be subject to chance. This proposed system will inevitably lead teachers to ask: Should I take the position with the higher-paying district or should I take the job with the district that offers a lower salary, but have the chance to receive loan forgiveness from the Commonwealth?

Third, House Bills 919 and 921 do not address what happens to teachers who received either loan forgiveness or signing bonuses and left the district before their five-year commitment was over. Do they get to keep the money they received or do they have to refund the dollars to the district or the Commonwealth? Once again, PSBA believes this issue should be addressed in the legislation in order to ensure the correct intent of the sponsors of the proposed program.

Fourth, in order to target funding for teacher loan forgiveness at poorer rural and urban districts, PSBA recommends increasing the percentage threshold of students for eligibility. House Bill 919 establishes that districts with more than 8% of average daily membership defined as low-income students would be eligible for loan forgiveness funds. This threshold broadens the number of rural and urban school districts eligible for funding. While PSBA does not opposes this language, we believe the committee should consider raising the threshold in order to target loan forgiveness dollars in the neediest school districts.

Fifth, House Bill 923 establishes the Beginning Educator Support and Training (BEST) program and requires all eligible school districts to participate in the program. However, in order to receive funding for this new mandate, economically disadvantaged districts with high turnover rates, as determined by the Secretary of Education, would have to apply for funding. PSBA opposes mandates for school districts that require them to apply for Commonwealth funding. We recommend that the bill be amended to eliminate the application for funds and require allocations to school districts that qualify for the BEST program.

Coatesville Area School District appreciates the legislature's attention to this issue as we continue to seek quality teachers and compete with our surrounding districts. I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to come here today and provide you with recommendations for this important bill package. PSBA and my fellow board members stand ready to work with Chairmen Roebuck and Stairs and Representative Dwight Evans to improve the legislation, so our students have access to high quality educators and are not penalized by their district's financial ability to pay for such educators. I will be happy to answer any questions.

(see Tables)

Coatesville Area School District (CASD) encompasses 75 square miles in western Chester County and borders Lancaster County . The district has over 48,00 residents and is among the largest districts in Chester County with over 8,800 students. PDE enrollment projections indicate that CASD will enroll an additional 435 additional students between the 2005-06 school year and 2015-16 school year.

"Investing in Greater Teachers for All Students." Governor's Commission on Training America's Teachers . July 2006. Page 11.

"Investing in Greater Teachers for All Students." Governor's Commission on Training America's Teachers . July 2006. Page 3.