Wednesday, June 14, 2023

We've Got the Teacher Shortage We Deserve in 2023

 American school systems are experiencing a teacher shortage so severe that some positions go months and months unfilled due to lack of applicants. This is especially true in some certification areas like math, science, and special education. And, I would add that policymakers can't apply band-aids fast enough to fix this problem, because it is a problem that unfortunately we deserve. 

In the past 30 years, education leaders and policymakers have done more to make teaching so unpalatable, that fewer and fewer people are choosing to become teachers. This is not a problem that we can easily market or buy our way out of, yet we have education leaders and politicians still trying to do just that.

Has anyone considered that perhaps we should look at what teachers are being asked to do? Maybe the work just stinks.