Taking a Bite Out of Education

Olivia Remmerden knew she wanted to be a teacher at 8 years old.

“I have this distinct memory from my second grade class where we had to draw pictures of ourselves and what we wanted to do with our lives,” Remmerden said. “It was me teaching in a classroom.”

The 21-year-old University of Idaho third-year student said she didn’t know exactly what triggered that early desire to teach, but it has stuck with her ever since.

Remmerden, who is studying elementary education with an endorsement in English as a new language, said she not only hopes to teach academic lessons, but social and emotional ones, hitting all aspects of life.

“From so many experiences along the way — through middle school, high school and even college — it’s been so obvious that I made the best decision,” said Remmerden, who is also minoring in Spanish. “We deal with academics, we deal with emotions, we deal with any sort of problem that a student is having in their lives, which I’m fine with — that’s why I love it.”

Like Remmerden, Kathryn Bonzo was set on being an educator since the second grade.

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Bonzo said her career choice was often questioned.

“All I grew up with was, ‘Why are you going to teach? You’re never going to make any money,’” she said.

Nonetheless, Bonzo knew the importance of an education as an 8-year-old, and in 1986, she graduated with her teaching degree from the University of South Alabama.

Now, 30 years into her career — with more than half of those spent in North Idaho — she has taught a variety of grade levels in several states and countries, including the Dominican Republic and Singapore. Currently, she teaches fourth grade at Moscow Charter School, where she’s been for the past six years.

“I feel so lucky to have been able to do it as long as I have and I love it,” she said.

But it hasn’t been without its challenges, Bonzo said, who is also a Moscow City Council member. One of the biggest? Funding — a common issue for many educators.

‘We are last of the pack’

In her 33-year teaching career, Cindy Wilson learned the importance of earning a good grade.

So when Idaho received a D-plus grade in Education Week’s annual Quality Counts national rankings in 2018 for the second year in a row, she knew Idaho’s funding needed reform as the educational landscape continued to change.

The D-plus grade, Wilson said, encompasses spending per educator and per student.

“The way we educate is changing on so many levels,” Wilson said. “There are so many things to teach and so many things teachers need to teach than ever before.”

Wilson ran against incumbent Sherri Ybarra in 2018 for Idaho superintendent of public instruction. Ybarra could not be reached for comment on this subject.

Wilson lost by three percentage points, but said she hopes the platforms she ran on during the campaign can still be implemented for Idaho schools. One of those priorities is investing in Idaho schools and students.

“Teachers who are in the field are working hard and doing the best they can with what they have,” Wilson said.

Of the young educators who begin teaching in Idaho, Wilson said many leave the state within their first five years for surrounding states such as Washington, Oregon and Utah — areas with either more educational support programming or more robust funding.

As part of that Quality Counts ranking, Idaho spent approximately $8,000 per student per year, compared to the national average of $12,000 per student per year, putting Idaho in one of the lowest spots in the country.

“We spend a good portion of the state’s general fund on education,” Wilson said. “But maybe that just isn’t enough anymore.”

Bonzo, who received her master’s degree from UI, said her job performance is often reduced to a number. If students aren’t succeeding on standardized tests, neither is she.

But it isn’t just her abilities or her students who are questioned, it’s the entire state. She said the problem isn’t just inside the classroom — it’s the amount of resources schools are receiving as a whole.

Even with the most recent legislative session, Bonzo said no additional funds were put toward education. They were just divided differently.

“When we are only measuring it financially, we are last of the pack,” she said.

Growing up in a family of educators, Hannah Cartwright knows the difficulties teachers face, from funding to support.

The UI third-year elementary education student with an endorsement in literacy and new language, said growing up in the Genesee, Idaho, educational system made her want to teach in a rural Idaho district.

“I want to stay in Idaho, but I can see where we need to improve,” Cartwright said.

Those improvements, she said, need to come in the form of funding for all districts.

Often joking about the lack of resources and pay for teachers with her classmates, Cartwright said that deficit has steadily become an “ever-present cloud” over her education.

“We’ve all come to the realization that we aren’t going to get paid well or that our future classes won’t be funded well,” Cartwright said. “It’s a truth that we’ve just had to come to terms with.”

Kristin Rodine, spokesperson with the Idaho State Department of Education, said the No. 48 is widely associated with Idaho’s education system, but it can be misleading.

Rodine said that ranking comes from the same 2018 Quality Counts report released by Education Week. The group graded each state using 39 different indicators.

“Many of these indicators do not reflect education quality, school performance or student performance, but instead measure states on such factors as whether parents speak English, the education level of parents and the annual income of citizens,” she said.

Rodine said a more accurate national ranking of K-12 education in Idaho comes from U.S. News and World Report, which puts Idaho in the middle of the pack at No. 25 — just ahead of Washington state.

Since the beginning of his political career, Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he has made education a top priority of his.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Recently, Little signed a bill increasing a teacher’s starting salary to $40,000. He’s also passed bills increasing scholarships offerings for students seeking higher education, as well as doubling the amount of money going toward early childhood schooling.

With the help of the Idaho Legislature, Little hopes to also increase access to education for those interested in more career technical fields.

“(Education) is a lifelong skill,” he said. “It’s incredibly important and we need to help our students to realize that.”

Since there is a direct relationship between the state’s economy and its education systems, Little said they want at least 60% of the workforce to have a degree or certificate by 2024.

As education and economy are so closely tied, Kevin Cahill, a local economist, partnered with the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation to write the Idaho at Risk report, which details the ways in which Idaho lags behind the rest of the country, especially in educational funding and investment.

One of the pillars of the report is to “leverage state income to increase school funding and make it equitable.”

“The intersection between Idaho’s educational system and our knowledge-based economy leads to a problematic picture for the future,” Cahill said. “As the economy has evolved over the last few decades, Idaho’s education system seems to be coming up short.”

The target audience for the report, Cahill said, is legislators and the Governor’s Office. However, he said anyone reading the report will see a “very bleak picture” if support for Idaho’s education system doesn’t change.

“Generally what we would like to signal to policy makers is Idaho can muddle through and get by — that’s the status quo,” Cahill said.

Cahill said he looks at education as a sort of life cycle that involves educators, students, funding, investment and support. Idaho, he said, ranks poorly in most categories of that life cycle.

“Future employers aren’t thinking about Idaho for highly educated workers, but our state can change that cycle,” Cahill said. “The key to change is our education pipeline. What can we improve to change the dynamic in Idaho’s favor?”

‘Do more with less’

Taylor Raney’s journey to becoming an educator has been anything but conventional.

Raney said it took him seven years to complete his teaching degree at UI, ending with a lower GPA than what is required to currently enter the education program.

“My head wasn’t in the game yet,” said Raney, who later received his master’s and doctorate degrees from Northwest Nazarene University. “But I feel like those of us who struggled in education are better able to reach learners.”

He went on to teach English, French and Spanish in the Boise area before becoming a principal and director of teacher certification and professional standards for the Idaho State Department of Education.

Now, back at his alma mater, Raney oversees all programs leading to teacher certification through the UI Department of Curriculum and Instruction as the director of teacher education.

Raney said the university offers innovative education experiences to best prepare students for their eventual classrooms and provides multiple degree paths such as primary, secondary and special education, as well as a career technical focus.

“It’s important to have all of these high-quality offerings, but still as many offerings as you can, so that they fit anyone who might want to be a  teacher we have a pathway for them,” he said.

Since many teachers often change professions in the first few years of their careers, Raney said the education program is realistic about the later challenges their students could face, which is why they are required to complete so many practicum hours before student teaching and graduation.

“It is a tough job and it’s also a rewarding job,” Raney said.

For Wilson, education is more than just teaching a structured curriculum — it’s being part of a child’s life.

“There’s nothing quite like helping a child who needs help,” Wilson said.

However, because of lacking resources, teachers often don’t have the time to fully help develop a child’s skill set as much as they would like to, Wilson said. This is where significant teacher preparation and training comes into play, especially for younger educators.

“Teachers are being asked to do more with less,” Wilson said.

It’s the difficulties of that broad task, Wilson said, that make teaching both demanding yet rewarding.

Bonzo said teachers have and always will fund their own classrooms due to a lack of necessary resources. Although, it isn’t just their salaries that need to be increased, but support staffs and schools in general.

“To me the heartache is, as a society, people talk about the importance of educating children, but if that was the case, we would fund it,” Bonzo said. “My field is controlled by people who don’t do my job — that’s hard.”

Bonzo said she works with dedicated people who are making the most of what they have.

Remmerden said her professors do whatever they can to help prepare students for their eventual classrooms, providing potential scenarios, ideas for lesson plans and real-world experience.

“I think I’ve been prepared the best that I can, but you don’t know what’s going to happen until you enter that classroom,” Remmerden said.

The preparation she has received at UI, she said, is a balancing act between utilizing outdated resources while needing to think ahead in connecting with students.

“One of the biggest things I’m learning is the way we are being taught and need to teach is changing. It’s very different from the way people were being taught 10 to 15 years ago,” Cartwright said.

Hoping to work with young Idaho students, Cartwright said she is focused on setting the standard for a good education early in their academic careers.

“The younger we are, the more potential we have for learning,” Cartwright said.

‘The right direction’

However, the key to true success in the classroom isn’t just related to funding or prior preparation — it’s the relationships between teachers and parents.

Bonzo said if a student’s parent had a bad experience at school, those negative feelings are then passed on to the child.

“People like to think I have a ton of influence, but the people who have the most influence are the parents,” Bonzo said. “It’s when we work together for the good of the child that you see them really move forward.  I’m in the relationship business.”

Over time, Bonzo said teachers have lost the respect and autonomy their job demands, with parents often thinking of themselves as teachers.

“People used to respect education, so they respected educators,” she said. “In our society, we have said you have value if you are highly paid, not if you’re highly educated.”

Like Bonzo, Raney said he has dealt with people who believed their K-12 experience is representative of everyone’s experiences.

Teachers are responsible for making all other professions, Raney said, but the importance of their role is often lost or forgotten about, being written off because they aren’t working in the summer or on-call shifts. They also aren’t able to just leave at 3 p.m. when their students do.

“Teachers are working long, long hours. I remember 12 to 15 hour days,” Raney said. “I’d challenge anyone who thinks teaching is easy to go teach a group of kindergarteners for a day and maintain their sanity.”

Remmerden believes anyone who disregards education or teaching majors hasn’t spent enough time within a classroom. However, the importance of their work makes any additional hardship or inconvenience worth it, especially the negative comments.

She said each person has had a teacher or professor who has changed their lives at least somewhat, opening their minds to new ideas and guiding them toward their future paths.

“I can only hope that I’m going to do that for even just one child, and I will be happy,” Remmerden said. “No matter where I’m teaching — whether it’s in Idaho or even another country — I want to make sure that the kids know I’m there to support them.”

Cartwright said it will be a challenge to overcome some of the stigmas and barriers holding back young teachers when entering the educational workforce. But with a confidence in her abilities to connect with young learners, she is excited to give back to Idaho students.

“With enough people working in the right direction, we can make change. I want to make Idaho better because I know that there is a lot of potential,” Cartwright said. “It can change.”

Story by Hailey Stewart & Olivia Heersink

Photos by Joleen Evans

Design by Alex Brizee