While the country, our community, and our campuses have been embroiled in political issues, natural disasters, and protests, a significant crisis that should be relevant to everyone seems to be escaping broader attention.
There is currently a dire shortage of teachers, and it is reaching catastrophic proportions. While this is not a new problem, it is now an emergency that needs to be addressed.
Nationally, the U.S. has experienced multiple teacher shortage cycles since at least the 1970s, with district-specific salary increases and funding from government programs providing master’s degree or loan forgiveness programs that have provided temporary solutions. Since 2016, researchers from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) have reported that at least 40 states experienced a shortage of teachers for science, math, special education, and other areas, with a 30 percent drop in the number of students entering teacher preparation programs and alternative certification pathways. LPI’s 2016 prediction that the U.S. would be short more than 100,000 teachers by 2017-18 if education policies did not change has become a reality.
Today one in eight teachers hired across the 48 contiguous states have temporary or emergency credentials, according to the LPI, and, significantly, nine of 10 teachers hired each year are replacing colleagues who are leaving the profession, two-thirds of these before retirement. While the teacher shortage was exacerbated by COVID-19, the problem is not new, and there are many issues that need to be addressed to provide a more permanent solution for the profession.
This has reached a critical stage. Teacher shortages negatively affect students, teachers, and public, charter and private schools, the educational system and society. Education is the foundation for an engaged citizenry to participate in a democratic society, a point emphasized by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others who saw a clear link between robust public education and a healthy democracy.
Equitable opportunities for a world-class education remains the best route for social mobility in this country and many others, according to economists and demographers. In this post-COVID era, whereby learning losses and pandemic-related gaps in academic achievement have been well documented, it is shocking that this national crisis has not received the attention it requires.
Without enough teachers, schools across the country have been forced to adapt by increasing the size of classes, reducing/canceling courses or programs, increasing the burden on existing teachers, shifting administrators to cover, coping with turnover, as well as being forced to hire adults without teacher education or training to lead classrooms.
Education leaders have called for a national focus on rebuilding the teaching profession, with several potential solutions being proposed, including increasing compensation in a variety of ways. Locally, Miami-Dade County Public Schools has been able to offer additional compensation to teachers, thanks to a local referendum passed by voters in 2022. Other solutions include making teacher preparation a debt-free and attractive career path, developing additional supports, resources, and investments for the profession, expanding high-quality pathways for retention, and redesigning the workforce, schools, and accountability structures to better support the professionals within.
Beginning in 2022, deans and faculty from schools and colleges of education in South Florida, along with K-12 school leaders, have been meeting periodically to discuss current issues and concerns in K-12 education.
The University of Miami School of Education and Human Development hosted an Educational Summit focused on the Teacher Shortage Crisis on Jan. 25. Co-sponsored by Miami Dade College School of Education, Florida International University School of Education and Human Development, and the South Florida Education Consortium, discussions were held on issues from both a national and local perspective. The goal of the conference was to raise the alarm and advance the conversation about what we can do in our community to ensure that our educational system remains strong.
It is important to address this crisis, not just locally but across the country. We need to do this for our children, for their future, and for the future of our communities.
Laura Kohn-Wood is dean of the University of Miami School of Education and Human Development, and Mary Avalos is a research professor in the school.
