AFT-NH Testimony on SB 374 Relative to the Licensing of Part-time Teachers
From Debrah Howes, President AFT-NH
Thank you, Chair Ladd and Members of the House Education Committee. Thank you for reading my testimony.
My name is Debrah Howes. I am president of the American Federation of Teachers – New Hampshire.
I am here to speak on behalf of our 3700 members across the state, as well as the students, families, and communities we serve. Our members include preK through 12 public school educators and support staff, university faculty as well as town employees. I am here today to testify in opposition to SB 374 Relative to the Licensing of Part-time Teachers.
We all want to do what is best for our students in our local neighborhood public schools. We want them to have challenging academics, small class sizes, plenty of help from trained paraeducators when they need it and access to the school nurse or counselor when problems arise. Keeping schools staffed in these times of shortages has been a challenge but hiring parttime uncertified staff to teach in our schools, even if they are experts in a content area is not the answer to the teacher shortage. It puts the needs of the students and the quality of the education they receive behind filling empty spaces in the system and for that reason we resoundingly object to SB 374.
Teaching is more than just knowing the academic content you need to present to students. It is a very specific skill set that encompasses the ability to communication with both students and parents, knowledge of child and adolescent development, knowledge of exceptional learners at both ends of the bell curve, knowledge of different teaching methods (when to use them and when to adapt them), how to differentiate instruction, how to develop formative assessments so they measure what you want to measure, and how to adjust your instruction based on the results. Teachers must learn how to get students engaged in a lesson, maintain their attention to a task and motivate them to complete their work. Teachers must learn classroom management, so that most of a student’s time is actually spent on learning. They must learn behavior or conflict management so issues between students don’t take the whole classroom off task. And they must learn all the schools protocols and procedures to make sure they are keeping students safe, watching for signs a student might be considering self-harm, and watching for signs they might be experiencing bullying in school or even online. This list is long, but by no means everything!
The list outlined above describes many of the things that are separate and distinct from the academic content area expertise that a teacher needs to have to be able to do their job effectively. It is in the best interest of the students in front of them that all their teachers have these skills, and requiring teachers to be certified is the best way to do that. A certified teacher who has gone through a teacher preparation program in college, and done practicums and student teaching, comes into the job with much of this knowledge and some practical tools already in their tool kit. Each year on the job teachers add to their knowledge and tool through professional learning and professional development, which is required to maintain certification. A teacher in an alternative certification program is working on a plan to fill in any gaps in their knowledge and experience base and has support from their district while they acquire these important student facing skills. Throwing content area experts in without these skills they need to teach is not fair to the content area experts, or to the students.
Simply put, not everyone who knows their content is cut out to be a teacher. When I was in high school, several decades ago, we had a substitute teacher for math. Our regular teacher was out for a planned medical absence, and they hired a retired engineer to fill in. He knew his math. He was, literally, a rocket scientist! What he didn’t know was how to break down the math concepts he loved into smaller steps and explain them to high school sophomores. It was the start of a new unit, so we had no idea what he was trying to teach us. When no one raised their hand to answer his questions, he drew diagrams on the board. When still no one could answer, he didn’t have any other way to explain it to us. The only tool in his toolbox was to repeat himself more slowly, and loudly, and to underline the diagram again and again. Needless to say, we were all frustrated. No one learned much geometry that week. We were all glad when our regular teacher came back.
Now imagine if this were a content area expert hired as an uncertified teacher to fill a parttime position because he is a content area expert. It wouldn’t be just a week of frustration; it could be a whole year. How much math would students lose out on, not because the content area expert doesn’t know it, but because he doesn’t know how to teach? Students don’t get that time back.
Don’t experiment with uncertified parttime teachers. We urge you to find SB 374 Inexpedient to Legislate.
Sincerely,
Debrah Howes
President, AFT-New Hampshire