Teacher Shortage Crisis

Over the past few months, I’ve had heart wrenching conversations with many teachers — experienced, passionate, wonderful educators. Most of them are thinking of leaving the profession after 15, 20, 25 years. Why? Despite their belief in the importance of the work, despite how much they enjoy working with the students … the lack of respect, poor compensation, and limited leadership prospects are becoming overwhelming. We’re fast approaching the tipping point where we simply won’t have qualified teachers available for one of the most important jobs in our society.

Take a look at this blog post from Edweek:

This year will go down in history as a milestone year for the teaching profession.

In six states, tens of thousands of teachers walked out of their classrooms to protest low salaries and cuts to school funding. Nearly 180 current classroom teachers ran for their state legislatures on a platform centered around funding education, and 43 of those teachers were elected. Suddenly, the whole country seemed to be talking about how underpaid and overworked teachers are.