The shortage of qualified teachers in our schools is real and if it has not touched children in your school yet it will. I remember Andrews, the naval architect in the movie Titanic, saying to Captain Smith, “Titanic will founder (sink). It is a mathematical certainty, Sir”. He was not believed. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable! So, it is with less than prepared teachers in classrooms. A school’s statement of “a quality teacher in every classroom” has the same credibility as believing the Titanic could not sink. Your children will be taught by unprepared teachers; it is a mathematical certainty.
A shortage of teachers had been a long time coming, but it always was coming. It always was a story of numbers. Today there are more teaching jobs posted than candidates and the gap in this trend is widening not narrowing. Principals in the 80s and 90s could unabashedly expect between 50 and 100 applications for a posted teaching position. In 2022 too many postings for teaching positions did not stir a single application.
Four reasons are engineering our shortage of classroom teachers.
- Starting a career in education is economically difficult to impossible. The disparity between the cost of a college degree and teacher certification and a teacher’s salary during the first ten years of employment turn people away from becoming teachers. Too many teachers are burdened with college debt and their salaries are inadequate for meeting today’s cost of living and debt payments. Debt is driving teachers from the classroom and preventing others from a career in teaching.
- Public confidence in public education was dramatically damaged by the pandemic. The work of classroom teachers was not the issue. It was the political battleground of school closings, required quarantining, masking and vaccination, and the failure of remote and home-based learning that constantly grew parental hostility to public schools.
- The continuing inequality issues inherent in education have not changed. As a correct generalization, children in wealthier communities and well-financed schools receive a better education and educational experience than children in impoverished and under-financed schools. Everything from student-teacher ratios to midday snacks to enrichment field trips hinges on financing. It is hard to recruit teachers to teach in under-supported schools. These schools are plagued by a lack of prepared teachers.
- More teachers are retiring and resigning than are graduating from teacher preparation programs of any design. Interestingly, we have enough people with a teaching license to place a prepared teacher in every classroom. We do not have enough licensed teachers who want to teach.
State legislators are responding to constituent school districts declarations of teacher shortages by modifying statutory requirements for a teaching license. To meet legislative direction, state departments of public instruction are creating a “buffet” of alternative strategies for awarding a teaching license. Sadly, the buffet is becoming more of a snack bar. These “buffet” options:
- Incrementally reduce the requirement of a baccalaureate degree in education as the benchmark for a teaching degree. Teacher licensing based upon a BA degree requires a candidate to have completed a broader array of course work in English, mathematics, science, and the social sciences. This background education provides teachers with contextual information that more completely teaches children the “why and wherefores of answers” and not just if an answer is correct or incorrect. Reducing background academic knowledge reduces the quality of instruction and learning. Without adequate background knowledge teachers are unprepared.
- Focus on how to teach and not how to teach children. For example, a Career and Technical Education (CTE) certification program allows a candidate with a BA in a technical field and more than three years working experience in that field to complete a minimum number of instructional courses to qualify for a teaching license. Too often classroom management, child psychology, testing and assessment, and teaching children with educational challenges are not included in CTE preparation. Teachers who do not understand children are unprepared.
- Eliminate student teaching. The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) offers a teaching license based upon virtual course work and exams. No student teaching is required; if you can pass tests, you can teach. ABCTE says so. The practicum of student teaching is how unexperienced teachers become prepared. Without student teaching, children are guinea pigs for unprepared teachers.
- Keep reducing teacher preparation to place an adult in the classroom. Legislation is pending to allow a person with an associate degree and experience as a Teacher Aide to be eligible for teacher training. Legislation is also pending to allow a person with a high school education to work as a substitute teacher. This returns us to 1900 when an 8th grade graduate could teach elementary school and high school grad could teach secondary school. It is the Cadillac of unpreparedness.
There is some hope for the future as school boards increase teacher compensation. There is some hope as the federal government attempts to reduce student debt. There is some hope as schools return to the look of pre-pandemic stability. There is some hope that public confidence in public schools will return to a positive value.
But trends, like the Titanic, do not change course easily. A course correction for the Titanic or a public institution takes time to affect and during that time more harm is inflicted. While it was a mathematical certainty the Titanic would sink due to a rip in its hull, the employment of unprepared teachers need not sink public education. If we value public education, the trend toward the employment of unprepared teachers will reverse itself. But it will take time, if we value public education.