(InEDC) BY Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch Published: September 1
Labor Day weekend is upon us, which means the back-to-school season is in full swing. While many students across the country already started classes in August, others are gearing up for their first days in September, heading back to the classroom amid national uncertainties across K-12 and higher education.
Teacher shortages are affecting schools in multiple states, from Florida to Indiana to Utah. Research published last week shows that teacher shortages are worsening in several states, and it was not a pandemic aberration. Instead, the shortages seem to be part of a worrisome trend: Teachers are leaving the classroom at higher rates, and there isn’t a big enough pool of candidates to replace them.
As The Washington Post reports, Tuan Nguyen, a Kansas State University education professor, and two colleagues counted more than 36,500 vacancies in 37 states and D.C. for the 2021-2022 school year. Their updated data found that teacher shortages had grown 35 percent among that group, to more than 49,000 vacancies.
And even in states that saw a reduction in vacancies, there is growing concern about who is filling those jobs; many states lowered job requirements in response to the pandemic, and schools increasingly relied on instructors with fewer qualifications.
When you have a shortage of certified teachers who have been trained combined with an increase in student misbehavior,” Jackson Green, the principal of Charles M. Sumner Education Campus in rural Maine, told the Post. “That drives a lot of people away from the position.”
There are some bright spots as the school year starts: Detroit Public Schools Community District and its primary teachers’ union reached a tentative wage hike agreement just hours before the expiration of a previous contract. Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the largest teacher’s union, said during a visit to Grand Rapids that Michigan is on the right track toward resolving teacher shortages by raising salaries and making the positions desirable and competitive. She said the barriers created by the pandemic exacerbated a preexisting teacher shortage.
“We have been losing teachers at the front end of their career and in the middle, which is really concerning for us because those are the mentors for the new teachers,” Pringle said. “Even at the end of their careers, we have teachers who are retiring early because of the stresses of teaching.”
