Teachers 202 7488001. All others, the phone number is 202 7488002. You can also catch up with us on social media on twitter, facebook or email at journal cspan. Org. Good tuesday morning. The back to cool back to School Stories have already began. Here is that tallahassee democrat. Students welcomed back at the first day of school. Talking about the 4000 students in leon county who had their First School Day yesterday. In the miami herald, a story about technology in the classroom. Medical challenges, educators and Software Developers are and apparently turning to serious gains to help engage students. To the front page of the Los Angeles Times today, a story about one of the last year round campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School district. That school had begun its school year july 1, talking about how yearround schools have faded over the course of the year. We will hear from our viewers about the state of your local schools. Tell us about your curriculum and your facilities. We have lines for parents, teachers and all others. We will be looking for your comments as well on facebook. Private schools excel, Public Schools have good marks but most are behind by years. Twang onrom bot facebook. Our local school does really well. We need to abolish common core because local schools were doing very well before common core, but since weve adopted these new set of standards our districts have had to spend way to touch money to cover materials, teacher training and anything else you can think of with the smallman of money we receive from top funding small amount of money we receive from top funding. From acceptable to outstanding. More are closer to the outstanding level in spite of the tragic underfunding and the rise of the horrific, for profit, charter schools. You can start calling in now. Lines for parents 202 7488000. Teachers 202 7488001 and all others 202 7488002. We will get to your calls in just a second but we want to focus on this recent story from the New York Times. Teacher shortages spur a nationwide hiring scramble. Credentials are optional. Joining us on the phone is rich. I appreciate you being with us on the washington journal. We want to start with white district are struggling with shortages of teachers. Are we just a few years removed from large teacher layoffs . Definitely certainly in the number of states. During the downturn a lot of state budgets were crippled for the severely. Simply less money for Public Education and there were a lot of jobs lost. The situation was particularly acute in california which lost Something Like 82,000 jobs and that was only as recently as 2007 and 2012 and things have turned around. The economy has picked back up in some state budgets and california is a striking example that have recovered governor jerry brown helped pass a measure and 2012 that added a lot of tax dollars to the Public Education system so suddenly they have money to hire again and there are more kids in school and more kids with different needs. Suddenly all of these districts are turning around and hiring and in some cases they can go back to the pool of people that they laid off. In some cases there simply are not enough people out there predominately because during the recession when all of these teachers were getting laid off and people were hearing in the media students were saying im not going to major in education and get a degree i paid a lot of money for and racked up debt for if there will be a job at the end of it. Is it the macro economics and the larger number of students in classrooms across the country and how much is the factor of teachers being concerned about standardized testing and changes to teaching in general and leaving the workforce . Guest that is a great question on a heard a lot from readers who were themselves currently teachers or had been for many years. Teachingway in which has become incredibly politicized has been chronically underfunded in some districts, increased usee and reliance on standardized test particularly to measure teacher performance. There has been a wave of change among how teachers are in evaluating. Laws passed across states to require that the evaluations include tough scores and also the introduction of these new academic standards which have been very politicized. There is a lot of controversy and attention in the air about teaching and a lot of teachers themselves who said we do not like our jobs anymore. If youre a student considering a career and paying attention, that might put you off and also there have been perennial issues about teaching. Starting salaries are very low and as the economy rebounded, the kids or the young adults living with her parents, having graduated with a lot of debt, unable to find a job except as a there are barista, a lot of opportunities around and high demand. People have been spending the last three to four years and hourly wage jobs were suddenly because they take the computer coding class they are able to jump into a 100,000 per your job. School in the United States is going to pay a starting salary of 100,000. In the scramble to hire teachers, scramble being a word in the headline of your story, as you describe what is happening around the country, is there adequate training for these teachers . Guest i think there is a concern about that. Found thereing, i were many places that were hiring teachers who did not yet have credentials and had not gone through preparation. There were people who were either in the midst of their training which was the best Case Scenario that they had already decided or committed but had not finished it yet. So the district saying why dont you teach fulltime while finishing training. A lot of those on initially, the Education Field is really grappling with the fact that it hasnt necessarily always done a good job of preparing teachers for the reality of the classroom. The preparation has been very academic. In this case they are shortening that process. In some cases people are going into the classroom very little not evene having completed their academic training and of the urgency of hard to fill areas like math or were beingple recruited who had not even started a credentialing program or some kind of training program. People were going into classrooms with literally no experience. Host if you want to read more about it, you can go to the cspan website. Motoko rich is a National New York times reporter. We appreciate you. Guest thank you for having me. Host we are asking viewers to weigh in on this segment. Terrance and teachers and all others tell us about the quality of your local school. Well start with brody from alexandria, virginia and is apparent is a parent. Caller i have a son going into sixth grade in the Fairfax School district. We have a Great School District but the problems i have seen is that the grading system makes no sense to the doesnt tell a child anything because it didnt get a four and it is premuch saying you know everything so you are an a plus student. Then you have the effort grade that shows the effort. It makes no sense. Is thater issue within you have to take a class. You have to go there to understand the grading system and most parents are working. The other thing i am seeing is that i am all about utilizing technology but how do you teach a child math if they have to take the test on a computer. If they click the run button, the question is wrong wrong button, the question is wrong. Youre not looking to see if they can apply what they are learning the application of math. Sometimes these bureaucrats are tying teachers hands from traditional learning as opposed to say it is so stringent as opposed to this way or that way. Host how involved are you in the school itself . Do you share these concerns with other students parents . I dont to the pta because i am us and a parent works fulltime but i do share my concerns with teachers and i share them with the principal. I am a very involved parent. Somethinghat there is my child needs, i am his biggest advocate so i am completely involved. But it is such a bureaucratic system. It is taking away from traditional learning. Because i think they want to utilize some much of the technology which is great but there is a time and a place for technology. Timothy is up next. Washington dc, good morning you are on the washington journal. Good beer today. Host one to school begin for you when does school begin for you . But thei go back soon, bureaucracy of being a teacher that she was just talking about, i have taught elementary school, private School Public school and i noticed that in the inter inner cities where you are actually teaching there is a huge disparity in reference to gender and gender leadership if you have a lot of males in the school and most of the principles are females and psychologically engender biased dealing with leadership in males, especially a blackmail in the inner cities. If you are in the more affluent , a lecture a like Chevy Chase High School and things of that nature, you see a huge gap there in resources and things of that nature. Maestrore they have a a bistro inside of the school. You can get a cappuccino. The disparity in reference to various demographics and geographical locations things of that nature it needs to be addressed. Host how do you address that . Caller i would address it dealing with the actual diversification of learning. Schooleaching elementary in a very depressed area in the southeast in the early 2000s and the kids knew nothing about the world. So we did passport applications at that time and had to fill out what a passport was they didnt know. What is thech them purpose of a passport. Just exposing them to various arrays of knowledge. Not so much in the strict framework of bureaucrats, in which they want you to teach and students to learn but opening it inand becoming very fluid the aspect of knowledge and the very branches of knowledge. So i took students to the various think tanks around the and where policy is made they sat in at lectures in certain seminars referenced to education you also have to take them out of the classroom. Host timothy in washington dc. Speaking of other countries around the world and his passport story, didi fredericks says maybe we should send educators to china and korea to find out what they are doing to prepare their workers and their students. Center hasearch looked into the comparison particularly on math and science in the United States and other countries around the world. The United States ranks 35th out of 64 countries when it comes to student math scores. You can see in the same realm as lithuania and the Russian Federation and the sweden and hungary. As students did in those countries as in the United States. For the science scores the countries were students were the sameg at about level work denmark, spain, lithuania, france, latvia, norway and italy and several others. Information ont the Pew Research Centers website. There are five facts about students in the class of 2015 and in this country. We are asking our viewers to weigh in this morning. What is the quality of the schools in your area. Bill is in massachusetts and is apparent. Good morning. I am a grandparent. Of sending my children to school are long gone. But i would like to talk about that call you just took about passports. The money that we spend on isk, common core facilities humongous in this country. It is very easy to point the fingers at the teachers and to say the buildings should be better or we should have more computers. Before we spend a nickel and sending a child to prek which in my day was called Nursery School. Not kindergarten but Nursery School now it is glorified expensive daycare. We should have these children before they are admitted to prek, they should be made to have to pass a test for it a simple test but these children are going into prek at four years old. So it is reasonable to expect these kids to be able to demonstrate the ability to use please and thank you. Example of when please and thank you is required to required. Host what happens if they do not pass the test . Caller the parents of that child who cannot say please and thank you should be reported to local Child Welfare facilities in whichever state they reside in. It should be intellectual child abuse. If they cannot teach their kids by the time they are four years old to say please and thank you teachers we expect the to take this unproductive product, four years old they are gone because the parents did not do their job. A child says it at home and out but is scared to say it in a School Setting or Something Like that . Caller say that again . Host what if a child is intimidated to say it in a testing setting . How would that work . Would there be a couple of chances that a child might have . Caller you just have a nice room with kranz and stuff like that maybe a cookie and when you give them a cookie, does the kids a thank you . Caller that his bill in buzzards bay, massachusetts. The quality of the local schools in this first segment. For parents, teachers and all others. Linda is in miami, florida. How are you . Host i am good. Go ahead. Caller i teach middle school in miami and we are considered one of the worst schools in the state of florida. My comment is, i want to ask the put to please host go ahead. Caller the please put the issue back on the parents. If the parents would be more receptive, coming to the school, helping the teachers with their children it would be better. Much goingre is too on with free food and free breakfast. The kids through the food and have food fights. They do not respect teachers and they talk back to the teachers. It is difficult for us to teach its difficult for the administration to help as we do andhave help from parents teachers are walking out and do not want to teach because of the violence. There are no repercussions when these children fight the teachers. What are we to do . We pray and bake and we do not know. The government is setting us up for failure. Host one of our viewers brought up the issue of common core. What are your thoughts on that program . caller the main problem is the fact that no one is paying attention to the children. Were trying to teach and they [indiscernible] host you are going in and out but we appreciate the call on the line for teachers. Ift number 202 7488001 Teachers Want to join the conversation. Speaking of common core, the Editorial Board today talked about that program. Common core is not a takeover edge of education. They developed the standards and accepted them voluntarily and implemented them with local flexibility. The federal government merely encourage states to adopt them, as it should have. Until the advent of testing they were able to hide their failure andducate court poor minority students. You can read more on that in the washington post. Christina is waiting on the line for parents in kansas. Good morning. Caller good morning. Fascinated with this common core deal. Who thinks anybody this is a good thing to teach children print off some sheets of the math. Use sit down and you try to do that math. Dont give up. You do the whole thing. It is horrible. It is horrible what they are doing to teachers. I agree with everybody. The elderly gentleman in the lady who is evidently a teacher, parents have to be involved. You cannot replace parents. There is no teaching standard that can ever replace engaged parents. Have a unique perspective because i also work in the court system. We have so many people that come through that are addicted and have children. Those poor kids. I live in a small area. I cannot imagine what a large city has to deal with. Of these parents are coming through and they are so into their own lifestyle. Those poor kids are completely and totally neglected. Can i ask you about the pta and the involvement of the parents in your school. Is it something that a lot of parents are active in deco no, not really. Not like they should be. We dont have anything like a pta. That went away years and years ago. Host how do they make their voices heard. You make appointments, whenever school your child is out. You can go to the school board it is very hard to get people involved in their kids lives and it is hard to get people to speak up. I think they get a little bit intimidated as they are not sure especially without having pta, you are not sure exactly how your child will be perceived in the School District if you make too much noise. And i know most teachers wouldnt do anything. But all it takes is one. That is all it takes to make your kids life miserable. Weve had good experiences and bad experiences. Pretty much all over the board. Right now might make concern with my child is the bath. Math. You have to know what you are doing. With common core it is horrible. It is almost indescribable. Host christina in kansas. This morning we will be talking more about common core and other educational issues in the next segment of the washington journal. We will be joined by Campbell Brown. So the next 20 minutes or were just hearing from you, our viewers about the quality and the local schools. For the amount of money we spend on education we stink is what he writes this morning. Here are some stats on u. S. Thepupil education in elementary and secondary spending. The states that spend the most perpupil is new york with 19,000 818. 6500has the lowest with 55 and the average in this country and the 2013 fiscal year was 10,700. That is across all states in this country. Some stats to show you this morning especially about the quality of local schools in your area. Kerry is in illinois. It morning. Caller good morning. I am the teacher but have two daughters that are teachers. One is in the william penn district in philadelphia and i have one teacher in illinois. She has three certificates to teach in pennsylvania, florida and illinois, and cannot get a job because she doesnt speak another language. Hich is very difficult which i think is unfair, because we are spending