VCC Summer-Fall 2021

V irginia C apitol C onnections , S ummer /F all 2021 20 that included $300,000 to create an early childhood teacher preparation pathway within the well-established VCU RTR program. This serves as an example of what is scalable at the state level, where a line item supporting teacher residencies exists and can be expanded. State and federal funding to secure financially feasible options for future teachers to earn degrees and the preparation needed for them to remain in education, serving our most valuable members of society: our children. 1 Miller, L.C. (2018). A First Look at Teacher Retention in Virginia. 2 Prepared to Teach. (2021). Beyond Tuition, Costs of Teacher Preparation. 3 Virginia’s average teacher salary is 28% lower than the average salary. 4 Miller, L.C. (2018). A First Look at Teacher Retention in Virginia. 5 Kini, T. & Podolsky, A. (2016). Does Teaching Experience Increase Teacher Effectiveness? 6 https://teachrtr.org/ Adria Hoffman, Ph.D., serves as the Anna Lou Schaberg Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Virginia Commonwealth School of Education. She currently serves as the President of the Virginia Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators and as the Teacher Education representative on the Virginia Public Education Coalition. Removing the Teacher Workforce Barriers from page 19 As young people, families, and educators continue to emerge from the pandemic and resume in-person instruction, I can’t think of a time when ensuring that our public schools had the resources they need was more vital. We have kids and educators who have been through times of enormous stress; school systems that labored valiantly to help students and families who needed not just learning materials, but basics like food; and academic ground to make up. Delegate Lashrecse Aird and Senator Jennifer McClellan offered a roadmap with great potential progress in the 2021 General Assembly when they introduced a bill calling for the state to fully fund the Standards of Quality recommended by theVirginia Board of Education. The SOQs really just set minimum standards for what our public schools should provide—yet the General Assembly has not fully funded them for years, forcing localities to come up with extra money. Despite the full backing of the State Board, Aird and McClellan’s bill, called The School Equity and Staffing Act, did not pass, leaving many of our schools in a continued state of underfunding and under- resourcing. Strong, well-supported public schools are essential for our children, our families, our economy—our very future. The primary responsibility for those schools falls to the state, as Virginia’s Constitution instructs state leaders to “seek to ensure that an educational program of high quality is established and continually maintained.” The state needs to do more to fulfill that responsibility. School funding draws from both state and local sources (and a small amount from the federal government). Virginia currently provides about 42 percent of K-12 funding of schools, among the lowest in the Southeast. This shifts an unfair burden to local communities, who must now come up with 51 percent—a very heavy lift for many localities where property tax proceeds don’t bring in the kind of money schools need. What’s more, Virginia ranks 41st in the nation in per-pupil state funding. Surely, we can do better than that. What does it say about our priorities? An artificial cap on the number of education support professional positions has also reduced the staff members needed to provide the kind of public education our children need and deserve. Educators feel these funding shortfalls both in the lack of classroom resources and school facilities, but in their wallets, too. Virginia’s teachers are paid about $6,500 less than the national average salary for teachers. That fact is a clear contributor to the current teacher shortage facing our commonwealth, with theVirginia Department of Education reporting more than 1,000 vacant teaching slots statewide. All this is working against our public schools at a time when expectations are also continuing to be raised for those schools. The percentage of kids living in poverty has grown significantly, as has the number of young people coming to our schools who don’t speak English as a first language, both of which present stiff educational challenges that call for additional resources. COVID has left schools in dire need of more mental health options for students, too. There are clear needs for items such as additional school counselors, wider broadband access, expanded early childhood education, renovations and updating to school buildings, and a statewide equity fund to help level the playing field for our most disadvantaged students. During the General Assembly’s special session in August, legislators made some progress by using federal funds that came to Virginia through the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan: Some $700 million was dedicated to expanding broadband access, which has become an important equity issue; and $250 million was directed to infrastructure, specifically school ventilation systems (though using that money calls for a local matching investment, leaving poorer school divisions in a bind). During that same special session, lawmakers declined to invest in the equity fund and made little headway on school-based social services. That’s a missed opportunity to prioritize our young people. We can, and must, do better by our children and by the professionals who have dedicated their careers to our students and our schools. Darrell Turner is a Virginia Preschool Initiative teacher in Richmond Public Schools and also serves as vice president of the Richmond Education Association. Resources for Schools Have Never Been More Vital BY DARRELL TURNER • past editions online • subscribe • advertise WWW. VCCQM . ORG B ENNETT F UNERAL H OME Charles D. Morehead, Sr. Funeral Director & General Manager 3215 Cutshaw Avenue Richmond, Virginia 23221 (804) 359-4481 V V