Peter Greene takes on the “teacher shortage” in a recent piece in Forbes and pretty much nails the entire argument.
Understand the problem correctly. There is no teacher shortage. What we have is an erosion of every feature that would make teaching attractive. If I can’t buy a Porsche for $1.98, that does not mean there’s an automobile shortage. Also, look at actual data. There’s a widespread idea that the pandemic has boosted retirement rates; there’s no evidence that’s true (though it certainly hasn’t helped).
Pay more. Here’s one of the great mysteries of education; people who otherwise fully grasp the laws of supply and demand are somehow certain these laws do not apply to teachers. Bring up teacher pay and you will hear complaints about pay scales, paying for seniority, merit pay plans, but they are all fancy versions of one complaint--”I don’t think I should have to pay that much to hire teachers.” It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I should pay more than $2.00/gallon for gas, but my desire, even if based on great arguments, does not move the marketplace. Sometimes the argument about pay will land on “Well, if they don’t like it, they can go work somewhere else.” Well, yes. And they have.
That’s basically it. Greene offers more, but the bottom line for many policymakers is they just don’t want to pay more for teachers. So, they don’t. Then, people leave teaching. Then policymakers lament that more people should want to teach and say things like “no one goes into teaching for the money,” etc. Turns out, now not that many people are going into teaching, period.
In fact, back in 2013, I wrote:
What does work, as indicated in this London School of Economics study, is paying teachers more. The study indicates that raising teacher pay has a clear link to student achievement. Raise pay 10%, student performance goes up roughly 10%. Why? Making the field more attractive does two things: It encourages people to pursue teaching and stay in the field AND it adds to the prestige of the profession (which also helps with retention of high performers). Metro Nashville Public Schools has some experience with this as when they moved to a new pay scale setting a minimum salary of $40,000 ($6,000 more than it had been) and enabling teachers to reach the top of the scale in 15 years rather than 25, they saw three times as many applicants for teaching jobs than they had in the past. The value proposition went up and MNPS was able to choose among applicants for the best fits for open positions.
It’s pretty amazing, then, that policymakers keep crowing about a teacher shortage and also continue to refuse to do anything substantive about it. The pace of teacher pay increases in Tennessee offers some good insight into this fascinating phenomenon:
Back in 2014, the state’s BEP Review Committee issued a report calling on the state to fund teacher salaries by way of the BEP at a level equivalent to the actual state average salary. That average? $50,116. So, the average now is just a bit over $1200 more than the average in 2014. In other words, teacher pay in Tennessee is creeping up at a snail’s pace. And, of course, teacher pay in our state is still below the Southeastern average (about $2000 below).
Tennessee leaders do a lot of talking when it comes to investing in schools. “Fastest-improving” “Best place to be a teacher.” The reality is that teacher pay and overall investment in schools is moving at a snail’s pace. In fact, a recently released analysis shows that Tennessee invests less in public education relative to taxable resources than any other state in the nation.
Kentucky Voucher Fight Moves to Courts
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that the fight over a voucher program passed by the Kentucky legislature will now be headed to court:
In a suit filed in Franklin Circuit Court Monday, the Council for Better Education contends that education opportunity accounts are unconstitutional.
Citing the ruling from its 1989 case that sparked an overhaul of Kentucky's education system, the group said the legislature has "an unyielding obligation to provide for and oversee an efficient system of common schools and cannot redirect public funds to private schools that serve a select few."
"But make no mistake: left unchallenged, over the next five years HB 563 will cost the taxpayers of the Commonwealth $125 million in revenue that should have gone to public education," the group said in a press release Monday.