Looking for lost Iowans. Trying to lure them back home.

It’s not that Iowa can’t train its workforce. We not only educate Iowans in all trades and professions, we also train students from all the surrounding states.

The problem? After we provide them a world-class education at rock bottom prices, they disappear for jobs elsewhere.

But I don’t mean to discuss the irrationality of providing higher education with “state” institutions in a global economy that renders even nations irrelevant.

No, our subject is the future availability of quality teachers for Iowa’s K-12 schools. Clearly that remains a proper concern for Iowans – historically, economically, and legally.

It turns out our problems are even more severe than those the governor confronted in Chicago.

The Iowa State Education Association wants to inform our state’s citizens of those problems and some solutions. The ISEA is the state organization of teachers. As with most professional associations, one of its purposes is to increase the pay of members.

But since teachers’ pay is central both to the problems we confront and their solution it’s a purpose we can all support.

And the ISEA’s vision goes well beyond money. It’s version of the “three R’s” includes “recruitment, retention and respect.”

[About 70 percent of Iowa’s teachers are women. But teaching is no longer the only option for the best and the brightest. Women make up half of our entering law school class. Careers in medicine and engineering are available. Careers that offer rewards and respect – not to mention pay – many women prefer to those of teaching.]

[Of the few who do major in education, one-half choose never to teach. Of the half who do, a half of them are gone within seven years.]
 
Iowa shares in the national problems. America needs 2.2 million new teachers by 2008. But Iowa’s dilemma is worse.

• Recruitment. Iowa’s in a double bind. Within the next 10 years 40 percent of Iowa’s teachers will be eligible to retire. Finding replacements would be tough under the best of circumstances. But Iowa goes into the market at a time when the state has slipped from 25th to 35th among the 50 states in teachers’ salaries. [Iowa’s widening gap is now nearly $6000 below the national average.]

• Retention. Nationally, 9 percent of first-year teachers leave after one year. That’s bad enough. But Iowa’s rate is roughly twice that. Neighboring states are luring our teachers away with everything from higher pay to signing bonuses to housing assistance.

• Respect. Respect involves far more than pay. But in a capitalist society, like it or not, it’s a major measure. Iowa teachers with master’s degrees earn $25,000 less than Iowans with master’s degrees in other professions. [Even within K-12 education, pay hikes for administrators far exceed those for teachers – with superintendents the biggest beneficiaries of all.]

Fortunately for us, our school district is better off than most. Of the state’s 375 school districts 258 have fewer than 1000 students each. They are really feeling the pinch. But we can’t escape their plight. The success of each Iowan depends on the success of all Iowans.

Will the success of this campaign require more of us than asking for increases in teachers’ pay?

Of course.

Public responsibility as well as public relations demands it.

• We need consolidation of districts. Merely pouring more money into those 258 inefficient districts isn’t going to solve their problems – or Iowa’s.

• We need measures of educational output that demonstrate to taxpayers’ satisfaction how and why they are getting more brain for the buck.

• We need demonstrations, more than words, that show school administrators’ willingness and ability to use limited resources efficiently. To think outside the box. To embrace the innovations that simultaneously cut costs and improve quality.

But ultimately we reach the bottom line: Recruitment, retention and respect.

They all require more dollars – and your support.

Nicholas Johnson is an Iowa City School Board member. More information is available on his Web site, http://www.nicholasjohnson.org.