Oklahoma Teacher Motivation Report

The biggest blame to all of this is most likely the salaries at which the teachers get paid. There hasn’t been a state pay raise for teachers in eight years leading most teachers to hope for one sooner than later (Doney). The National Education Association reported that there is only three other states in the United States that pay teachers more money in contrast making it harder to attract teachers and keep them in Oklahoma (Cameron). Keeping teachers in Oklahoma is a challenge for most schools being that there are over 1000 teacher openings across Oklahoma with no teachers to fill them (Doney). Raising teachers’ salaries is not going to just bring more teachers in to Oklahoma to teach. But in a survey from 2014 the Oklahoma Council of Public
Special education, math and foreign language are the hardest positions to fill. In past years schools would receive ten to fifteen applications but this year they are only receiving three to four applications (Edger). As indicated by the Oklahoma Teachers Retirement System, about 15,000 instructors retired in the course of recent years including the 1,100 early retirees but in just these last couple of months there have been nearly 3,090 teachers retired. Before the 2015 school year started a Tulsa Superintendent sent out letters to more than 900 retired educators to consider returning back with pay increases but this act only fill thirty five openings. The amount of retirees has been increasing more and more each year but not all teachers leave because of the pay or the students. Most teachers that are thinking about retiring retire early because of the duties that come along with being a teacher in this day and age (Edger). Meetings can be one the most leading reasons for teachers leaving because of the amount of the
This act by Oklahoma City Public Schools helped but did not even put a dent in this state wide problem (Cameron). To help shrink these vacancies they are issuing Emergency Certifications (Doney). “Emergency Certifications allows someone without formal training to step into the classroom and teach” (Doney). Emergency Certifications can only be issued once and if the personal wishes to continue to be a teacher they must go through courses and pass them to continue their teaching career in Oklahoma (Doney). In recent years the constant increase of Emergency Teaching Certifications issued has increased starting from July of 2014, 71 certifications were approved compared to 2015’s July with 182 certifications approved (Cameron). Even with all the emergency certifications being issued there isn’t a lot of request for special education, math, and foreign language certifications (Edger). Elementary and early childhood teachers count for over half of the emergency certifications (Edger). With this crazy amount of individuals entering the classroom with emergency certifications raises doubts about their instructional performance as well as the districts understanding to guide these amateur teachers