When Fieler Elementary teacher Jacqueline Hoots learned she needed a new literacy endorsement to renew her teaching license, she decided to sign up for the 80-hour training right away. Other teachers joined her.
Or they tried.
“We couldn’t get on the website, it kept crashing,” said Hoots, who teaches third grade at the Merrillville school.
Glen Park Academy second-grader Malik Williams reads a book with teacher Brian Andreshak during a free book giveaway event organized by Andreshak on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Kyle Telechan for the Post-Tribune)
In March, the Indiana Department of Education alerted teachers to the literacy training requirement, telling pre-K to grade 6 and special education teachers they must be trained in the science of reading to renew their license.
There’s also a required exam at the end of the training teachers must pass along with the 40 hours of online training and 40 hours of individual work through third-party provider Keys to Literacy.
Earlier this year, lawmakers passed a law requiring the training, a year after they joined more than 30 states in requiring schools to teach the science of reading. The curriculum is based on phonics and phonemic awareness so students learn to identify sounds that make up a word.
Kindergarteners take part in physical education class using a parachute at Homer Iddings Elementary School in Merrillville, Indiana Tuesday April 19, 2022. (Andy Lavalley for the Post-Tribune)
Educators don’t quibble with the need to improve literacy, but they say they’re baffled by the confusing rollout, lack of details and high stakes test.
Both the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers plan to voice their worries at the May 8 State Board of Education meeting in Indianapolis.
Statewide reading exam results last year showed nearly one in five Indiana students is unable to read by the end of third grade.
Teachers are eligible for a $1,200 stipend for the training and the state is covering the cost of the PRAXIS exam, but the test is creating anxiety.
“I don’t know what will happen if we fail,” Hoots said of the exam. She said many teachers struggled with the initial PRAXIS exam required for a teaching license.
“We’re just overwhelmed,” said Hoots. “This is another way to keep teachers from getting employment.
“I get it, I do. They need to be able to read, but there has to be accountability at home, too.”
New Indiana teachers must complete the endorsement by July 2025 to receive their initial license.
Current teachers, however, have until July 1, 2027, to meet the requirements. A teacher, for example, whose license doesn’t expire until 2029 has until that year to complete the requirements.
Leaders in the state’s teacher unions say the measure is unfair to teachers who’ve been in the profession for several years.
“This is adding a whole endorsement to your license in order to keep your job,” said Deb Porter, a Northwest Indiana uni-serve director for the Indiana State Teachers Association.
“Nobody is questioning that this is not a technique that works, it is effective,” said Porter on the science of reading. “Other states have adopted this. It’s just that Indiana has put in a singular way of doing it and it’s very burdensome…”
Porter said the $1,200 state stipend amounts to $15 an hour for the 80-hour required course.
“It wasn’t expected to be this way, not for teachers who’ve been out in the field teaching for so many years,” said Porter.
She hopes state education board members will decide to offer other options, finding another way to show proficiency. “There has to be other pathways,” she said.
Indiana Federation of Teachers President GlenEva Dunham, who also heads the Gary Teachers Union, said teachers are confused.
“The webinar was unclear. We don’t think it’s fair and we don’t understand what the end goal is. The Praxis test doesn’t make any sense. When we ask them, we don’t get answers.”
Dunham said teachers sent emails to Secretary of Education Katie Jenner for clarity.
“They shut it off,” she said of the email address.
Dunham said the state’s two teachers’ unions were working together to get answers.
“What is the point with the teacher shortage we have? Teachers are outraged,” she said.
Rebecca Estes, a DOE assistant secretary for education talent, responded in an April 15 memo that central to combating the state’s literacy crisis is “empowering Indiana’s current and future educators with the knowledge and tools needed to ensure students learn to read.”
She said Indiana is spending $170 million on the literacy program.
Estes said the DOE’s endorsement program has been distorted.
She said: “…misleading information was used to encourage teachers to contact the state and express concern regarding early literacy endorsement requirements.”
Estes said there’s room for flexibility in the endorsement timeline for current teachers and teachers will be eligible for a pay bump when they complete the endorsement.
Back in her classroom, Hoots said her fellow teachers fret over the new program and its mandates.
Hoots has been teaching in Merrillville for a dozen years after completing a transition to teaching program.
“The profession is not what it used to be,” she said.
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
