[To stay in their profession, said a union leader, educators need
"professional respect" including fair pay and the right "to make
teaching and learning decisions for their students." ]
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‘FIVE-ALARM CRISIS’: US HAS SHORTAGE OF 300K TEACHERS, SCHOOL
STAFF  
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Julia Conley
August 12, 2022
Common Dreams
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_ To stay in their profession, said a union leader, educators need
"professional respect" including fair pay and the right "to make
teaching and learning decisions for their students." _

Veronica Roman, a long-term substitute teacher, works with fifth
grade students on language arts at Hunt Elementary in San Bernardino,
California on September 22, 2021. , (Photo: Watchara
Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images)

 

NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT Becky Pringle on Thursday
warned that the U.S. teacher shortage has spiraled into a "five-alarm
crisis," with nearly 300,000 teaching and support positions left
unfilled and policymakers taking desperate—and in some cases,
questionable—measures to staff classrooms.

Pringle told
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News_ that teachers unions have been warning for years that chronic
disinvestment in schools has placed untenable pressure on educators as
they face low pay and overcrowded classrooms.

"We have a crisis in the number of students who are going into the
teaching profession and the number of teachers who are leaving it,"
Pringle told the outlet. "But, of course, as with everything else, the
pandemic just made it worse."

As a survey
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by the NEA earlier this year showed, 91% of educators said
pandemic-related stress and burnout is a "serious problem" in the
profession, and 55% reported they plan to leave their profession
earlier than originally planned.

Chronically low pay is a problem in the profession which was
well-documented prior to the pandemic, and educators across the
country report it is a contributing factor as teachers leave schools.
The national average salary for teachers is $64,000, but in states
including Mississippi, South Dakota, and Florida, many educators earn
far less.

As _The Week _reported
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teachers in Arizona are paid an average of $52,000 per year as they
face one of the highest teacher-to-student ratios in the nation.

"I do think the main root cause of the teacher shortage is pay,"
Justin Wing of the Arizona School Personnel Administrators
Association told
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Phoenix_, adding that the state has a "very concerning" shortage of
2,200 teachers.

While advocates have for years called on state lawmakers to invest
heavily in schools in order to recruit and retain highly qualified
educators—with Arizona teachers staging a walkout
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2018 after legislators passed corporate tax cuts that would have left
the state $100 million short—Republican leaders this year have
turned to other methods of keeping classrooms sufficiently staffed.

On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled the state's official
website recruiting veterans to help fill in the gaps in schools.
Former armed service members do not need a bachelor's degree to teach
the state's children—in keeping with a trend across the country, as
at least 12 states have changed or eliminated their licensing
requirements for educators in the last year, according to
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National Council on Teacher Quality.

According to the Florida Education Association, students in the state
are approaching the school year with 8,000 teacher vacancies compared
with 5,000 in 2021.

Andrew Spar, the union's president, told
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the shortage is directly linked to other initiatives pushed by
DeSantis, including H.B. 1557, commonly called the "Don't Say Gay"
law
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which bars teachers from discussing gender identity and sexual
orientation in classrooms up to third grade. DeSantis's
spokesperson said
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March that anyone opposed to the bill was "probably a groomer" or
wouldn't "denounce the grooming of 4-8-year old children."

The Republican governor also signed H.B. 7, which bars teachers from
instructing students about racism and "white privilege."

"When the governor goes around the state vilifying teachers and staff
in our schools—and, let's face it, that's what he's doing—he's
sending a message to teachers and staff that you don't matter,"
Spar told
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are then leaving the profession."

Republicans in more than a dozen states have proposed laws
controlling what teachers can talk about with their students,
contributing to a teacher shortage that American Federation of
Teachers President Randi Weingarten called "contrived" earlier this
month.

"The political situation in the United States, combined with
legitimate aftereffects of Covid, has created this shortage,"
Weingarten told
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Post._

Pringle told _ABC News _that teachers are even more strained than
they before the pandemic as they try to support families who are under
new financial stress:

We encourage everyone to continue to push to make sure their school
districts... use the American Rescue funds, to make sure that the
schools have the resources that students need. And parents and
families don't have to supply as much as they have been.

We also know there is an increase in the number of dollars that
teachers are pulling out from their own pockets, taking away from
their own families, to try to meet those needs and those gaps that
have been exacerbated by the pandemic, from food crisis to housing
crisis, healthcare crisis.

Pringle added that teachers need "professional respect" to stay in
their profession.

"For them that is three things," she said. "Professional authority to
make teaching and learning decisions for their students. Professional
rights to have the conditions and resources to do the jobs they love.
And professional pay that reflects the importance of the work they
do."

_Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* schools
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* staffing
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* Teacher shortage
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