The American Secretary of Education asked for investments to be made so that teachers do not resign. A teacher’s union leader described it as a five-alarm emergency. News coverage has warned of a crisis in teaching. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that teacher turnover has increased nationally or that teachers are leaving in droves. Certainly, many schools have struggled to find enough teachers. But the challenges are more related to recruitment, especially for non-teaching staff positions. Schools flush with federal pandemic aid money are creating new positions and struggling to fill them at a time of low unemployment and stiff competition for workers of all kinds. Since well before the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have struggled to hire enough teachers in some areas, particularly parts of the South. Areas such as special education and bilingual education were also extremely limited in teachers nationally. For some areas, shortages mean children have fewer or less qualified teachers. In Alabama’s rural Black Belt, there were no certified math teachers last year at Bullock County Public High School. “It really affects kids because they’re not learning what they need to learn,” said Christopher Blair, a former county superintendent. “When you have these uncertified, part-time or inexperienced teachers, students are in classrooms where they’re not going to get the level of rigor and classroom experiences.” Dropout rates While the nation lacks vacancy data in many states, the national pain points are obvious. First, the pandemic triggered the largest decline in education employment ever. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people employed in public schools fell from nearly 8.1 million in March 2020 to 7.3 million in May. Employment has risen again to 7.7 million since then, but that still leaves schools close to about 360,000 places. “We’re still trying to dig ourselves out of that hole,” said Chad Aldeman, director of policy at the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. It is unknown how many of those lost positions were teaching positions or other staff such as bus drivers – support positions that schools are particularly struggling to fill. A RAND survey of school principals this year found that about three-quarters of school principals say they are trying to hire more substitutes, 58 percent are trying to hire more bus drivers and 43 percent are trying to hire more teachers. However, the problems are not so much tied to teacher resignations as many have suggested. Surveys of teachers have shown that many are considering quitting their jobs. They are under pressure to keep kids safe from guns, catch up academically, and address pandemic challenges with mental health and behavior. National Education Association union chief Becky Pringle tweeted in April: “The teacher shortage is a five-alarm crisis.” But a Brown University study found turnover remained largely unchanged among states that had data. Education dropout rates rose slightly this year, but that’s true for the nation as a whole, and teachers remain far more likely to stay on the job than the average worker. Tough hiring market Recruiting has been so difficult mainly because of the increase in the number of open positions. Many schools indicated plans to use federal aid money to create new jobs, in some cases trying to hire even more people than they had before the pandemic. Some neighborhood schools are competing for fewer applicants as college enrollments in teacher preparation programs have declined. The Upper Darby School District in Pennsylvania has about 70 positions it is trying to fill, especially bus drivers, lunch aides and substitute teachers. But he can’t find enough applicants. The district has warned families that they may have to cancel school or switch to distance learning on days they don’t have subscribers. “It’s become an economic competition from district to district to do this, and that’s unfortunate for kids in communities who deserve the same opportunities all over the state,” said Superintendent Daniel McGarry. The number of unfilled vacancies has led some states and school systems to ease credential requirements in order to expand the pool of applicants, including Alabama. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told reporters last week that creative approaches are needed to attract more teachers, such as retired teachers, but schools should not lower standards. Schools in the South are more likely to struggle with teacher vacancies. A federal survey found an average of 3.4 teaching vacancies per school as of this summer. That number was lowest in the West, with an average of 2.7 vacancies, and highest in the South, with 4.2 vacancies. In Birmingham, the school district is struggling to fill about 50 teaching positions, including 15 in special education, despite $10,000 signing bonuses for special educators. Jenikka Oglesby, human resources officer for the region, says the problem is partly due to low wages in the South that don’t always compensate for the lower cost of living. The school system in Moss Point, a small town near the Mississippi Gulf Coast, raised salaries to attract more applicants. But other nearby areas have done the same. Some teachers realized they could make $30,000 more by working 30 minutes away in Mobile, Alabama. “I personally lost some really good teachers from Mobile County Schools,” said Tenesha Batiste, director of human resources for the Moss Point district. And he also lost some not-so-great teachers, he added – people who broke their contracts and quit three days before the school year started. “It’s the job that makes all the others possible, yet they get paid once a month and they can go to Chick-fil-A in certain places and make more money,” Batiste said. A bright spot for Moss Point this year is four student teachers from the University of Southern Mississippi. They will spend the school year working with children as part of a residential program for aspiring teachers. The state has invested nearly $10 million in federal aid money into residency programs in hopes that residents will stay and become teachers in their assigned districts. Michelle Dallas, a stay-at-home teacher in a Moss Point first-grade classroom, recently left a career in mental health and is certain she is meant to be a teacher. “That is why I am here,” he said, “to fulfill my calling.”
This story is part of a national collaboration between Education Labs and reporters at the Associated Press, AL.com, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News in Texas, The Fresno Bee in California, The Hechinger Report, The Seattle Times and The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina.
Associated Press writers Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pa., Collin Binkley in Washington, DC and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, NY contributed to this report. Lurye reported from New Orleans. Rebecca Griesbach is a member of The Alabama Education Lab team at AL.com. It is supported through a partnership with Report for America, a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues.
