可预防的危机:缺乏资金支持K-12人员短缺
2022年8月19日
2022年8月19日
弗吉尼亚州的每个孩子都应该能指望校车准时来接他们, 行政人员在早上迎接他们, 午餐时吃一顿热饭, 每个班级都有一位合格的老师. Yet, 由于多年来资金不足,加上疫情带来的压力和需求增加, 我们学校的人员短缺已经到了白热化的地步——大约有10人,截至8月11日全州各学区有500个招聘启事. This means not every student will be guaranteed the basics so many of us were afforded in school. 维吉尼亚州的议员们很早就意识到人手短缺的问题, 这场危机的最终原因是他们对学校资源不足的选择. 更甚于以往, 我们需要州议员承认摆在他们面前的问题的严重性, 加倍努力提供有竞争力的薪酬, 开始为学校配备足够的人员以改善工作条件, 通过政策,改变他们的言论,以示对教育工作者的尊重.
而我们不会得到 官方职位空缺 弗吉尼亚教育部(VDOE)的数据,直到明年, our next best option to get a sense of statewide shortages is from job posting data on school division websites. VEA将8月10日和11日在所有132个学校分部网站上发布的凤凰体育买球删除, 正好找到了10个,499个职位, 其中许多是指导性的. 虽然不是一个苹果与苹果的比较,但VDOE reported 2021年8月15日,弗吉尼亚州各学区有4977个教学职位空缺. This comparison comports with what is being reported across the state and nationally by school leaders: that they anticipate significant staffing shortages at the start of the upcoming school year.
教师短缺已被发现有负面影响 对学生成绩的影响 并导致全体员工 不稳定 at schools. 短缺的学校通常会用替代品, novice, 还有不合格的教师, and studies suggest this is more likely to happen in schools with a greater share of students of color and who live in households experiencing poverty. VEA分析了凤凰体育app买球平台州空缺数据发现 divisions with the highest share of Black students have an average teacher vacancy rate more than four times that of divisions with the lowest share (5.5% v.s. 1.3%). Similarly, divisions with the highest student poverty rates had nearly twice the teacher vacancy rate compared to divisions with the lowest poverty rates (5.3% v.s. 2.7%). The findings are particularly worrying considering the fact that Black and low-income students already faced significant barriers to learning in Virginia before the pandemic, and state testing data indicates these groups lost significant ground over the past two years.
许多学校部门已经为人员短缺制定了应急计划, preparing to combine students into larger classes or settings like gymnasiums where adults can safely monitor them. Other divisions are reporting hiring more individuals for teaching positions that do not meet full qualifications. All these methods of triage end up depriving students of the services and instruction they desperately need to recover from the lost learning time over the past two years. Elected officials need to boldly intervene at this moment to safeguard public schools and set us on a different trajectory.
State lawmakers should begin to address our worsening staffing crisis in the upcoming state budget and through other actions, including:
我们弗吉尼亚州的教师和员工短缺并不是一夜之间随机发生的, 这已经酝酿了很多年了. Choices to underfund schools by state lawmakers have created crisis-level conditions for many schools and will take years to correct. Virginia lawmakers must act boldly to invest in K-12 over the coming year to reverse the troubling trend of more and more educators leaving, 或者从不进入, 这个职业.