Connecticut is one of many places in the country currently dealing with a teacher shortage.
Affordable, quality healthcare is one tool cities and towns can use to recruit them. So how does the partnership plan work for teachers who are actually enrolled in that plan right now?
Kate Dias with the Connecticut Education Association, which represents more than 39,000 educators in the state, talks about the plan and what she believes is needed to attract and retain educators.
Mike Hydeck: So in addition to a good salary, attractive benefits are another way we can get teachers to come here and we need them so desperately. How has the state done with the partnership plan when it comes to healthcare coverage, when it comes to premiums and what's covered?
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Kate Dias: Well, I think the partnership plan has been designed to be competitive. But it has been a challenge to move districts from their current plans, which sometimes are a self insured plan into the partnership. Trying to find sort of that sweet spot of cost savings has always been a challenge, particularly in the field of healthcare. And educators are no less immune to that issue than any other industry. We've met recently with the incoming comptroller Sean Scanlon and we're talking about some of the adjustments to the new plan that will hopefully incentivize and bring interest to the state partnership plan.
Mike Hydeck: So I know you are connected to 39,000 plus teachers. Do you also talk to other unions and other states or other branches of your union? And how they do it? Can you garner ideas from other organizations?
Kate Dias: Absolutely. We're a part of, obviously, the NEA. And so we as state leaders have the opportunity to convene, and discuss whatever practices that may be incentivizing people to get into the profession. And obviously benefits would be a component of that. However, as you might be aware, Connecticut is fairly well off in terms of how we approach education. We do not have some of the challenges that my partners face in states like Montana or Wisconsin. And so we often lean on our partners to the north in Massachusetts who have comparable systems, New York, New Jersey, we really strategize using best practices in either of our regions.
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Mike Hydeck: What is it going to take to attract the teachers we need? Right now, Hartford is recruiting actually from other countries to get people to come in. Is that going to have to be the standard? Or can we do something here within our own borders to make it more attractive?
Kate Dias: Well, I think we can actually do something pretty impressive in the state of Connecticut. Not often do we have the convergence of a crisis and some actual resources available. So I think when we look at the 1986 Education Enhancement Action, and sort of the reaction to that, we did see that it turned around the teacher shortage within three years. So I think that something as basic as making sure we are compensating our educators appropriately for the level of education experience that we expect them to have, really does a lot in terms of making a statement about the value of our educators. So I think that's a piece of it. But I also think we need to tackle working conditions like class size as another factor. I think, really, if we can do some of those things, it sends a message that Connecticut is a great place to work, we respect educators and we protect them in their classrooms to make sure they have what they need to get the job done.
Mike Hydeck: So to get those resources to local cities and towns and school boards, does that involve saying, 'Look, governor and state lawmakers, we need more reimbursements for our local town so we can fund these things.' Is that how you would have to go about doing that?
Kate Dias: Absolutely. And we've certainly approached that topic with both the governor and legislators saying 'listen, we need a directed fund towards salary incentives.' Money that would go back to your point to towns and localities to incentivize raising those salaries. Direct funds. Because what we don't want to have happen is those funds get redistributed elsewhere. We know they need to go into salaries and compensation packages to ensure our educators are really competitively paid relative to some of our other professions. You know, when you look at, I myself am a math teacher. I could certainly go out into the field and start working on my certification to become an actuary. So when you think about a college graduate thinking, do I want to go into teaching? Or do I want to be an actuary? The pay differential is so substantial right now that we find ourselves on the losing end of that battle. We need to decrease that pay differential and that is with an infusion of resources from the state. We also think that same infusion of resources needs to come to incentivize driving class sizes down. And I think if we really direct those funds and target them where they need to be, which is in a classroom, we can make big changes fast.
