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U.S.
Senator Member: Finance, Agriculture, Energy, Ethics and Aging Committees |
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For Immediate
Release February 14, 2007 |
CONTACT: Cody Wertz – Comm.
Director |
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rural school districts face a difficult challenge in retaining experienced and qualified teachers in their classrooms. The combination of declining populations and decreasing school district budgets frequently results in teachers leaving rural districts within three years to pursue careers in more urban or suburban settings where there is often better economic opportunity. Meanwhile, rural students lose the benefit of experienced teachers in the classroom. To help rural school districts overcome this hurdle, United States Senator Ken Salazar today introduced the Rural Teacher Retention Act, which will provide teachers in rural districts with bonuses to help retain them in underserved rural districts. “As any adult knows, an experienced and gifted teacher can make all the difference in a child’s education. Many of the teachers in rural districts right now are working hard on behalf of their students every day. Unfortunately, today rural school districts do not have the budgets to attract and keep qualified teachers when other teachers retire or move on. The Rural Teacher Retention Act would provide incentives to keep and draw those teachers and in the end benefit the students with the steady hand of a talented teacher,” said Senator Salazar. Senator Salazar’s Rural Teacher Retention Act would create a five-year, ten-state, $50 million pilot competitive grant program within the U.S. Department of Education for rural school districts (those receiving funding under the Rural Education Achievement Program, or REAP). The funds would be used by rural school districts to provide signing and retention bonuses to teachers who commit to work at least three years in a given rural district, with bonuses only available to teachers who are considered “highly qualified” under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Rural school districts would be eligible for the grants based on a number of considerations, including teacher turnover rate, the presence of students from low-income or migrant families and the number of Indian schools in a state. After the five year pilot, the Department will report on its success to Congress. The proposal is similar to legislation Senator Salazar filed in 2005 to address this same issue. Earlier this year, Senator Salazar released a statewide survey of more than 2,000 Colorado educators, school principals and administrators, parents, education experts and others regarding their experiences and perspectives on the No Child Left Behind law. Among the findings in his survey was that more than one-third of school principals and administrators and more than half of superintendents and school district administrators said their school or school district has difficulty in recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers and para-professionals due to their rural location. In Colorado, the turnover rate for rural teachers is 23 percent – more than double the statewide average of 10 percent. Further, the nationwide teacher turnover rate is approximately 15 percent, while in rural districts where 400,000 teachers (31 percent of the nation’s educators) work with eight million students each day, the teacher turnover rate is sometimes as high as 30 and 40 percent. These teachers earn on average 14 percent less than their counterparts in urban or suburban districts and often teach as many as three subjects due to teacher shortages. # # #
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