The Teacher Crisis
A dissolving talent pool, a reminder of what everyone once knew, and an ode to teachers as they head into another year.
Hello Bar-Setters!
School is almost back in session. For teachers, this means meetings and professional development.
I’ve had the opportunity to lead some teacher professional development over the last couple years. Usually I start by introducing myself and talking about what prompted me to write my book, Setting the Bar.
Then, I’ll mention that I’ve just landed a deal to do a follow-up book:
To be clear, this is a fake cover. But it speaks to a reality that every teacher knows well.
There is a recruitment problem in education. Fewer college students are going into education, more veteran teachers are getting out, and, for the first time in recorded history, a majority of American parents say that they don’t want their children to go into public education. These trends began prior to Covid-19 and they’ve accelerated since then.
I’ve seen this first hand. At my high school, three of the last eight teacher of the year winners are now out of public education. Likewise, many of the best teachers I know have left, plan to leave, or would leave education if they weren’t so close to retirement. This past year, there were even multiple principals in my district who resigned in the middle of the year.
It’s like this throughout Texas and most states. Many districts in my region have even moved to a four-day per week work week so that they can be more competitive at hiring teachers.
You can quibble, as I have, that a four-day-week is obviously not what’s best for kids, but the proof is in the pudding. Districts that move to a four-day week have a much larger pool of teachers to hire from. These districts are betting that whatever they give up in days of instruction they’ll make up for by being able to hire better teachers.
This highlights an essential point. When there are fewer teachers to choose from, the aggregate quality of each campus’s teachers tends to go down. Most campuses still have many amazing teachers. But more retire every year while fewer high level college students are choosing to go into teaching.
This is about as big of an issue as there could be in education. As the late educational reformer, Sir Ken Robinson put it:
“There is no school in the country that is better than its teachers.”
What We All Used to Know
My goal in writing this isn’t to start your school year off on a negative note. Quite the contrary. I want to remind you just how invaluable teachers are.
Yesterday, the reigning teacher of the year spoke at my school. She is an amazing educator who pours a ridiculous amount of her time and energy into her students. What most of us didn’t know, until yesterday, was that she comes from a broken home. Abuse, neglect, drugs, you name it. But, as she said, “These were my circumstances. That’s not my story.”
Growing up amid terrible circumstances, her teachers helped her find joy, hope, and a belief that she could change her life station. Her teachers helped her find the strength to change her circumstances, and that’s why she is so passionate about teaching.
It is amazing how many people have a similar story about teachers who changed their lives. I did not come from an abusive home, but my teachers and coaches were my heroes. I went into education because I wanted to live with impact and because my greatest influences—the best men I knew—were teachers and coaches.
If Things Don’t Change…
Right now, there is a serious lack of talent going into education. This is a problem that will eventually affect every family, no matter what form of school they choose.
A rising tide raises all ships. Likewise, a sinking tide lowers all ships.
To put this another way, if the teacher pool is larger and better, then all schools will benefit. If the teacher pool is smaller and worse, all schools suffer.
This transcends politics. Whether you believe that the best way forward is to promote school choice and vouchers, or that it is to invest more in our public schools, the schools are still only going to be as good as the teachers who work in them. To improve education, whether that is public education, private education, or pod microschools, we have to start by getting more good people to go into education.
Over the past years, I’ve heard from more and more educators about how they have discouraged their own kids and their best students from going into a career in education. I understand what is causing this. I wrote a book about it, after all (see chapters 11 and 12 for an in depth look at what is going wrong in education). But I want to encourage you to remember that education is too important to turn your back on. We as a society cannot afford to steer our best people away from education.
I’m not saying that you have to accept education as it is now, or that you should be a quiet pawn in a broken system. Push reform if you like. Push innovation and create new options if you have the necessary vision. We need more creative leaders who are passionate about pushing education in the direction it needs to go. We need more good people of every disposition to come into education and make their mark. This is the only way to really improve education.
Remembering What We All Once Knew
It is time we restore a sense of nobility to the teaching profession. It’s time that we reminded people of the duty that we all have to live lives that make a difference and that we made our children understand the unique position that educators are in to do that.
On that note, I recently gave a speech to the teachers at a local middle school. It is the message that I’d like to give to all educators as they go into this year.
An Ode to Educators:
I’m going to start off by saying something that I am not supposed to say… something we aren’t supposed to say when we come together like this.
Public education is broken.
It is broken to its core and whatever idealized vision you may have about how it used to be… well, that is not coming back.
We’ve all seen this over the past few years. We’ve watched good friends and great teachers leave for other professions. We’ve heard about the hiring crisis and how some districts are switching to four day work weeks just so they can attract teachers. We've heard from our co-workers who are telling their own children not to go into education. Teaching has always been the sort of profession that runs in the family. But, now, many teachers are actively discouraging their own kids from becoming teachers.
We know all of this and we know the deeper why. The ever-expanding list of responsibilities, the nonsensical policies, many which actively prevent us from doing what we know is best, the changes in student behavior, and the new reality where students are not held responsible for their own outcomes. The onus of responsibility always seems to fall on the teacher.
We know all of this. And yet, we also know something else that keeps us here…
We know that there is no more important profession.
Let me say that again. Teaching is the most important profession. It is the best way to make a dramatic impact on people’s lives. It is the best way to inspire people to live better lives. It is the best way to know, on your deathbed, that your life really mattered.
Teaching is the most important profession. People used to talk about this. When we graduated high school, we all knew it to be true. We all had teachers who impacted us so deeply that we felt we had to teach. And when we got our first job, we all had a vision of the type of teacher we were certain that we were going to be. We all knew we were going to change the world in some small way.
So, I’m here to tell you two things. Public education is broken. I think we have to accept that in order to move forward with our sanity intact.
It’s like this. I’ve been with my wife for eight years now. If she expected me to pick out the right outfits for the kids on Sunday morning or to be able to find things when she asked for them, she would be pretty disappointed. And, likewise, if I expected to drive places with her and for her not to give me lots of helpful suggestions about how I could be driving better, I’d probably be very frustrated. But we’ve made peace with these things and she and I are very happy despite them.
We’re always better off making peace with reality. So, yes, we need to accept the reality that public education is broken.
But this has always been the case. To some degree or another, education has always been broken. And yet, it has still always been the most important and impactful profession there is.
Teaching is the most important profession. And, as such, it has the potential to be the most fulfilling and nourishing to our souls. It can fill us with purpose and inspire us to live our greatest lives.
Education is broken, but that should not and CANNOT be a reason for cynicism. Cynicism saps us of our vision, our creativity, and our passion. It turns us into something our younger selves would have never tolerated… It makes us a force of toxicity rather than a force for good.
So, what I want to do, in the time I have left, is look at how you can thrive in a broken system… as individual teachers, as classes, and as a school.
Thank you for reading and sharing with any kindred spirits!
Have a wonderful week. Carry the fire!
Shane