Franklin Schargel’s Blog

The pandemic has left public education in the United States in crisis.  The virus caught America and its schools unprepared. It is now the beginning of the 3^rd school year that has been uprooted by the virus. In large districts across the country, enrollment is down. Many students are far behind academically and may never make it up. Students are floundering emotionally. Schools are already short of substitute teachers, bus drivers and food servers.

According to a Rand study, nearly 25% of teachers are considering quitting their jobs. Most had not been training on delivering education remotely. Principals are struggling as well. According to a survey from the National Association of Secondary School Principals, almost 40% are planning to leave the profession in the next three years.

Remote learning has taken its toll on the mental well-being of students and their parents and educators. Teachers hadn’t been taught how to teach remotely. Parents have had to learn how to teach their children because of forced home-schooling. They have lost work and salaries. They have had a difficult time arranging for home care when they went to work.

Children have been forced to learn remotely. Some children who were supposed to enter kindergarten and first grade one or two years ago have still not seen the inside of a classroom.

In some places, computers sat in warehouses and not in the hands of children. Parents hadn’t been trained on how to teach their children how to run computers.  Children, in many cases had to teach their parents how to teach them using computers. 

Worst of all, we’ve lost children, their parents, and families and many of our educators died.

But we have survived. A little beaten up, a little battered but we have survived.

I would like to thank Peter Goodman of the American Federation of Teachers for acknowledging my work.

WASHINGTON—The American Federation of Teachers convened a new national taskforce to tackle widespread educator and support staff shortages imperiling the future of public schools and public education.

The AFT Teacher and School Staff Shortage Task Force  will examine causes and propose solutions for districts experiencing extreme shortages leading to immense pressure on educators and families that could disrupt recovery from the pandemic. Adding to the chaos, schools have been roiled for months by poisonous national political debates that have turned them into cultural battlefields.

Two years of a pandemic has accelerated a flight from the profession of teaching. Teaching was a respected profession in communities with some shortages in high poverty schools and in some certification areas; a decade ago we began to see fewer and fewer students in college teacher preparation programs.

The first wave of reform, I’m sorry, I’m a history teacher, was the Pendleton Act(1883) that established the federal civil service.

Federal, state and local employees had been selected through a spoils system, political party affiliation, responding to the assassination of President Arthur by a disappointed office seeker, a civil service reform law was passed.

 The legislation was intended to guarantee the rights of all citizens to compete for federal jobs without preferential treatment given based on politics, race, religion or origin.

The reform movement moved from Washington to the states and the boroughs “consolidated” to create New York City. As part of the Great Consolidation the school systems were combined and a local civil service law created the Board of Examiners. Teacher and supervisor candidates took an examination and were placed on a rank order list and appointed to schools.

In 1960s the Board of Examiners came under assault, the examination system had a “disparate impact” on candidates of color and the federal courts sustained the appellants ending examinations for school supervisors. .

The attacks on the Board of Examiners continued, the process took years and thousands of teachers worked as substitutes awaiting the actions of Board. In 1990 the State legislature dissolved the Board of Examiners.

While the examination system ended the school system continued to struggle to recruit and license teachers and many thousands of teachers languished as substitutes. Schools in high poverty neighborhoods, “hard to staff” schools, had a continuing turnover of staff, teachers quitting and teachers moving to other higher socio-economic schools.

The Obama/Duncan Race to the Top, a competitive grant program, $4.3 billion, required teacher accountability systems linking pupil achievement to teacher ratings as well as adopting Common Core State Standards in federally required grades 3-8 state tests.

The unanticipated impact: teacher preparation programs began to see fewer enrollees. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), again, before the pandemic took a deep dive highlighting Retention and Attraction of teachers.

A guide for school districts, published before the pandemic (2019) highlights and suggests avenues to address teacher shortages, Who Will Teach the Children: Recruiting, Retaining and Refreshing Highly Effective Educators, Franklin Schargel (Read review here)

Teachers are leaving in significant increasing numbers and teacher preparation programs have reduced enrollments. EPI conducted a six part series of articles Read here.

What we can do about it: Tackle the working conditions and other factors that are prompting teachers to quit and dissuading people from entering the profession, thus making it harder for school districts to retain and attract highly qualified teachers: low pay, a challenging school environment, and weak professional development support and recognition. In addition to tackling these factors for all schools, we must provide extra supports and funding to high-poverty schools, where teacher shortages are even more of a problem.

* One factor behind staffing difficulties in both low- and high-poverty schools is the high share of public school teachers leaving their posts: 13.8% were either leaving their school or leaving teaching altogether in a given year, according to the most recent data

* Another factor is the dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies: From the 2008–2009 to the 2015–2016 school year, the annual number of education degrees awarded fell by 15.4%,  And the annual number of people who completed a teacher preparation program fell by 27.4%

* Schools are also having a harder time retaining credentialed teachers, as is evident in the small but growing share of all teachers who are both newly hired and in their first year of teaching and in the substantial shares of teachers who quit who are certified and experienced. It is even more difficult for high-poverty schools to retain credentialed teachers.

Low pay is another key issue: Read section on relative pay here  

Teachers also face challenging working conditions Read here

The EPI Report concludes with a series of overarching principles, 

Overarching principles for how to approach the teacher shortage problem

• Understand that the teacher shortage is caused by multiple factors and thus can only be tackled with a comprehensive set of long-term solutions.
• Understand that the complexity of the challenge calls for coordinated efforts of multiple stakeholders.
• Increase public investments in education.
• Treat teachers as professionals and teaching as a profession.

Specific proposals in the policy agenda to address the teacher shortage

• Raise teacher pay to attract new teachers and keep teachers in their schools and the profession.
• Elevate teacher voice, and nurture stronger learning communities to increase teachers’ influence and sense of belonging.
• Lower the barriers to teaching that affect teachers’ ability to do their jobs and their morale.
• Design professional supports that strengthen teachers’ sense of purpose, career development, and effectiveness.

The EPI report (2019) precedes the last two years of pandemic.

In May, 2021 Education Week released the results of interviews with hundreds of teachers across the country (Read here). Increasing numbers of teachers are considering leaving, the stress is unbearable, and they love their students and are impacted by the politically motivated attack on teachers.

New York City responded to the teacher shortage issue twenty years ago. The Teaching Fellows Program is an alternative certification pathway created to attract second career individuals. The CUNY colleges provide an accelerated certification program in shortage areas. (Read about the history and details of the program here). 20% of new teachers this year are graduates of the Teaching Fellows Program.

New York City also funds a Men Teach Program directed at attracting men of color into teaching. Candidates are recruited from among freshman and sophomores in the four year CUNY colleges. (Read here) 

Unfortunately New York State does not fund comparable programs. 

The AFT National Taskforce on Teacher and School Staff Shortages will look across the nation, as you would expect the “shortages” issue varies widely. The states are in the process of determining how to allocate the federal dollars and attracting and retaining teachers and other vital school personnel would be an excellent use of the federal dollars.

Posted on December 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

I wish you, your family and all of your loved ones, a Blessed Christmas and a happy, HEALTHY and prosperous New Year

Stay safe. Stay well and stay optimistic.

It is estimated (by the FBI) that there are up to 400 million guns (393,000,000) in America. That number is greater than the US population (326,474,000). Not everyone owns a gun. The average gun owner owns almost eight (8) guns. Gun ownership is guaranteed by the 2^nd Amendment to the United States Constitution.

But the frequency of guns in school have increased. The Oxford High School shooting in Michigan where a 15-year-old high school sophomore killed three students and  a teacher and injured seven others was, according to Education Week, the 28^th school shooting this year.  

On December 9^th, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina reported that seven guns were found in one week in Wake County. 

One of the weapons found in Elizabeth City, NC was an AK-47 with a 30-round clip.

According to Education Week “Teachers and educators across the nation have reported a rise in violence ever since students have returned to classrooms from Covid-19 shutdowns”. The organization reported that there have been 38 school shootings this year and 23 since August 1 and the number keeps on rising. As of December 2^nd. 21 guns have been confiscated on a Charlotte-Mecklenburg School campus.

How have students been able to obtain these weapons? In the overwhelming number of cases, from their homes, because parents have failed to properly secure them.

Who should be held accountable if a child brings a weapon to school? The school or the people who made the weapon readily available? According to the FBI’s The School Shooter Report , “there isn’t a profile of a school shooter”. If there isn’t a profile how can schools identify a school shooter? People are suing Oxford High School for not taking action . What kind of action should be taken if there isn’t a reliable way of identifying a school shooter? 

One way is for states to pass “Secure Storage Laws” making people libel for the improper storage of weapons.

Realizing the positive effects education has on their lives, most children and their parents want an education. But some of those same children have been caught bringing weapons into schools.

A school secretary in Brooklyn, NY recently spotted a loaded gun and almost $30,000 in a student’s backpack. Scanners, the following day,  uncovered 21 banned items, such as tasers, pepper spray, and brass knuckles.

We do not know the difficulty some students have coming and going have to school. The students with the weapons pointed out they need weapons to protect themselves on the way to school and on the way home.

At a high school I worked in, we found a student who brought  a loaded weapon into school. We arrested the student; and, in an interview I had with the parent, the student’s mother said, “Mr. Schargel you have it all wrong. He wasn’t bringing the gun TO school he was bringing the GUN OUT OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. He goes to school early in the morning while it is dark and is confronted by people who want his school money or clothing. On the way home, he walks over people laying the street who want money or clothing.”

Many students face challenges and obstacles in their desire for an education that we do know or not think about.

Some material has been extracted from Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide by Franklin P. Schargel to be published by School Success Network Press in January 2022.

I am indebted to my friend, Dr. Cindy Veenstra, Ph. D for sending to me local reporting from Michigan. Some of this material is not being reported nationally.

The trauma of the deadly shooting inside Oxford High School is increasing stress levels for students, parents, and educators across the country. Tuesday’s tragedy is the latest in an epidemic of school mass shootings in the United States in recent years. According to Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit newspaper, “school shutdowns, social media anger and bomb threats have followed a deadly school shooting in Oxford and are heightening stress for students across much of Michigan.”

The number of dead and wounded could have been higher if the school had not conducted Active Shooter Drills. Students and staff knew to lock and barricade doors. A police officer assigned to the school helped apprehend the suspected shooter minutes after the first shots were fired.

The frequency of school shootings is occurring so frequently that the national media no longer reports on it unless multiple students are either shot or killed.

Children have always lived with anxiety, stress, and trauma. The frequency of school violence as well as Covid19 has merely exacerbated it. Children see a shooting on television or on social media and say, “This could be my school or my cousin’s school.” Parents see the violence and say, “This could be my child’s school.” Educators see the violence and say, “This could be my school.” Children who have survived a school shooting may suffer flashbacks, nightmares and some will withdraw completely and socially, because they don’t get a sense of closure. Others may have problems sleeping, eating, focusing or suffer from headaches, stomach aches or other pains. There may be a heightened sense of worry about another shooting. There may a fear that they have lost control over their lives and suffer from anxiety, agitation, and numbness where they don’t feel anything.

There have been bomb threats as a multiple of schools in Michigan –“at least 60 in all”  Schools have been closed due to what is believed to be “copycat threats.” While some of these threats may have been jokes, all of them needed to be investigated. The media does not wish to inflame the situation and further ignite the fears of parents, students, teachers, and the community.

Adding to this tension is the stress caused by the pandemic, social isolation, and the limitations of a lack of in-person learning.

Tuesday’s shooting at Oxford High is the 7^th major shooting in Michigan since 1978 and the worst since 1927 when the treasurer of Bath schools in Clinton County, (north of Lansing) bombed the elementary school killing 38 students, six adults and wounding 58 others. in Michigan’s history.

Nationwide, according to data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, there have been 140 school shooting attacks nationwide in which at least one person as killed or wounded at K-12 schools since 2013.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn, NY an unannounced metal detector check at a Brooklyn high school campus turned up 21 weapons a day after a student was caught with a gun and $30,000. There has been a “nearly 30% increase in weapons seizure at school since the beginning of July through October 24 compared to the same periods in 2018 and 2019. Along with the increase in guns seized are the number of Tasers has increased from 12 a year in 2018 and 2019 to 84 this year. (Source: NY Daily News, December 2, 2021)

My book, Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide  to be published in January 2022 addresses the issues of school violence and child anxiety, stress, and trauma.

Scientists, with good reason, are proud of the speed in developing vaccines to combat the spread of Covid19. The virus mutated and then mutated again. And again.

Now we have a new mutation, the Omigon mutation. The World Health Organization, the European Union, and countries around the world, including the United States, are attempting to stop the spread of the new variant by banning people from six African nations from flying to Europe and the United States. But it is the holiday season and people with resources are travelling, visiting friends and family, and celebrating. 

In addition, the education of children will be affected. Not all children around the world have been vaccinated and children have the ability to spread the virus. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have reported that 4% of children under the age of 2 have been vaccinated and that 57% of children ages 12-15 have been vaccinated.

Government officials cannot order the virus to stay in Africa. The Virus cannot be stopped by simply ordering individuals to remain in Africa. The Virus has already migrated to the United Kingdom, India, Italy, Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and the United States.

America’s politicians and scientists have a primary obligation to protect Americans. But the virus is a moving target and refuses to abide by imaginary borders on maps. 

When the virus shows up somewhere, it inevitably shows up everywhere.

I spent last week at Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas NV delivering two workshops for the 5^th National Student Safety and Security Conference & Workshops. One workshop was about my new book, “Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide” and the second on “Bullying and Youth Suicide”.  

More importantly were the people I met who travelled from all over the country to attend. They were First Responders, Law Enforcement Personnel, School Resource Officers and Educators who have dedicated their lives to improving the lives of children, their parents, the communities they serve and the future of the United States.