In the last issue of this newsletter, we looked into the overall question of salaries, benefits, and other working conditions in the field of adult basic education by presenting the results of a survey of Boston-region ABE programs regarding changes in these areas over the past few years, along with letters from individual practitioners regarding their employment situations in ABE. Now, continuing our focus on these issues, we present the results of interviews we've been conducting, both with teachers currently working in the field and with teachers who have left this field for greener pastures. We spoke with them in order to learn more about the various factors that act to discourage people from remaining in the field, resulting in the high turnover rates among staff, at least in the Boston region.
Some of the primary causes of ABE staff turnover that we heard about include: low salaries and the absence of increases; the lack of benefits, especially health insurance; the scarcity of full-time jobs; poor job security, resulting from the unpredictability of funding; hours that are awkward and inconvenient; increasing teaching loads and demands upon teachers; and the absence of mechanisms for recognizing and rewarding the experience and dedication of staff. Each of these conditions contributes to a situation where, for many people, working in adult basic education is seen, not as truly a possible career choice, but rather as something they do just for a while, until they figure out what sort of real career they want to pursue. And, of course, many others do not see this sort of "treading water" occupationally as a realistic possibility in their own lives and thus do not consider the ABE field to be an option at all, even on a short-term basis.
Meanwhile, the resulting turnover of staff has a profound effect upon students, other staff, programs, and the field as a whole, all of whom must cope with the difficulties posed by high rates of staff turnover. For example, students must "break in" new teachers; other staff see colleagues disappear around them and wonder why they should stay themselves; programs spend huge amounts of time and energy recruiting, hiring, and training new staff; and the field overall often finds it difficult to move ahead in areas of staff and program development.
We'd like to illustrate these issues here briefly with some of what we've heard from the people we've talked with. Obviously, they can neither speak for nor represent everyone who has worked in this field, but their situations are common enough that much can be learned from looking at the field through their eyes. (Some are identified here by name; others, at their request, are not.)
Most teachers who leave the field speak fondly of their time in adult education and attribute their leaving in large part to issues related to salaries, benefits, and the lack of stable, full-time positions. Lee Hewitt, Karen Samuelson, and Maureen O'Connor have all left the ABE field to work in the public schools. Lee spoke of the uncertain nature of ABE program funding, the difficulty of piecing together a full-time job from several part-time ones, and the ever-present likelihood that her hours would be cut. "Adult ed. works for people who have partners who make a lot of money....If you want people to stay in the field, you can't have so many part-time jobs." Karen told us that when she left the field she was in the process of adopting and needed to be able to show a secure income. She also knew that with a young child, ABE's unpredictable hours were likely to be a problem. She feels "the only way to improve things is to unionize." Maureen O'Connor said, "I left the field because I wanted full-time work with benefits. Even when I got that [in ABE], the pay was too little ($23,000) and the benefits cost me a lot (half of Harvard Community Health Plan). I did as much prep for adult ed. as I do now and I make double what I was making before." One teacher, who said she'd been in ABE for seven years, told us, "I'm 34 years old. I can't keep living with roommates." And another teacher stated that she left the field when her program's funding grant ran out. "My personal goals call for security....I'm interested in many things, in planning a life."
Of course, in many fields, workers expect periodic salary increases that reflect hikes in the cost-of-living and their increased seniority on the job. In adult ed. this is hardly the norm. Few programs have mechanisms for recognizing the experience, dedication or professional development of staff. As Maureen O'Connor said, "There was no recognition of my Master's degree or my years of experience." And adding insult to injury are the skimpy benefits offered by most part-time and even many full-time jobs. The high cost of health insurance was mentioned as a factor that reduced already low salaries, and the lack of a retirement plan was also a prominent issue. Again quoting Maureen, "At this age, I'm concerned about retirement....That was a factor in my going back to the public schools."
Other teachers alluded to the additional stresses of teaching in ABE: multilevel classes with more needs than a teacher can possibly hope to meet; the escalating number of teaching hours demanded; the burden of other duties, such as recruiting and counseling, which eat up prep time; the awkward schedules and strange hours teachers must often accept; and the lack of opportunity to do new things. "It's beginning to feel like a 'rat race' without the benefits," one teacher commented, and several teachers said they would be more willing to put up with these things if their salary did more to compensate for them.
Though the fact that teachers are underpaid isn't news, the effects of teacher turnover on students are often minimized or not mentioned at all. As Maureen pointed out, when the last program she worked at had tremendous turnover, students were demoralized. Many who were pre-GED dropped out. Students who are most at risk and most in need of the services were losing their teachers; they needed continuity but their teachers were dropping out. As one student told her, "I can't break in a new teacher." Ironically, Emily Singer, a former workplace education teacher, did note one positive effect of her program's funding difficulties-one student became more involved in the program and in trying to secure its funding. But, she says, more generally, unpredictable funding "interrupts the education for students who don't have time or access to other programs because of their working hours or child care constraints."
"You can't help other people be empowered if you aren't empowered yourself," Emily Singer said, pointing out the dissonance between the working conditions for teachers in the field and the empowerment approach she and other teachers believe in. Part-time jobs, low salaries, poor benefits, and other unattractive working conditions-with no relief in sight-certainly take their toll, resulting in the unacceptably high turnover of staff in the ABE field, and it seems that the feeling of hopelessness with regard to the possibility of changing these conditions is as much at fault as the conditions themselves. Raising salaries, improving benefits and other working conditions, and creating more full-time jobs for adult basic education teachers aren't purely self-serving goals, but ones that would also benefit students, programs, and the field as a whole.