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As sub shortage grows, quality control declines in nation's classrooms
Sunday, January 07, 2001
By Jane Elizabeth, Post-Gazette Education Writer
When the teacher doesn't come to class, who fills in?
In schools across the nation, the substitute teachers in those classrooms often not only aren't trained in the subject they're supposed to be teaching -- they're not teachers at all.
A two-month investigation by the Post-Gazette has uncovered the fact that many schools, frantic to find "subs" for absent teachers, are turning classes over to PTA moms, waitresses, college students and even high school students. And the number of untrained, non-teachers taking over the country's classrooms is growing at an astounding rate.
Each day, about 5 million children walk into 274,000 classrooms nationwide and find a substitute. Students today will spend at least one full year with a substitute by the time they graduate from high school -- a figure that's higher in poor schools and destined to increase.
That's a full year with someone who often isn't nearly as qualified as the regular classroom teacher. In fact, parents who bother to check on who's subbing in their child's classroom may be surprised at the lack of qualifications, training and hiring standards.
The Post-Gazette's research, along with a study completed last month by Utah State University and the U.S. Department of Education, shows the following trends:
The Utah State study of 500 random school districts also found that fewer than 20 percent of school districts have formal evaluations of substitutes. In 77 percent of school districts across the country, substitutes are given no training. Of those that do, most take less than a day, and some are so brief they include only an explanation of the bell schedule and directions to the bathroom.
"It's an abomination," said Barnett Berry, a leading national expert on teacher quality. "It's more insidious than we even think at first rush."
"We're hiding the extent of what we're doing from the public," added Berry, an education professor at the University of South Carolina and a director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. "They think that everyone in the classroom is trained to be there."
With an ever-increasing importance placed on student performance -- on state tests required for high school graduation, on college entrance criteria, on ending social promotion -- who's teaching the nation's children becomes more crucial than ever before.
Research and reporting for "A Substitute for Education" was conducted through a National Fellowship in Education Reporting, awarded last summer by the Education Writers Association to Post-Gazette local news editor Jane Elizabeth.
The two-month fellowship program is supported by a founding grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with additional assistance from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Graustein Memorial Fund and the Joyce Foundation.
Post-Gazette staff writers Steve Twedt, Gretchen McKay and Rhonda Miller also contributed research assistance to this project. Editors were Post-Gazette local news editor Lillian Thomas and Hartford (Conn.) Courant education writer Robert A. Frahm. Infographics were done by artist James Hilston.
Jane Elizabeth, local news editor for education, joined the Post-Gazette in 1994. A graduate of Radford (Va.) University, she also holds a master's degree in mass communications from Virginia Commonwealth University. From 1978-1994, she worked for newspapers in Richmond, Va., where she won numerous state and national awards for reporting on education and other issues. Her last series, written with Post-Gazette staff writer Steve Twedt, detailed sexual abuse by teachers and received numerous local, state and national awards. She has been awarded fellowships from the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland and from the Education Writers Association based in Washington, D.C. She also teaches journalism at the University of Pittsburgh.
E-mail: jelizabeth@post-gazette.com; or call 412-263-1510.
And though no nationwide study has been conducted on how teacher absenteeism and the subsequent teacher replacements affect student achievement, at least one report points to a serious problem.
When the Los Angeles Unified School Board asked the district's Independent Analysis Unit to examine the issue, researchers found a "high correlation" between a large number of teacher absences and low student scores on state tests. The correlation was especially significant at the high school level, according to research director Roger Rasmussen.
"A high [teacher] absentee rate contributes to low test scores," said Rasmussen, who conducted the study for the 711,000-student school district.
Somehow, then, the stories students tell about their subs -- like the one they woke up by slamming a book on the floor, or the one who yelled futilely as kids threw toilet paper around the room -- suddenly aren't amusing.
"We take a lot of heat from parents and rightfully so," said Jan Garda, assistant principal at Baldwin High School in Baldwin-Whitehall School District, Allegheny County. "They're pushing us to fix it, fix it, fix it. And we can't fix it."
A difficult subject
Some classes -- music, languages, special education, and the sciences, for example -- are particularly difficult to fill with subs. At Baldwin, as in many schools, principal Warren L. Frabizio said he tries to get someone with appropriate certification to take over for absent teachers. But often he can't, "and if it comes down to filling the class I'll take what I can get. A body is what I need at that point."
Darlene Turner, a parent at Penn Hills High School, said her son struggles now in Spanish class because an unqualified substitute took over the class for two months last year. "They just played around the whole time," said Turner. "They didn't learn anything."
When Trish Scarmuzzi, a special education teacher at Shenandoah Elementary School in Noble, Ohio, calls in sick, sometimes what she hears on the other end of the phone makes her feel even worse.
"When they say, 'We don't have anyone to sub for you,' then I worry about, what are my kids going to do?" she said. "Especially in my class, you need specialized training. Someone off the street, they wouldn't know what to do."
At Elizabeth Forward High School in Allegheny County, the departure of a music teacher last school year left a high school senior in charge of teaching the band class. The drum major taught the class, a school spokesperson said, "but always under the supervision" of a substitute -- a sub who had no musical background.
Ellen Watkins is a new substitute in Fort Myers, Fla., one of many states that now allow substitutes with only a high school diploma.
Ask Watkins how she likes subbing at Fort Myers High School, and she says, "It's awesome!" If that sounds like a youthful response, it's because Watkins is only 18 years old and graduated last spring from the school where she now subs.
Watkins, whose other job is waitressing at the local Olive Garden restaurant, had a training session of only a few hours before she took over for a music teacher on maternity leave in September. But that wasn't difficult, she said. As a show choir member and a dance captain in high school, she had helped her own music teacher daily. So as a substitute in music classes, she said she had instant respect from students who knew her talents.
However, now that the music teacher has returned from maternity leave, Watkins can be assigned to sub in any class -- geometry, history, phys ed -- where she would likely be in charge of a classroom full of her peers.
There's no question that, in some fortunate classrooms, substitutes are real teachers who are competent and properly trained. Like Debbie Trombold of Ohio Township, who has a teaching degree, two children in high school and years of teaching experience. She fills in for teachers at Avonworth High School whenever she's able.
Some, like Marsha Turner of McCandless, who subs in Pittsburgh's northern suburban schools, are dedicated, first-year teachers who are looking for permanent teaching positions.
And principals often rely on retired teachers like Roberta Campbell of Mt. Lebanon, whose reputations and longtime careers get them called back into the classroom as substitute teachers.
But school officials across the country agree that the availability of substitutes with those qualifications are decreasing, and the need is increasing.
A growing shortage
The primary reason the trend is heading in that direction is the nationwide shortage of full-time classroom teachers. A decade ago, teachers who wanted a full-time job typically worked as substitute teachers to get a foot in the door. But teachers today no longer have such a difficult time finding a job -- especially if they're willing to relocate -- and can be hired directly out of college if not before.
A healthy economy also appears to be taking applicants away from substitute jobs. With most schools paying substitutes under $60 a day with no benefits, potential applicants can make more money waiting tables or delivering phone books, according to a study last year by Ashland (Ohio) University education professor Phillip A. Griswold.
Other reasons for the shortage include more attractive teacher contracts that include more sick days, personal days and vacation days.
Additionally, full-time teachers now are being asked to spend more time away from their students and in what's called "in-service training" or "staff development." More than 90 percent of the time, according to Griswold's study, the teachers do this during regular school days -- not nights, weekends or summers -- to learn about new curriculum, teaching methods, classroom management and other topics.
Under Pennsylvania's Act 48, which went into effect in July, professional educators here are no longer entitled to hold their teaching licenses forever. Now, teachers must take six college credits or 180 in-service training hours or any combination of the two during the next five years to maintain their "active" status.
Click for additional chart: Poverty and Teacher Absentee Rates
But across the country, questions have been raised about the value of those "in-service" programs; some have been labeled as a waste of time by education experts.
"This is what's so ironic," said Griswold. When teachers are required to leave their classrooms to attend training sessions, "we replace them with less-than-well-trained substitutes, substitutes who are unqualified or inadequately supported" by school administrators, delivering instruction that's "inconsistent."
And when subs can't be found at all, children are herded into a cafeteria, auditorium or gym for a so-called "study hall," or they're split into groups and sent to sit in other teachers' classrooms. Or, teachers will use their planning periods to fill in for absent co-workers, often without compensation of time or money.
Still, the situation in Pennsylvania hasn't yet become quite so critical that school officials will officially allow 18-year-olds with a high school diploma to become substitutes -- yet. But in the face of the severe substitute teacher shortage, the state has relaxed its requirements and could go even further, some say.
'Fish out of water'
Pennsylvania substitutes no longer must hold a teaching certificate earned through taking education courses in college and passing a teacher exam. Now, applicants with a bachelor's degree in any field can get what's called an "emergency certificate" or a temporary teaching certificate, and can become a substitute.
In five years, the number of emergency certificates handed out by the Pennsylvania Department of Education has increased from 974 issued in 1994 to 4,641 issued in 1999. That represents a significant increase in the number of subs not certified in the subject area they're teaching and those who don't even have training in education.
It's not that all subs without teaching licenses are bad substitutes, noted Jim Barrett, a member of the New Mexico State Board of Education who last year successfully pushed for higher standards for substitutes in a state where there were once no real requirements. "But we have to maintain some standards. All kids should be entitled to the same level of teacher."
But they're not. In Pennsylvania and other states, school districts have formed partnerships with local colleges and are using college students to fill in for teachers in sub-strapped schools.
"I'm afraid things are going that way," said Frank McClard, principal at Avonworth High School. "You can't leave a classroom unsupervised."
Avonworth and many other districts around the country now are actively recruiting community residents -- PTA moms, laid-off dads -- with no education training to work as subs. Typically, the recruits get a brief training session and are put to work in the classrooms.
It's an idea that didn't quite work out in Ambridge Area School District, according to McClard, who was principal at Ambridge High School last year.
"It was a disaster," said McClard. "They were fish out of water. They didn't have that classroom control. It's not easy if you don't have that skill." Still, he believes that a better training program in Avonworth will make better subs out of the non-teacher applicants they're recruiting.
Darla Coleman, a Penn Hills resident who substitutes in Pittsburgh schools, has an emergency certification because she has no teacher training. She's happy with her current job as a permanent substitute in a fourth-grade classroom, but recalled a much more difficult time when she was one of a half-dozen substitutes who trudged through one particular middle-school science class last year.
"It was a very difficult class," she said. "They never got a chance to settle down."
And what did the students learn from her? "I know I covered the material," said Coleman, "but for some students, the learning was zero."
Poor schools, poor subs
The Post-Gazette's research and other studies also found that students in low-achieving, poor schools have another strike against them: more substitutes for their teachers, and often the requirements for those subs are minimal.
And, a study of Pennsylvania's 10 poorest and 10 richest school districts showed that teachers in low-income areas call in sick an average of 6.2 percent of their working days, while the figure in the high-income districts is 4.1 percent.
Also, a PG study of statistics showed that:
The Utah State University study showed that students in at-risk schools are with substitutes for about 13.5 percent of each school year; the figure is 10 percent for all children. Ashland University's Griswold estimates that at-risk children will spend nearly two years with a substitute before they leave school.
That was a scenario that appeared many times as author Laura Sessions Stepp conducted research for her recent book, "Our Last Best Shot: Guiding our Children Through Early Adolescence."
Stepp spent one school year visiting the classrooms of a dozen young teens, and the students "had at least one sub every day I was in their school," she said.
She observed a class in which a 20-year-old substitute, who was a college sophomore, for two days allowed the boys in his small English class to trade Dungeons and Dragons cards. And the female students spent their time flirting with him.
Another substitute, called "Mr. Bald-Headed Man" by the students, worked for five weeks in a math and science class. A math major, he had no teacher training and was more concerned with keeping order in the class than teaching.
In those five weeks, "I didn't learn nothin'," Rodney, a student in the class, told Stepp.
Janet Lopez, principal of Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary School in Cheverly, Md., doesn't need a full-scale study or a year of research to show that substitutes sometimes can impede the progress of struggling students.
Last year, when a fifth-grade teacher in her high-poverty, crowded elementary school became ill and was replaced by a substitute, state test scores plummeted. For instance, the social studies score in that class went from 62 when the regular teacher was there, to 41 when the less-than-ideal substitute took over.
"There was no other reason; nothing else changed," said Lopez.
While Stepp said she soon learned that the abundance of substitutes in poor schools "was not a statistical aberration," she emphasized that the sub shortage "affects everyone."
"I don't want parents to think it's just a problem for at-risk kids," she added.
Nationwide, the substitute shortage "is going to get worse before it gets better," said David Haselkorn, president of Recruiting New Teachers Inc., a nonprofit corporation that has joined with the U.S. Department of Education to provide an on-line clearinghouse for teaching jobs. A recent study by his group showed that 73 percent of school districts had an immediate, urgent need for substitute teachers.
And that, he's afraid, leads to lowering requirements to the point that the sub is simply "an expensive baby sitter."
"We're shortchanging kids, shortchanging schools," he warned.
In some school districts across the country, substitute teacher Marsha Turner would be an anomaly: She's a real teacher with experience and years of training. Daniel Heinauer gets some help from Turner in his second-grade classroom at Highcliff Elementary School, North Hills School District. (Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette) 
In all but one state, substitutes now need no teaching certification whatsoever to take over a classroom, according to the Post-Gazette's research. Iowa still requires a teaching certificate for every substitute; even so, talk is swirling about relaxing those requirements to beat the substitute teacher shortage. In at least 28 states, principals are allowed to hire anyone with a high school diploma or a GED. Often, the minimum age requirement is 18. A Post-Gazette study of national test scores shows that states with lower academic achievement are twice as likely to allow less-qualified substitutes in the classroom. Nearly 12 percent of the districts surveyed didn't require substitutes to fill out a job application. And 56 percent of districts never even have a face-to-face interview with the substitute before hiring. Almost 30 percent of all districts do not conduct background checks, and only half of the districts said they checked references for substitute applicants.
Nine of the 10 lowest-ranked states in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing allowed subs with only a high school diploma to teach in their schools. In each of those states, education spending is thousands of dollars below the national average of about $6,500 per pupil. Of the top 25 states in education spending, nine states require at least a college degree for subs. But in the 25 lowest-spending states, only four require subs to have at least a college degree.