Opinion: The problems with CT’s new elementary school teacher qualification law

If I told you I had a stomach bug, would you tell me to go to a neurologist? They’re both doctors. They both went to medical school and graduated with similar degrees, right?Wrong.If I told you that I had a stomach bug and was planning on going to a neurologist, you’d tell me I’m being foolish – and you’d be correct.Here’s another hypothetical: If you were used to teaching sixth graders multiplication, would you have the experience necessary to support the early mathematical concepts needed to ensure  that a classroom full of 4-year-olds develop? I can tell you from personal experience: I doubt you’d feel fully prepared.Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where sixth grade teachers are automatically eligible to teach in preschool classrooms. In late May, Gov. Ned Lamont signed a bill that extends elementary school qualifications to include preschool up to sixth grade. Now, if a preschool classroom needs a teacher and a sixth grade teacher needs a classroom, that teacher can walk right in and get started.I began my career in elementary school; I have taught first, third and fourth grade. Now I serve as the co-director of Emotional Well-being at Friends Center for Children in New Haven. I can tell you from years of experience: Teaching fourth graders is very different from teaching 4-year-olds. If educators are leaving elementary grades to enter preschool classrooms, we need to do everything in our power to ensure they’re equipped with developmentally appropriate practices.Our state faces a severe childcare crisis, which ultimately boils down to a staffing crisis: A 2023 survey found that one in seven early educator positions across our state remains unfilled, which leaves parents without child care, costing our state about $1.5 billion every year. But staffing shortages aren’t unique to preschool. In late 2023, Connecticut Education Association reported that nearly three quarters of survey participants reported that they are likely to retire or leave the profession early. Ninety five percent of those surveyed identified staffing shortages at their school. Teacher shortages exist at every level, not just preschool.As we work to bring more teachers into the profession, as a former elementary school teacher who’s now working with young children, I know fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade teachers are going to face a steep learning curve. Preschool is essential; little kids’ brains are growing at incredible rates, and teaching preschoolers requires an incredible amount of self-regulation.Young children are learning everything for the first time, and they look to the adults in their lives as examples. Teachers accustomed to teaching 9- and 10-year-olds are going to need to learn new skills in order to teach 3- and 4-year-olds. They’ll need to be prepared to teach and reteach strategies, conduct constant narration and ask questions to gauge understanding, honor nuanced but big emotions, address fine and gross motor skills and manage a classroom with kids at a variety of developmental stages (because the difference between 2-and-a-half and 3 can be much greater than the difference between 8-and-a-half and 9).As districts plan for next year, they must consider how we meet the needs of our youngest students—and where those needs differ from those of older kids. For teachers considering moving from a higher grade to preschool, I encourage you to observe classrooms, ask questions, and understand the intentional curriculum building that goes into managing a preschool classroom. To the policymakers attempting to address the child care crisis: We need to be working to get more teachers into classrooms, but we also need to make the changes that will ensure they want to stay there. The solution is compensation: why would anyone get a degree, or even consider this age group,  if you’re going to move into a system that pays you poverty-level wages?If we addressed the attitude that led to underinvestment in early childhood—the mistaken belief that early childhood education isn’t important and doesn’t require expertise—we’d also have to contend with the fact that we’re not paying these teachers enough to stay in the profession.If we’re looking for solutions to a teacher recruitment crisis, we also need to engage with the problem at its core. Educators at every level aren’t being compensated adequately for their work. That’s where the real opportunity lies: paying teachers professional wages.Aundrea Tabbs-Smith, is the co-director of Emotional Well-being at Friends Center for Children in New Haven.

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