The US Is Facing Massive Teacher Shortages – What Can Be Done About it?

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Reports have found that the teacher shortage that has graced headlines for years is real. Furthermore, it is a growing problem. It isn’t just a matter of too few teachers. When factors like certification and experience are taken into account, we have a real teacher shortage that is getting worse. First, we’ll share the hard data on the teacher shortage. Then we’ll discuss some of the factors driving the teacher shortage before outlining potential solutions.

Hard Data on the Teacher Shortage

In 2011-2012, studies suggested we’d have a surplus of teachers. Then projected demand started to exceed supply. By 2016, the estimated shortfall of teachers was 64,000. By 2018, it was more than a hundred thousand. The teacher shortage is most acute in high-poverty schools.

When teaching credentials are factored in, the teacher shortage is much worse. A classic case is having a teacher teaching math, science or bilingual students who lack training and experience in those areas. Another measure of teacher quality is having more than five years of experience.

Factors Contributing to the Teacher Shortage

In high poverty school districts, there are a number of things that contribute to the high turnover and chronic lack of qualified talent. Discipline is a problem, and teachers are often literally assaulted. 

Here are some of the factors that reinforce the teacher shortage:

  • Teacher inexperience
  • A lack of experienced teachers to mentor others
  • A lack of training in how to teach subjects and/or difficult kids
  • High attrition of qualified, experienced teachers to easier jobs
  • Lack of pay given the stress

The teachers most likely to be assigned to these schools have no experience, and they have no training in how to maintain control in the classroom. This adds to the stress of dealing with disruptive students. They’re also paid less than teachers in wealthier school districts, so they tend to leave for safer, higher-paying jobs as soon as they can. 

Compounding the problem, these are the school districts least able to pay for ongoing recruitment costs due to high turnover. This turnover is estimated to cost schools around eight billion dollars a year. Hiring substitutes and unqualified teachers may put bodies in the classroom, but it hurts the reputation of the profession and indirectly perpetuates the shortage.

Potential Solutions to the Teacher Shortage

One solution is to offer higher pay and more support for teachers in high-poverty school districts. Higher pay for teachers, in general, will lead to more people going through traditional certification programs, reducing reliance on less qualified teachers coming out of alternative certification programs.

Here are some of the solutions that could help solve the teacher crisis:

  • Better training for new/student teachers
  • Better pay for all teachers
  • Even higher pay for those in high-poverty districts
  • Teacher credentialing
  • More subsidized training for subjects like STEM and ESL

Mentoring for novice teachers helps reduce attrition. Helping them to earn credentials and certifications as they work in the classroom will improve retention while giving them the skills they need to become more effective in the classroom, too. Keep them working in the classroom, and time alone will solve the problem of a quarter of teachers having less than two years of experience.

Another option is subsidizing training for teachers so that they gain credentials in high-demand areas like math, science, special needs, and bilingual education. Higher pay for teachers with specializations like this leads to more students getting qualified in this area before graduation, as well as experienced teachers earning the necessary qualifications. 

This is especially true in rural states like Oklahoma. “We already reached a record-breaking number of emergency certifications presented to the board of approval this year,” said a spokesperson for the Oklahoma department of education. However, some of the initiatives to raise pay have been targeted by conservative groups who oppose the tax hikes necessary to pay for them. “Uncertainty over the raises have made it difficult to use them as a retention tool,” said Shawn Hime, OSSBA executive director.

Paying teachers to earn state credentials, something roughly a tenth of them lack, would encourage them to earn it. Some may simply need to know that they can earn a teaching credential through online programs, so they don’t have to choose between working and advancing their career.

We cannot afford to purge the twenty percent of teachers who didn’t take the traditional route to become teachers. We can do more to give new teachers with an educational background in the subject more training in education, such as when a math or science major chooses to become a teacher.

When you take experience, expertise, and credentials into effect, a lot of kids are not getting the quality of education they need. Teachers can improve themselves, while we can all work to improve education overall.

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