[ Teachers are not only burnt out and undercompensated, they are
also demoralized. They are being asked to do things in the name of
teaching that they believe are mis-educational and harmful to students
and the profession. ]
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THERE’S A REASON THERE AREN’T ENOUGH TEACHERS IN AMERICA. MANY
REASONS, ACTUALLY.  
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Thomas B. Edsall
December 14, 2022
The New York Times
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_ Teachers are not only burnt out and undercompensated, they are also
demoralized. They are being asked to do things in the name of teaching
that they believe are mis-educational and harmful to students and the
profession. _

, Calla Kessler/The New York Times

 

Here are just a few of the longstanding problems plaguing American
education: a generalized decline
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literacy; the faltering international performance of American
students; an inability to recruit enough qualified college graduates
into the teaching profession; a lack of trained and able substitutes
to fill teacher shortages; unequal access to educational resources;
inadequate funding for schools; stagnant compensation for teachers;
heavier workloads; declining prestige; and deteriorating faculty
morale.

Nine-year-old students earlier this year revealed
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largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first
ever score decline in mathematics,” according to the National Center
for Education Statistics. In the latest comparison
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ability, the United States ranked below 15 countries, including
Russia, Ireland, Poland and Bulgaria.

Doris Santoro [[link removed]], a
professor of education at Bowdoin, wrote by email in response to my
query regarding the morale of public school teachers:

Teachers are not only burnt out and undercompensated, they are also
demoralized. They are being asked to do things in the name of teaching
that they believe are mis-educational and harmful to students and the
profession. What made this work good for them is no longer accessible.
That is why we are hearing so many refrains of “I’m not leaving
the profession, my profession left me.”

In an August 2022 paper, “Is There a National Teacher Shortage
[[link removed]]?,” Tuan D. Nguyen
[[link removed]] and Chanh B. Lam
[[link removed]], both of Kansas
State University, and Paul Bruno [[link removed]] of the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign wrote that they

systematically examined news reports, department of education data,
and publicly available information on teacher shortages for every
state in the U.S. We find there are at least 36,000 vacant positions
along with at least 163,000 positions being held by underqualified
teachers, both of which are conservative estimates of the extent of
teacher shortages nationally.

In an email, Nguyen argued, “The current problem of teacher
shortages (I would further break this down into vacancy and
under-qualification) is higher than normal.” The data, Nguyen
continued, “indicate that shortages are worsening over time,
particularly over the last few years. We do see that southern states
(e.g., Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida) have very high
vacancies and high vacancy rates.”

He pointed out that “the cultural war issues have been prominent in
some of these states (e.g., Florida).”

I asked Josh Bleiberg
[[link removed]], a professor of
education at the University of Pittsburgh, about trends in teacher
certification. He emailed back:

The number of qualified teachers is declining for the whole country
and the vast majority of states. The number of certified teachers only
increased in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, North Dakota,
and Washington. Those increases were relatively small and likely
didn’t keep up with enrollment increases.

These declines in the numbers of qualified teachers take place in an
environment of stagnant or declining economic incentives, he wrote:

Wages are essentially unchanged from 2000 to 2020 after adjusting
for inflation
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Teachers have about the same number of students. But, teacher
accountability reforms have increased the demands on their positions.
The pandemic was very difficult for teachers. Their self-reported
level of stress was about as twice
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pandemic compared to other working adults. Teachers had to worry both
about their personal safety and deal with teaching/caring for students
who are grieving lost family members.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics
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number of students graduating from college with bachelor’s degrees
in education fell from 176,307 in 1970-71 to 104,008 in 2010-11 to
85,058 in 2019-20.

In a study of teachers’ salaries, Sylvia Allegretto
[[link removed]], a research
associate at the Economic Policy Institute
[[link removed]], found
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gap between the pay of all college graduates and teacher salaries from
1979 to 2021, with a sharp increase in the differential since 2010. In
1979, the average teacher weekly salary (in 2021 dollars) was $1,052,
22.9 percent less than other college graduates’, at $1,364. By 2010,
teachers made $1,352 and other graduates made $1,811. By 2021,
teachers made $1,348, 32.9 percent less than what other graduates
made, at $2,009.

These gaps play a significant role in determining the quality of
teachers, according to a study by Eric A. Hanushek
[[link removed]] of Stanford; Marc Piopiunik
[[link removed]], a senior
researcher at the CESifo Network
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Wiederhold [[link removed]], a
professor at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, “The
Value of Smarter Teachers
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International Evidence on Teacher Cognitive Skills and Student
Performance.”

“We find,” they write, “that teachers’ cognitive skills differ
widely among nations — and that these differences matter greatly for
students’ success in school. An increase of one standard deviation
in teacher cognitive skills is associated with an increase of 10 to 15
percent of a standard deviation in student performance.” In
addition, they find “that teachers have lower cognitive skills, on
average, in countries with greater nonteaching job opportunities for
women in high-skill occupations and where teaching pays relatively
less than other professions. These findings have clear implications
for policy debates here in the U.S., where teachers earn some 20
percent less than comparable college graduates.”

Using data for 33 countries collected by the O.E.C.D.’s Program for
the International Assessment of Adult Competencies
[[link removed].],
the scholars found that the cognitive skills of teachers in the United
States fell in the middle ranks:

Teachers in the United States perform worse than the average teacher
sample-wide in numeracy, with a median score of 284 points out of a
possible 500, compared to the sample-wide average of 292 points. In
literacy, they perform slightly better than average, with a median
score of 301 points compared to the sample-wide average of 295 points.

Raising teacher skill levels can significantly improve student
performance, they argue:

Increasing teacher numeracy skills by one standard deviation increases
student performance by nearly 15 percent of a standard deviation on
the PISA math test. Our estimate of the effect of increasing teacher
literacy skills on students’ reading performance is slightly
smaller, at 10 percent of a standard deviation.

In addition, “the impact of teacher skills is somewhat larger for
girls than for boys and for low-income students compared to wealthier
students, particularly in reading.”

How, then, to raise teacher skill level in the United States? Hanushek
and his two colleagues have a simple answer: raise teacher pay to make
it as attractive to college graduates as high-skill jobs in other
fields.

They have one caveat:

While making it clear that a more skilled teaching force is generally
found in countries with higher relative salaries, policymakers will
need to do more than raise teacher pay across the board to ensure
positive results. They must ensure that higher salaries go to more
effective teachers.

The teaching of disputed subjects in schools has compounded many of
the difficulties in American education. “Walking a Fine Line —
Educators’ Views on Politicized Topics in Schooling
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report by Ashley Woo
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fellow researchers, published earlier this year, was based on surveys
conducted in January and February 2022 of 2,360 K-12 teachers and
1,540 principals. The researchers found that controversies over
critical race theory, sex education and transgender issues —
aggravated by divisive debates over responses to Covid and its
aftermath — are inflicting a heavy toll on teachers and principals.

“On top of the herculean task of carrying out the essential
functions of their jobs,” they write, “educators increasingly find
themselves in the position of addressing contentious, politicized
issues in their schools as the United States has experienced
increasing political polarization.”

Teachers and principals, they add, “have been pulled in multiple
directions as they try to balance and reconcile not only their own
beliefs on such matters but also the beliefs of others around them,
including their leaders, fellow staff, students, and students’
family members.”

These conflicting pressures take place in a climate where “emotions
in response to these issues have run high within communities,
resulting in the harassment of educators, bans against literature
depicting diverse characters, and calls for increased parental
involvement in deciding academic content.”

The stress of dealing with all this is much more prevalent among
educators than it is among workers in other fields, according to the
study:

Forty-eight percent of principals and 40 percent of teachers reported
that the intrusion of political issues and opinions in school
leadership or teaching, respectively, was a job-related stressor. By
comparison, only 16 percent of working adults indicated that the
intrusion of political issues and opinions in their jobs was a source
of job-related stress. This difference demonstrates the especially
salient impact that politicized issues have had in schools compared
with other workplaces.

The issue of systemic racism
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an example of the intellectual and moral cross-pressures on educators
as teaching becomes increasingly politicized. Many conservative
legislatures have restricted or prohibited teaching
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that there is such a thing as systemic racism in the United States.

The RAND survey asked educators whether “they believed in the
existence of systemic racism, which we defined as the notion that
racism is embedded in systems and structures throughout society rather
than present only in interpersonal interactions.”The result?

Sixty percent of teachers and 65 percent of principals reported
believing that systemic racism exists. Only about 20 percent of
teachers and principals reported that they believe systemic racism
does not exist, and the remainder were not sure. More teachers of
color (69 percent) reported believing in the existence of systemic
racism than White teachers (57 percent). We saw a similar trend among
principals: 79 percent of principals of color reported their belief in
the existence of systemic racism compared with 61 percent of White
principals. Nearly all Black or African American principals (92
percent) and teachers (87 percent) reported believing that systemic
racism exists.

White educators working in predominantly white school systems reported
substantially more pressure to deal with politically divisive issues
than educators of color and those working in mostly minority schools:
“Forty-one percent of white teachers and 52 percent of white
teachers and principals selected the intrusion of political issues and
opinions into their professions as a job-related stressor, compared
with 36 percent of teachers of color and principals of color.” In
addition, they write, “Teachers (46 percent) and principals (58
percent) in schools with predominantly white students were
significantly more likely than teachers (34 percent) and principals
(36 percent) in schools with predominantly students of color to
consider the intrusion of political issues and opinions as a
job-related stressor.”

A 54 percent majority of teachers and principals said there “should
not be legal limits on classroom conversations about racism, sexism,
and other topics,” while 20 percent said there should be legislated
constraint. There were significant racial differences on this issue:
“62 percent of principals of color and 59 percent of teachers of
color opposed such legal limits, compared with 51 percent of white
principals and 52 percent of white teachers.”

Voters, in turn, are highly polarized on the teaching of issues
impinging on race or ethnicity in public schools. The Education Next
2022 Survey
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for example:

Some people think their local public schools place too little emphasis
on slavery, racism and other challenges faced by Black people in the
United States. Other people think their local public schools place too
much emphasis on these topics. What is your view about your local
public schools?

The responses of Democrats and Republicans were mirror opposites of
each other. Among Democrats, 55 percent said too little emphasis was
placed on slavery, racism and other challenges faced by Black people,
and 8 percent said too much. Among Republicans, 51 said too much and
10 percent said too little.

Because of the lack of reliable national data, there is widespread
disagreement among scholars of education over the scope and severity
of the shortage of credentialed teachers, although there is more
agreement that these problems are worse in low-income, high
majority-minority school systems and in STEM and special education
faculties.

A study based on a survey last summer of 682 public high school
principals and on 32 follow-up interviews, conducted by the Institute
for Democracy, Education and Access at U.C.L.A. and the Civic
Engagement Research Group at the University of California-Riverside,
“Educating for a Diverse Democracy
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The Chilling Role of Political Conflict in Blue, Purple, and Red
Communities,” found:

Public schools increasingly are targets of conservative political
groups focusing on what they term “Critical Race Theory,” as well
as issues of sexuality and gender identity. These political conflicts
have created a broad chilling effect that has limited opportunities
for students to practice respectful dialogue on controversial topics
and made it harder to address rampant misinformation. The chilling
effect also has led to marked declines in general support for teaching
about race, racism, and racial and ethnic diversity.

These political conflicts, the authors wrote,

have made the already hard work of public education more difficult,
undermining school management, negatively impacting staff, and
heightening student stress and anxiety. Several principals shared that
they were reconsidering their own roles in public education in light
of the rage at teachers and rage at administrators’ playing out in
their communities.

Since 2010 there has been a cumulative decline in four key measures
shaping the attractiveness of the teaching profession.

In a November 2022 paper, “The Rise and Fall of the Teaching
Profession
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Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction Over the Last Half
Century,” Matthew Kraft
[[link removed]] of Brown
University and Melissa Arnold Lyon
[[link removed]] of the University
at Albany, State University of New York tracked trends on “four
interrelated constructs: professional prestige, interest among
students, preparation for entry, and job satisfaction” for 50 years,
from the 1970s to the present and found

a consistent and dynamic pattern across every measure: a rapid decline
in the 1970s, a swift rise in the 1980s, relative stability for two
decades, and a sustained drop beginning around 2010. The current state
of the teaching profession is at or near its lowest levels in 50
years.

The analysis by Kraft and Lyon poses a crucial issue for those
concerned about the quality of teaching in public schools:

Growing dissatisfaction and burnout among teachers in the wake of the
pandemic and new state laws restricting discourse on racism and
sexuality in schools have set ablaze a long smoldering question: Who
among the next generation of college graduates will choose to teach?

Some of the specifics in the Kraft-Lyon study:

Perceptions of teacher prestige have fallen between 20 percent and 47
percent in the last decade to be at or near the lowest levels recorded
over the last half century. Interest in the teaching profession among
high school seniors and college freshmen has fallen 50 percent since
the 1990s, and 38 percent since 2010, reaching the lowest level in the
last 50 years. The number of new entrants into the profession has
fallen by roughly one third over the last decade, and the proportion
of college graduates that go into teaching is at a 50-year low.
Teachers’ job satisfaction is also at the lowest level in five
decades, with the percent of teachers who feel the stress of their job
is worth it dropping from 81 percent to 42 percent in the last 15
years.

The combination of these factors — declining prestige, lower pay
than other professions that require a college education, increased
workloads, and political and ideological pressures — is creating
both intended and unintended consequences for teacher accountability
reforms mandating tougher licensing rules, evaluations and skill
testing.

In their July 2020 paper, “Teacher Accountability Reforms and the
Supply and Quality of New Teachers
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Kraft, Eric Brunner
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University of Connecticut, Shaun M. Dougherty
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Boston College and David Schwegman
[[link removed]] of American
University describe the mixed results of the wave of state-level
adoption of “a package of reforms centered on high-stakes evaluation
systems”:

We find that accountability reforms reduced the number of newly
licensed teacher candidates and increased the likelihood of unfilled
teaching positions, particularly in hard-to-staff schools. Evidence
also suggests that reforms increased the quality of newly hired
teachers by reducing the likelihood that new teachers attended
unselective undergraduate institutions.

In addition, Kraft, Brunner, Dougherty and Schwegman write:

Evaluation reforms also appear to have reduced teacher satisfaction
and autonomy. We find that evaluation reforms resulted in a 14.6
percentage point drop in the likelihood that teachers Strongly Agree
that they are satisfied with being a teacher. We find a 5.7 percentage
point decrease in the probability that new teachers Strongly Agree
that they have control over the content and skills they teach and an
8.9 percentage point drop in the probability that new teachers
Strongly Agree that they have control over their teaching techniques.

The authors’ conclusion provides little comfort:

Education policy over the past decade has focused considerable effort
on improving human capital in schools through teacher accountability.
These reforms, and the research upon which they drew, were based on
strong assumptions about how accountability would affect who decided
to become a teacher. Counter to most assumptions, our findings
document how teacher accountability reduced the supply of new teacher
candidates by, in part, decreasing perceived job security,
satisfaction and autonomy.

The reforms, Kraft and colleagues continued, increased

the likelihood that schools could not fill vacant teaching positions.
Even more concerning, effects on unfilled vacancies were concentrated
in hard-to-staff schools that often serve larger populations of
low-income students and students of color. We find that evaluation
reforms increased the quality of newly hired novice teachers by
reducing the number of teachers that graduated from the least
selective institutions. We find no evidence that evaluation reforms
served to attract teachers who attended the most selective
undergraduate institutions.

In other words, the economic incentives, salary structure and
work-life pressures characteristic of public education employment have
created a climate in which contemporary education reforms have
perverse and unintended consequences that can worsen rather than
alleviate the problems facing school systems.

If so, to improve the overall quality of the nation’s more than
three million
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schoolteachers, reformers may want to give priority to paychecks,
working conditions, teacher autonomy and punishing workloads before
attempting to impose higher standards, tougher evaluations and less
job security.

_Thomas B. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C.,
on politics, demographics and inequality._

 

* Teacher shortage
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* anti-wokeness
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* low paying jobs
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