(The Center Square) – Oklahoma is facing challenges with teacher attrition but salary is not the reason, according to a report presented Wednesday to state lawmakers.
The Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) reported three key findings in its report to the committee overseeing the agency.
First, Oklahoma has the highest average teacher salaries of any surrounding state and the 21st-highest average salary in the U.S. That is not enough to keep or retain teachers, however, according to a 2019 survey by the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE). The survey showed only 14.4% of teachers who left the profession would return for a higher starting pay.
The compensation structure gives teachers limited options for potential professional growth and income potential, according to the LOFT's second finding, and the state does not have enough data to address the problem of attrition.
Oklahoma has not been able to replace retiring teachers.
“Over the past 10 years, 29,574 Oklahoma teachers have retired but Oklahoma’s public institutions have produced enough graduates to fill only 46 percent of the vacancies created from teachers retiring over this period,” the report read.
Rep. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, suggested shifting higher education funding formulas to address workforce shortages for teachers and nurses.
“Nobody’s dying because we didn’t graduate enough political science majors,” Echols said. “Oklahomans are dying because we don’t have enough nurses. No one is being uneducated because we don’t have political science majors.”
Part of the problem is the culture and changes in education, according to Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R-Muskogee, a retired educator. Today’s teachers feel disrespected and are dealing with unfunded mandates that require them to collect data, he said.
“What is their job?” Pemberton asked. “Is it to teach science or math or is it to keep data?”
Recruiting teachers is only half the problem, said Joy Hofmeister, state superintendent of public instruction.
“I think it’s not just how many do we need, but how many will stay,” Hofmeister said. “So we can graduate more teachers, more nurses, but are they staying in Oklahoma after they finish from one of our excellent universities.”
The LOFT agreed.
“The key takeaway from LOFT’s analysis of teacher attrition is that the majority of teacher attrition challenges, based on responses in teacher exit interviews, cannot be addressed through legislative policy changes,” the agency said in its report.
The agency did make other recommendations to state lawmakers, including one that would require the OSDE to generate data that shows teachers shortages by region, county, school district and academic subjects. A fund that addresses shortages in a particular academic subject area or region also should be created, LOFT said in the report.
The OSDE should create a biennial salary report with national and regional comparisons and evaluate teacher-training programs annually, the LOFT said.
via Oklahoma's Center Square News
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