Six factors Contributing to Teacher Shortages

I am a Professor of Literacy at Minnesota State University.?I’ve spent the last 30 years preparing teachers, working with classroom teachers, and reviewing research related to teaching and learning.?It is time to seriously address the serious problem of teacher shortage and teacher pay.

A variety of research studies have shown that of all the variables impacting the quality of teaching and the amount of learning that goes on in the classroom, the most significant variable is the teacher.?Yet, we underpay and disempower this most significant variable and expect them to come back year after year because they “love” kids.

Would you expect a lawyer to work for low pay and put up with poor working conditions because they love their clients??Would you expect a doctor to put up with constant top-down interference and media beatings because they love their patients??Yet teachers are somehow supposed to put up with low pay, disempowerment, and poor working conditions because they “love” kids.?

Below are six factors that contribute to teacher shortages:

1. Teacher pay.?Paying teachers a professional wage is the first step in having an abundance of excellent teachers in every classroom.?If teachers’ wages enabled them to care for a family, buy a house, and send their kids to college – there would be no teacher shortage.

2. College loans.?Paying back large college loans serves to further reduce an already low teaching salary.?Things to consider include no-interest loans, reduced tuition for education, or loan forgiveness after five years of teaching.?

3. Large class sizes.?Managing the social, emotional, and intellectual lives of children and adolescents is a complex and demanding job.?It becomes even more so when class sizes get above 24 or 25 students. ?Cramming too many kids in a classroom is the most efficient and effective way to make learning go down and drive teachers out of the classroom.?

4. Disempowerment and external mandates.?The constant barrage of useless external mandates and curriculum reforms serves to disempower teachers and prevents them from designing learning experiences that best meet the needs of their students.??The result is educational malpractice.?

5. Standardized testing.?The madness that is standardized testing has done nothing to improve the quality of education.?There’s an old saying that a pig doesn’t get heavier by weighing it.?Yet the educational overlords keep weighing that pig.?Standardized testing has narrowed the curriculum and has resulted in teaching to the test.?This is at the expense of deep learning and high-level thinking.?There are many more reliable and valid ways for students to demonstrate their learning.

6. Teacher preparation.?Teacher preparation programs matter.?When compared to fast-track teacher programs like Teach for America, teach prep programs out-perform the fast tracks on measures of teacher performance, student learning, and continuation in the classroom.?Fast-track programs are like throwing a bunch of spaghetti on the wall.?Some of it’s going to stick, but a lot of it is not, resulting in even more teacher turnover as well as more under-prepared and less qualified teachers teaching your kids.?Do you want somebody teaching your kids who is learning on the job??Why would anybody think it’s a good idea to throw less-qualified teachers in a classroom??Unless it is for the sole purpose of keeping teacher wages down, which brings us back to the first factor.

Good education is the foundation of our society. To keep our society strong, we must pay teachers a professional wage, reduce class sizes and improve working conditions, empower them to make the decisions that are best for their students, significantly reduce the use of standardized tests, and continue to invest in good teacher preparation programs. ?

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