Grading the Teacher Shortage — With just about every school in session across the country at this point, parents and administrators are scrambling to address a shortage of teachers.
Hard to say I’m surprised by this, as just about every occupation and type of good has been tough to find over the past few years.
But while some shortages have an easy explanation (Sriracha is in short supply due to droughts hampering chili production), this one is a bit more complicated.
For starters, lots of districts have plenty of teachers. And some districts have plenty of teachers in a few schools but far too few in others.
So what’s going on?
In general, substitute teachers are the biggest hole to fill, followed by special ed, math, and science teachers.
The easy explanation is that, in an airtight labor market, teachers can hop to higher-paying jobs that may not have been available before, reducing the total pool of teachers.
But the easy answer may be too simplistic.
Math and science have been increasingly emphasized as important skills students ought to have, and more classes in these subjects have been added as a result. The same is true for special ed classes—more students are qualifying for these classes every year.
Combine these trends with a preference for smaller class sizes, and you get a much higher demand for teachers in these areas.
The teaching labor market isn’t the same as other professions because it’s mainly run by states and cities.
So while a private company could quickly increase the pay for in-demand positions, states have to jump through many more hoops, usually including drawn-out negotiations with teachers’ unions.
So is there a “catastrophic teacher shortage?” That’s probably going too far, as trends that started way before C19 have been building to this point.
Probably makes more sense to say that ‘vid exacerbated concerning trends in teaching. With less than half of teachers in 2022 saying the challenges of the job are worth it, compared to 75% in 2016, it’s clear that faculty have had it.
Makes me wonder if we need a wholesale reimagining of our education system, starting with elementary school all the way through college. If our current system can’t find enough teachers and leaves college grads with debt up to their ears, what are we even doing?
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