 And we're going to very quickly ask our other panel to come up here. First, I'm going to ask Representative Sharon Tamiko Santos. Sharon was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives in 1998. She serves as the Chair of the House Education Committee and on the Washington State Educational Opportunity Gap Oversight and Accountability Committee. She is former Vice Chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures Education Committee on what she still serves. We greatly appreciate her coming all the way out here from the left coast to join us today. Secondly, we have Seth Gerson, who is the Program Director for the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. Seth serves as the Program Director in the Education Division of the National Governors Association Center, where he works on early childhood and K-12 education issues. He, before that, was on the Hill for a long time as a staffer with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, deeply steeped in these issues. He has written some of the best parts of the ESSA, so I just want to give him a little credit for that. And then we have State Superintendent Steve Saples, who is the State Superintendent in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the great state of Virginia. Steve was appointed Virginia's 24th Superintendent of Public Instruction by Governor Terry McAuliffe. As Superintendent, he serves as the Executive Officer of the Virginia Department of Education, which oversees the Commonwealth's public schools. He's been doing some really creative and innovative work in the state around the reconceptualization of education under ESSA, so I hope we have a chance to think and talk about that a little bit. So I am now going to join you in our conversation. Start with the context that we're now in. I was reflecting on the fact that in 1992, the attrition rate for teachers in the United States was 5%. It's now about 8%. So it's significantly increased over that period of time. And a lot of things have changed in that period of time. As we've heard, preparation matters a great deal to teachers staying in the profession. We have many more teachers entering without full preparation today than we did in 1992. Some of the earlier data showed that fully prepared teachers would leave over the course of their first five years at the rate of about 14%. And uncertified teachers would leave at the rate of about 49%. So huge differentials. And we have now about a quarter of our teachers entering the classroom without full preparation each year. Mentoring matters. Teachers who get strong mentoring stay at much higher rates. The number of teachers according to federal data getting mentoring now is less than it was a decade ago. Because of the cuts that occurred during the recession. So now only about half of teachers are getting mentored. Which is I think roughly what Seguna was saying in Prince George's County. As opposed to the fact that we were up over three quarters a decade ago. Salaries have declined since the 1990s in real dollar terms. Working conditions have declined because of the recession. Larger class sizes, fewer materials, instructional specialists. And then there's been this issue of what some would call teacher bashing. A lot of discourse about the fact that the real problem of schools is just that we have to get rid of bad teachers. Rather than looking at many of the other issues. So I'm going to pose these challenges to our policy respondents here. And I'm going to start with you, Representative Santos. Could you provide us some context on Washington state and the challenges the state is facing with respect to teacher shortages. And then sort of a frame for what you're seeking to do about that. Thank you Linda and thank you to LPI for organizing this very valuable opportunity for us to discuss these important issues. So we heard from our first panel I think one of the things that we all have to acknowledge at the get go. This is a very complex issue and there is no real simple answer. But we do know that if we're going to have a quality education system we have to begin with quality educators. And so starting with that to talk about what are the challenges but also the opportunities in the state of Washington. As the report indicated we face all of the issues that were identified in the report. It's been complicated however by a particular adequacy funding lawsuit in our state. Which we have tentatively resolved just this year. Where we are going to be adding somewhere in the neighborhood of $7.3 billion a new funding towards education over the next four years in Washington state. So I'm very proud of that. However however we should acknowledge too that funding alone is not going to solve the issue around teacher attrition and teacher quality. We have not only enrollment growth in our state we have increased retirements in our state and we have fewer enrollments in our teacher preparation programs. These are some of the bigger issues that I think have been identified in the report. Very specifically in Washington state I will reiterate some of the findings. We have a shortage in elementary students or excuse me elementary teachers certified teachers math science sped CTE and ELL. We have a shortage in terms of teachers of color. We also have a shortage in our title one schools and interestingly to the rural question in central Washington which is a largely rural area of our state. But where I would like to flesh this out a little bit is in terms of both the mobility issues as well as the emergency certifications. One of the things that I thought was very fascinating is that 32% of Washington's certificated teachers are age 65 or older or excuse me 50 years or older. That is a big difference. I just want to say. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But the point of that is that what I say about some of our societal attitudes about professions in general, not just about teaching. We talk about in comparing ourselves to some of our highest performing educational systems across the world, the lifelong careers of education. Well, when you take a look and I'm going to speak to you as the grandparent and great-grandparent of 38 children and the all and the oldest grandchild is 40 years old. I will tell you the attitudes around careers for 40 year olds or 30 year olds or 20 year olds is very different than the career attitude that I grew up with. And so when you then think about the 45.5% of certificated teachers in Washington state who have zero to 10 years of experience. We're looking at a churning in our system that is not going to go away largely because of social attitudes around careers that are reinforced I think by challenge those that exist in our structure. Of the zero to 10 group, I would also note that almost a little over half. So 28% of all certificated teachers in Washington state have zero to five years of experience. So that's a lot of relative inexperience in our system. And I think the question about attrition really and we heard it in our earlier panel goes to a lot of different issues in terms of the impact to our teachers in terms of impacts to our principals impacts to our students. And here's one of the things that I'd like to share with you which is a data point. In a recent survey. So 2016 of our principals and human resource directors. We asked the question in the last five days, how many principles have had to sub for missing teachers in classrooms. 61% of our principals said that they have had to sub in a classroom because they lack the certificated teachers. That says a lot about what's going on not just in the classrooms, but somebody in the previous panel also talked about the administration and the fact that our administrators if we're asking them to be instructional leaders are having a very difficult time being those instructional leaders because they're having to make choices about whether they're going to split up a classroom and divide those students between other classrooms. Or are they going to go and step into the classroom themselves. I think that a couple of very choice quotes that I'd like to share with you. And I overprepared so I'm rushing because I think there's some important things that I want to share with you and I'm hoping that you will ask me questions afterwards. But here's one of the quotes that I wanted to share with you because I thought it was very important. This is what's going on in our principals lives. Finding teachers and subs in all areas are incredibly difficult. I've attended teacher career fairs in Washington, Montana, Oregon and Idaho, trying to find qualified teachers. When I attended the job fair in Idaho, there were more school recruiters than teacher candidates that came through. Finding subs is very difficult as well. I had to teach in classrooms and I got my CDL last year so I could help drive a bus when they couldn't find bus drivers. That is what's going on in administration and that we haven't even begun to teach to touch on. So what are we doing in the state of Washington? We are trying to really grapple with a big picture of the leaky pipeline. Not just a leaky bucket but a leaky pipeline. That begins, we really believe, in our secondary schools where we have a captive audience that we can engage in beginning to discuss about pursuing an educational career. We also know that we can do a better job of working in our teacher preparation programs whether they are offering the conventional or traditional certification programs and I have some things to say about that if asked. Into our K-12 classrooms where there is great need. I would point out that in our state we are finding that the great need is both in our highly urban areas as well as in our rural areas for very different reasons. So one of the questions that I think policy makers have to ask of ourselves is what is the right division of responsibility between state policy makers and our district policy makers meaning all of you who may be in the audience who are elected school board members. In Washington state we have 295 school board members and they are the ones that are often asked to make the terrible decisions both about funding but in response to state mandates but also being responsive to local conditions and often times they are put in a very, very difficult place of having to choose are we going to comply with the state mandate or are we going to be responsive to local conditions and so I think there is great opportunity for us as policy makers to open up the dialogue and say we all have the same interest in providing every student in our system with high quality effective teachers not I didn't say highly qualified although that is an important characteristic but high quality effective teachers and how do we do that together. I'm worried about time. Am I doing okay? You're doing okay. Oh okay. I'm trying to really summarize. Yes. So I think that again when we talk about what are we doing in Washington state we're trying to take the long view. For too long I think that we both at the state level and at the local level have been really focused on the short term immediate crisis at hand. It's not that we should ignore the immediate crisis at hand but if we are constantly on that merry go round of solving of engaging in crisis solutions then we will never get our arms around the holistic issue of what is changing in our society in terms of attitudes, what is changing in our economy and how are we going to be able to provide and deliver a comprehensive solution that will last beyond the next three to five years. Thank you so much. That's really helpful. Steve in Virginia, you are seeing teacher turnover there as well. I think some of what Sharon said was really helping frame the issue of where are we with making teaching a respected profession again right because that's really why people aren't going into the profession in the same way and staying. So tell us a little bit about the key issues you're facing and how you're approaching it in Virginia. Linda, thank you. Thanks to you and the Policy Institute and Desiree for I think shedding light on what is the next big thing for all of us. That is the looming crisis of teacher shortages. And I used that word purposefully. I was speaking with a well resourced suburban superintendent a few days ago and he said teacher shortages used to be a problem because they happen to other people and now they're a crisis because they're happening to me. And I think he's exactly right because what he was saying was for many years we had gaps and shortages in some places in Virginia. Today I can tell you we have gaps and shortages in every place in Virginia. We do a survey each October simply asking local divisions. There are 132 school divisions in Virginia and we say how many funded positions do you have that are unfilled as of this time? Last October there were 1,000 in Virginia which means there were 1,000 long term substitutes serving in classrooms teaching children. What we know is the problem is not equitably distributed and that's what my colleague in the suburban area was saying. All of a sudden we're seeing gaps and shortages everywhere but it is much more pronounced in our highly challenged less resourced divisions and we don't have as much data as Representative Santos. I was impressed with that. But let me give you two anecdotes and then talk a little bit about policy. I had the opportunity this summer to walk through a middle school with a principal in one of our more challenged urban settings and one of the questions I always ask is how are you doing on staffing? Are you ready? Are you ready for the year? And he was so excited. He said oh we've had a great year. He said I had 27 openings and I've filled all 27. And I said well that is great. How many teachers do you have? And he said 50. He was excited because he filled 27 openings but literally half his staff turned over and I said was this kind of a year that was exceptional? And he said oh no this is every year this is just the first year we filled them all. Then I went to another smaller urban setting that is one of our most challenged places. If you were a sixth grader in Petersburg City Schools last year at no point did you have a licensed math teacher provide instruction to your children. Not a single day. So when we say this is the next big thing we know from research that if we're looking at school impacts on student learning the teacher is clearly the key and we are unable to provide highly qualified, highly talented teachers to all of our kids. So it is the next big thing. What we're looking at is a variety of solutions and Representative Santos said well there won't be a policy solution. There's not one way to do this. And so what we're trying to do is approach it in a contextual manner. In our rural under-resourced divisions the solutions look different than they do in our urban less-resourced division. So we're trying to roll out a variety of opportunities that localities can buy into that says this one fits my need. So in our more rural settings we're really focusing on grow your own programs because we know that there are in fact folks who are already embedded in, committed to and have a long-term commitment to that community so we simply need to upgrade their skill set because they're already there. My colleague out in Lee County which is the western part of Virginia. Lee County is as far west as you can go in Virginia by the way it's west of Detroit. A little tip of Virginia that goes down and he said here's my problem with recruiting. He said I go to a college and I sit down with a 22-year-old and I say if you move to Lee County you're only a 30-minute drive from the nearest Walmart. Recruiting is not his solution. Retention and grow your own are his solutions so we're working there for him. But in urban settings we have amenities that often are attractive to young people. It's a different recruiting retention methodology. There we're talking about expanding residency programs and increasing mentorships and I think mentorships is likely the place where we're going to invest much of our policy effort. There was a time when you were a new teacher and I was one of those in 1976 before Antonio was born I think. And the induction program was here are your keys, that's your room, here's your roster, go get them champ, you're at it. My fear is that our mentoring and induction programs haven't changed significantly since then. We provide to our mentor teachers the grand stipend of about $200 a year. Mentor teachers literally do it at a cost of their own skin, their own hide. They're doing it because they believe in the profession, they're committed to the profession, and they're willing to do it basically as a volunteer. So I think we're going to have to look particularly in our urban settings to beef up the induction and mentoring because we're likely going to be solving their shortage by bringing in a bunch of new teachers who are new to the area and new to the whole sense of those kinds of schools. Wow, very vivid. Thank you so much. I had the same induction program that you did, yeah, in a different state actually. So Seth, you're with the National Governors Association. There are 41 gubernatorial elections by 2018. Presenting the prospect for a new wave of new policy makers at the state level. You work closely with governors. Can you share what this turnover of governors could mean for state efforts to address teacher turnover and teacher shortages and to support districts and schools facing these challenges? Good, and thanks Linda for bringing us all together on this important topic and having National Governors Association as a part of it. I'll start where I think Representative Santos left off, which is to say this really is the right time for the discussion. It's the right time because it's a, there's just a real opportunity to reframe the dialogue not only on teacher shortages and on teacher turnover, but to really zoom out and take a larger big picture look at how we're preparing, how we're developing, how we're supporting our teachers in states. And Linda mentioned the electoral opportunity and I think that's an important one. The 41 gubernatorial elections, but what makes this a very unique election is that we know that means at least 20 new governors because it's 20 open elections already next year. So that can only be, you know, an increasing number. And with new governors comes the opportunity. There will be 20 new governors looking to lead and engage on education policy and trying to address some of these bigger picture issues in human capital like teacher shortages and teacher turnover. And for returning governors as well, we usually see this as a fresh look. It's an opportunity to try something new, look at what, build on past successes, but also look at what's worked in the past and what can be done differently. And I think coupled with that electoral opportunity is also the national conversation and where it's been trending for many, many years feels like we're at a pivot point. It looks sort of down the row and Linda talked earlier about the international work she's been doing of looking at examples as part of the empowering educators work with NCEE. I think about the work that represented as part of NCSL and the No Time to Lose report or CCSSO and our promise, our responsibility report and some of the NTF work that Saroj has been doing that grows out of that. That's just three reports right here and all saying that we need to take a comprehensive approach to solving these issues. And I think that really speaks to, that this is a pivot point in the conversation. And in terms of a governor's role and how they're well positioned, the governor is that unique individual, the unique policy maker that naturally oversees both K-12 and higher education and is really able in that way to act as the coordinator, as the convener, as the connector of all of these systems. And we're seeing already some real traction on these issues that we only expect to be an uptick. Governor McAuliffe earlier this year called together a task force on teacher shortages and I think this speaks to the last part that he tasked with leading that task force, the leader of the school board, the state board, as well as the leader of the higher education board. So again, sort of as that overseer of systems, it's really important to be able to again naturally bring together systems and that's the real challenge going forward as many of the panelists have been saying. So many promising practices out there, but it's not taking that systematic approach and being able to tie it all together is the challenge going forward. Let me stick with you Seth for a moment and then we'll kind of come back down the row and ask about what you're doing at NGA to sort of align the efforts across the different parts of the system, the different state agencies and stakeholders and advance some solutions across those systems. And I think this is really where it has to be a state and local conversation on looking at the data. It has to start with looking at the data. I think about the line of Tip O'Neill in a very different context, but all politics is local. And I know shortages are just the same in understanding where are the shortages? Why is this happening? Where is it happening? Before you can have the sort of knowing how to address the issues, you need to know is there a special education shortage in my state? Is there a high teacher turnover of math and science teachers in my state in high need areas? This is, it has to be a state directed conversation and too many times we find in education we go right for the intervention and don't sort of look at the root cause of the problem and know what the scope of it is. And I think of the work of Ellen Sherrott who was at AIR and now at National Board and she spoke about it. I think it's the perfect term that before you're going into this conversation it's looking at multiple data points but it's having a coherent dialogue and a common language for how you're talking about that because we all talk about teacher shortages, we talk about teacher turnover, but we first need to know and this is particularly important on the state level to know what are the terms we're talking about, what are the specific issues that we're dealing with, then we'll know how to address it. So along those lines at the National Governors Association in advance of the 2018 election what we're working on developing is identifying what are those decision-making tools that governors can use to get to the root cause, cause analyses, there's been some great work done I think about Minnesota with their teacher shortage predictor or the teacher and supply demand reports, they made it very actionable and as well as Missouri and Arkansas with teacher shortage predictor tools. So what kind of planning tools can be in place if we're going to break this cycle of teacher shortages and teacher turnover it's going to be because there's been planning ahead on the issue and setting that in motion. But if I have time, alongside of this is putting together a roadmap for governors so when they are looking at it, they're able to see what is happening in their state. It's also saying here's some best practices along the systems. We know again, you know, promising practices, we heard a number of them this morning, Antonio, and going through the residency program, students starting in high school and on that career pathway towards teaching, certainly professional growth and learning for all teachers, beginning teacher support residency program. So we have these pieces about just a couple months ago when we were having this conversation last with governors, it was at governor's education symposium in Denver, bipartisan governors came from across the country and both governor Hutchinson from Arkansas and governor Cooper both talked about the importance of national board certification as sort of being a leverage point for retaining teachers in their state, teacher leadership opportunities as well. So again, it's putting it together. So you're really talking about a comprehensive approach and I want to ask superintendent Staples as you kind of think about Virginia, you mentioned the investments in mentoring being a key piece. How are you thinking about the solutions to getting a stable, high quality teacher workforce? Linda, thank you. And Seth, thank you for mentioning our governor, Governor McAuliffe. He did direct us to pull together a task force and so I'm going to be a little circumspect in giving you specific recommendations from the report we're giving him on October 1. So I want to make sure I don't get myself in trouble with that as well. But Linda, I think there are two things that we perhaps don't think of because we've talked about mentoring and residency programs and grow your own and these are good solutions. I think we might overlook two. Number one is we're now having the conversation that the shortage problem isn't just a recruiting problem and I think we all tend to look at, oh, I've got to fill this bucket so I just need to turn the faucet a little more open and my bucket will feel quicker. What we're asking folks to do is look at what's pouring at the bottom of your bucket and that's the retention problem and I think many of our locals are surprised when we can give them some data, not just about their shortage needs but how their retention is such a significant part of those and Desiree, I loved your data around that so I think that's helpful in recognizing that it's not just about getting more people in, it's about keeping people in who are already there. But I think we underestimate one that isn't automatically an easy policy fix and that's raising the respect for the teaching profession and the question asked to the first panel was about how accountability might negatively impact teaching profession. The teachers that I speak with in Virginia are not afraid of nor do they want to get away from accountability. What they want to get away from is unreasonable, inequitable accountability and micromanagement of their response to outcomes and my fear is that in schools where we see the greatest outflow teachers take a job until they can get the next job where their transfers aren't even recorded well for us because they're intra-district. So I get into this district and I stay at this school until a job opens up at a preferred site and then I move over there where we're not even collecting that data because it looks like they're still in that district. They're just leaving those schools and that's why that principal has 27 openings. Many of those teachers stayed in that district. They just went to school. What teachers say to us in those schools are number one, hold me accountable fairly. Growth in ESSA gives us the opportunity to change the accountability paradigm because what teachers say is hold me accountable for what I control. If I get a fifth grader who's at the second grade level at the end of the year they're at the fourth grade level and you tell me I'm a failure that's not what I see as fair and equitable accountability. I moved a student two years and you're telling me I'm a failure I'm going to go to another school. So we look at that. We have to look at that as accountability but also we have to raise up teaching as a profession and recently much of the dialogue has been about how bad teachers are. How horrible it is. What a horrible profession it is and we're now eating our own. When I go to teachers in the profession and I say would you recommend teaching as a career the vast majority to me say no. I tell my own children not to do this. It's not because they don't want to be good teachers it's because we're not allowing them to be good. Going to challenge schools too often our response is more scripting of teachers more regimented pacing guides and more monitoring day to day to say where are you at this moment in time in the sense that teachers feel so put upon that they can't do what brought them into teaching in the first place which is to interact with children in a positive personal way. So part of our effort in Virginia from Governor McCulloch on down is really trying to change the dialogue to say to teachers what you do is valued your work is important and we appreciate it and it's interesting because we're hearing folks begin to echo that message in a way that we hope encourages others to go into teaching and then mentoring and training to help them stay there. But we've got to convince them this is a worthy task and it's worth them committing part of their life even when it may not be economically rewarding part of what we're trying to do. Representative Santos you talked about taking the long view on solutions so talk to us a little about what you're doing in Washington. You co-sponsored HB 1827 which addresses this issue in Washington. What recommendations are you making both in your state and to other state legislators about how to take that long view and what that consists of? Thank you. I really appreciate the setup both by South and the superintendent because I can't disagree with what they described. At the heart I think the key message here is there are big picture issues that we all grapple with and those are in some ways very much the same. But the solutions really are going to have to take a unique stand from the situations in our respective states. So for example an important distinction in my state that I want to draw out is the superintendent and I were having this conversation earlier is we have a very diffuse executive branch. Everybody remembers there are three branches of government. There's the executive often headed by a governor there's the legislative which is the legislature and the judicial. In my state we have nine constitutionally established executive officers. So the governor actually doesn't have sort of the fulcrum of responsibility over education in my state. I share that with you because I don't know where all of you are from but it's going to be important for you to understand you have an appointed superintendent such as superintendent Staples or do you have an elected superintendent such as the superintendent in my state. That's very very important. Back to Linda's question I do think it's very important for me to say that in establishing our response to the issue of the teacher shortage we began with the crisis mode last year and recognize that in a short session we were not going to be able to establish the types of strong institutional responses that this crisis requires. So we said okay let's do what we can in a short 60-day session which is establishing but putting a band-aid over this gushing wound but let us talk and take the time for in the long session which was 2017 to begin addressing some of the long-term solutions. Well one of the first things that we did and somebody asked the question earlier is we tried to assemble all of the right stakeholders so it wasn't just policymakers we brought in and I'm very fortunate to have on my committee several classroom teachers. Having classroom teachers as part of the solution is very important because one of my members said what we really need to do is we need to stop sucking the joy out of education and that goes to your accountability piece is unless we can recapture that sense of joy and the issues of disposition through aligning and consolidating previously disparate efforts addressing the teacher shortage then we won't get to what we really need to do which is a systemic comprehensive solution that addresses igniting the interest supporting teachers recruiting based on unique characteristics you're going to use different strategies for high school students than you are for paraeducators and how many of you have huge military installations in your state they are ripe to begin filling your teacher shortage issues around mentoring and providing incentives those two are going to be a question for policymakers are you creating the right types of investments and incentives where you're getting the most bang out of your buck so for example in my state national board certified teachers get $5,000 bang done if you teach in a title one school hard to read school another $5,000 bang done do we ask anything of them? no those are some of our best mentors presumably so rather than saying how do we recruit new mentors why don't we look at what we have in the field and say what are we doing to ensure that our new teachers our new inductees have the type of mentorship that's going to be meaningful to them again I would hope because I'm seeing the one minute sign here that you will ask questions that are about sort of the long term but the final thing I want to say is I'm hoping to engage LPI and this group of experts in a true long term conversation in Washington state that will stretch over a number of years to talk about the various aspects not just about teachers but also about principals and leadership and how we bring our superintendents and our local boards into this conversation so that we can do what is an old pacific islander saying which is if you want to get to your destination everyone has to be in the canoe pulling in the same direction that's great I love that metaphor that's a good thing for us to invite the audience if there are questions that you would like to raise please come up to the microphone we have a couple of folks aiming in that direction excellent we have about nine minutes for those questions so we might take a couple of questions and then let you play off of those good morning I'd like to thank the panel my name is Peggy Brookins I'm the presidency of the national board for professional teaching standards so you answered one of my questions already but the second question I have is around reciprocity and how you see reciprocity helping the teacher shortage problem that's great we're going to hold that question and combine it with a couple of others so you can kind of keep notes or sharpen your brains yes my name is Samantha Kova I'm a former third grade teacher from Cleveland Ohio oh this is my hometown and my experience in teaching I found that it was while rewarding it was the most emotionally physically mentally exhausting experience I've ever had to date and I'm just wondering as we talk about teacher turnover and retention what's being done to address the mental health of our teachers as well as our students because we are finding in this new generation of learners and families teachers are simply not equipped to address the needs of our students so what is being done on the mental health aspect and yeah just interested in that so much we'll take one more and then we'll take another batch Melinda good morning my name is Melinda George and I'm with Learning Forward I want to say thanks to this panel and the one before it's been a terrific discussion my question is really I think kind of goes along with the one just asked and that is around professional learning for teachers if we're really looking at how we retain teachers what kind of support are we providing in schools and through districts in order to make sure those teachers feel supported and I don't necessarily mean training I mean real professional learning supports you all right so we have reciprocity mental health and professional learning support would you like to start us off Steve Wow nine minutes piece of cake well we don't have all of this we only have about three minutes all right I'll do this in one there are two things we're working on and I can't answer all three of those questions but you you've hit an important issue for us in Virginia and that is as we look at providing help to teachers we can't just look at it as a classroom only exercise the State Board of Education just passed a series of staffing adjustments to say what will the state pay for we have a shared finance model where they focused most of their changing ratios was to increase the number of school counselors psychologists and social workers that's why so many of our children come from trauma backgrounds that teachers even the best are often unable to deliver high quality instruction in a manner that's effective because the children can't overcome the trauma that care also goes to teachers as we've been training them in trauma informed care to help them better understand how those interactions with children allows good instruction to flow through those kids and then finally I guess the last one is because our first lady is very involved in this we really been trying to ramp up our programs to feed children know is that a lot of children come to school and they are very concerned about where the next meals coming from or they've missed the last meal last night at our teacher of the year banquet the governor was pleased to announce that we served a one million more breakfasts last year and we had in any previous year and those were the children who likely never had breakfast so we're looking outside the classroom to provide supports to children and training to teachers to help them understand how trauma impacts learning in the classroom the only thing I would add is just on the professional learning and growth that has to be continuous that has to be collaborative and in that way that'll be that'll help support teachers along their career path and just to step back and the Santos said about the big canoe I think that helps a lot is bringing the teacher voices into the discussion feeling like you're being heard feeling like you're not only you're not an add-on you are part of the process of developing the policy across the state and that's the only way in my experience overall not just at this job that's the only way to make these reforms sustainable anyhow you know this is not a nice have but if you actually want your policy to stay and sick it has to include educator voices and parent voices community voices in that discussion to make it work thank you let me dispense with the first question around reciprocity an important important question I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you we are struggling with that in our state and I suspect most states are and of course the tension is between getting more warm bodies but also making sure that the standards established by Washington state are met and so we are struggling that's really the best answer I can give to you right now but the other pieces that I didn't want to touch on with respect to mental health both for teachers and students perhaps some of you know there was another shooting just this last week in Washington state and it has really to do I think with a couple of things that we as policy makers can really focus in on one has to do with social emotional learning standards are your states actually moving down in that direction are you upholding and providing support for the multi-tiered system of supports that benefits both students and faculty in the buildings the other two elements that I would focus in on our RTI response to intervention and what we in our state are calling WISP the Washington integrated student support protocol where again what we want is to engage our schools as they were originally created as centers of our community why are we asking our educators to be all do all for our students when there are issues around trauma when there are issues around hunger when there are issues around homelessness and we can't ask our educators to do all of that but we can and should be asking our communities to step forward that's great thank you let me just add you mentioned the social emotional learning there is a lot of work going on now around social emotional learning for teachers as well including mindfulness and other kinds of training that is being very helpful to a lot of folks dealing with the stresses of teaching and being that's I'm really glad that you brought that up and on reciprocity there are these challenges because states have their different standards and some states have really dropped their standards to a point where you're now not sure what the license means in that state when somebody comes in with it on the other hand national board certification is a national standard and one thing states can do and many say if you come in with a national board certification you are automatically licensed in our state so that's one national way to get some reciprocity there is a a performance assessment that many states are taking up the at TPA and that's another way that people can have a common standard when they cross state line so I think we're gonna have to start looking at those kind of strategies because reciprocity is really important 25% of teachers change states and a lot of teachers leave teaching and become a real estate agent at the point where they can't transfer their license into that other state so Mark nice to see you I'm gonna take three questions again and we'll see what we can do with those before the end of the hour thank you Linda and Desiree and panelists for this incredibly important work my name is Mark Simon and I'm here today with a new group called empower ed DC which is trying to lift the voice of teachers on classroom school climate issues and my question is about the politics of this issue of teacher turnover in DC for example the school system recruited researchers to you know to show that that when you look at the test scores of teachers who leave versus teachers who come in there's a marginal improvement evidently in the DC data in other words this huge effort to say teacher turnover isn't important and I don't think it's hard to well it is hard actually to look at that data and see why that data isn't really reflecting what's going on and why there are things that are impacted by teacher turnover that they're not even looking at but my question is have you encountered that kind of denial and use of researchers to come in and downplay the issue and if you have what do you do about that specifically the use of research to kind of deny that this is an issue turnover deniers exactly all right we have it's actually 1101 so I appreciate people being here Jane I want to give you a chance to quickly ask your question if it's a one second question kudos to you all for an incredible effort and keeping this on the national radar screen I can't tell you just from being in DC how important your voice is question about the future and representative a quick one and an easy one Santos not so easy do we need to begin to look at how we're structuring the roles in schools given all the millennials who are not going to stay in a profession for 30 years the way we did in our generation do we need to think about a senior master core supervising people who rotate through every two or three years and is that happening anywhere and can we make it happen easy one how you doing Sean Warner from Clark Atlanta University I would like to thank the panel again for a wonderful discussion two very quick questions one statement one question I want to thank the superintendent I want to I appreciate the comment that he made about trauma because as a former dean actually twice over it was something that I kept trying to push amongst the faculty about looking at trauma and I think that there are great opportunities on occasion to look at trauma across their actual programs but the question is for my friend from Washington what is Washington doing to sell itself right sell itself to get candidates particularly candidates of color to their state I'm not saying that you don't have that I know that you do but I wonder about that I wonder about are there we looked at partnering with MSIs across the nation we know that there's a major demographic shift that's happening in the south and obviously when you look at the numbers as well as those that are graduating from high school since 2013 we know that the numbers dropped and so at least till about 2023 we won't see that again so basically there'll be less teachers coming out anyway there has been just for those who want to reference that statistic a 35% drop in the number of people going through teacher education so it is 1104 I'm going to give each of you about a minute to take one of the questions that most appeals to you and we have research on turnover new structures that might be needed in schools and how will Washington sell itself maybe we should let you start with that well thank you for those questions I think it is very important again I'm going to go back to how it's very unique in every local school district so for example in some select school districts where they have 10,000 or more students I thought it was very interesting that there was actually an increase in white teachers in Seattle Spokane and Highline why is that important because Highline school district in my state is the most diverse district in the state so we're seeing an increase in white to this gentleman's point whereas in Tacoma which is one of the largest black student populations along with Seattle we've seen a decrease in black teachers and in Yakima and Kennewick where we have large migrant populations we have seen an increase in Hispanic teachers so what I'm saying is that the solution is going to have to be locally driven just at the state but what the state can do and what we have started to do is we put together a marketing campaign beginning last year that needs to be beefed up but what we need to also do is work with our largest businesses in the areas to help us and this is a much larger conversation for some future date where high cost areas like Seattle are driving teachers away because they can't afford to live there whereas rural districts their issue is how do you attract and retain those teachers who don't imagine a lifetime of living in a small community where your school district has 70 students just imagine what that looks like so all of our responses are going to have to be very tailored to individual school districts and this is too important to leave to chance we have to come together and work on what the collective solution is that provides tailored responses to every district thank you one minute I will try and address the notion of restructuring roles in schools it is something we're having pretty substantive conversations about our legislative body has supported two important initiatives there one they've developed permissive legislation which would allow a school division to become a division of innovation and we have been given permission to waive everything but state and federal law so the state board has the authority to say it's a do over how would you like to do it and what we're seeing is school divisions are stepping up with different looking staffing models that I think respond to the reality of supply and demand if you need 20 math teachers and you only have one applicant then you may not be able to maintain the structure because you're going to have 19 classrooms with no math teacher they're looking at creating a lead math teacher position that works then with either residency students or apprentices who are working to go into the profession and that teacher directs the activities of the others I call it the dental model I'm old enough to remember when I went to the dentist and the dentist cleaned my teeth I spent a half hour with my dentist I went last week and I spent 30 seconds with my dentist and other people did it under his direction in tutelage with him checking on what was going on I think we've got to look at that and most importantly as we elevate teachers to become supervisors and mentors working with folks who are moving into the profession it is not just money it's time for some reason in K-12 we didn't get the memo that higher ed got and higher ed was better at this we don't value non-student contact time if you're a K-12 teacher we believe the only value you have is if you are constantly engaging with students and any time away from students we say well that's worthless time I think we've got to change that model to recognize that our teaching professionals need to have non-student contact time so they can work with colleagues or train folks who are moving into the profession and if we look at a staffing model that gives them time and money I believe in the long run we'll get teachers to stay I'll try to group both the questions together which I think really is about the attractiveness of the profession how do you improve the attractiveness of the profession and I think to Jane's point about teacher leadership opportunities really provide that ability but a recruitment one as well and that's upping the attractiveness of it I think of Governor Branstad's work and continued under Governor Reynolds out in Iowa the teacher leadership and compensation system they have there governor creating the space for more teacher leadership opportunities we have increased retention and what does that say to the teachers in that state that they're going to be supported that you're treating teachers as professionals and that's bringing them into the classroom as well and I think really quick point to note on that is that it's the governor creating the space and the vision and the bully pulpit for moving it forward but it's also helpful he has a supportive she has a supportive commissioner Ryan Wise who's moving that forward in the day-to-day implementation as well as a supportive one so it's just it's key when all kind of work on these important issues so that leaves you with the research question I think which I'll take one second to simply say that the particular study mark that you were talking about people drew inferences and claims from that study that were not that went well beyond the actual analysis and the data that were there to be inferred from but there are different perspectives out there about turnover and there there was a line of argument for a period of time that we should try to fire the bottom 5% of teachers every year and then overall the average would go up and we would eventually get to Finland and I made the claim that you cannot fire your way to Finland because in fact what they do is prepare people really well they keep them for a whole career and invest in their professional learning development and we're in a situation where if we were to let people go in large numbers on that model we wouldn't have qualified people to replace them and we also know that the very fact of turnover when it's high at a school level reduces achievement for the kids in the school not only those whose teachers left but for the other kids in the school because of the disruptions and so on so there is a variety of perspective I think one view is let people go have them come in and out it's cheaper is the view you can keep people at a low salary level nobody vests in the retirement system and you can just kind of have a kind of a Walmart teaching force we have a lot of evidence which of course this report is part of that in the long run that has big both financial costs for districts and achievement and learning costs for students and we will continue to see lots of research being done on this question and hopefully research that really takes those variables and the life of the school and what that does to the life of the school into account. I want to thank everyone who has stayed beyond our nobody left to run out at the bell thanks to our cosponsors to staff who participated in particular Jessica Carteshawn Maria Heiler who did a lot of our organizing Shawnee's hood there she is in the back Deanna Julie all of our DC office staff who were busy stuffing envelopes over lunch yesterday thanks to you for coming and for all you will do to help strengthen the teaching profession and to reduce teacher turnover.