Carolyn Jones/EdSource
Carolyn Jones/EdSourceWhen I was 14, something happened that changed the trajectory of my life forever. It wasn’t anything tragic or grandiose. In fact, it was a rather mundane, everyday occurrence. I was simply assigned to Mr. Wiley’s class in the seventh grade.
But that was enough — enough to alter the course of my life forever. Mr. Wiley believed in me, saw me and my talents underneath my teenage exterior of a shy, new student who wasn’t sure of his place. In his class, I thrived because of his quiet dedication to me and, while serving as my soccer coach, he unleashed a confident player who learned lessons on the pitch that would serve me all my life. I decided to pursue a career in education myself and set out on an entirely different path. One I wouldn’t change for the world.
We pay lip service to how teachers truly shape the lives of our youth but often forget that is exactly what they do. It’s critical work. Each profession and launched career starts with a student sitting in a classroom with a teacher who cares. Engineers, doctors, IT workers, artists and climate scientists all are first influenced, taught and — as was in my case — inspired by teachers.
Nationwide, public schools spent about $14.2 billion in federal Covid relief aid in fiscal year 2021, with the bulk of the money going to address learning loss and teacher recruitment and retention, according to the U.S. Education Department. Here in California, we allocated more than $915 million for education staff development and recruitment in 2021-2022 — more than was spent in the previous five years altogether, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. State leaders also invested about $1.5 billion, apportioned in the 2021-22 school year and available to be spent through June 2026 on programs to support teacher recruitment and retention, while eliminating barriers to entry.
These investments are right, vital and a baseline of how much we should be spending on ensuring our classrooms have high-quality teachers. We want every student to have a chance to meet their own Mr. Wiley. There are those who have called for reductions or curbing this type of spending due to the shift in our economic future. With inflation, a deteriorating stock market and reductions in the California-based tech sector workforce, we are looking at a 9.6% projected decrease in tax revenues.
I strongly disagree with this thinking.
Now is the time to double down on the investments we’ve made since 2020 in shoring up our educator workforce and its pipeline. Much like we have rightly expended millions to combat learning loss, we cannot stop that expenditure just as students are starting to turn the corner and make progress through tutoring and other supportive programs.
Yes, we are still facing a teacher shortage. In fact, over the next decade, 100,000 teachers are needed to offer our students a high-quality education, especially in STEM subjects, special education and rural areas, according to the California School Boards Association. However, we see positive signs. Enrollment in teacher preparation programs is increasing. We have seen an increase in participation in our educator recruitment job fairs, with over 175 unique local education agencies, representing 43% of all California students, signed up to utilize the recruitment toolkit through our successful online public service announcement — the We Want You campaign.
Yes, the time to have faith in our investment is now. The time to ensure we keep our foot on the gas and continue to invest in recruiting strong, talented educators to our classrooms is now. We must continue to advocate to ensure the governor’s May budget revision includes what’s outlined at the very least with an increase in the Golden State Teacher Grant Program and Classified School Employee Teacher Credential Program.
We need to continue to invest heavily in ensuring that we have a strong, robust pipeline of diverse, well-prepared teachers. In California, we want to elevate the profession by continuing to increase teacher salaries and benefits. As more of the baby boomer generation of teachers retire, we need to secure strong retention programs, which include providing additional supports, strong professional development, mental health care and other wellness initiatives to retain the strong, high-quality teachers currently serving in our classrooms.
Our students depend on us to make that investment for them. We need them to know their Mr. Wiley is on the way. That future teacher is sitting in a classroom somewhere right now, being inspired — by their teacher — to go into education.
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Marvin Lopez is the executive director for the California Center on Teaching Careers, the statewide agency charged with recruiting and retaining teachers housed within the Tulare County Office of Education.
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Comments (8)
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Doug 2 months ago2 months ago
I am a high school science teacher of 20 years. Throwing money at teacher salary as well as more "training" is not going to fix the teacher retention problem. Teaching high school science is a shell of itself. Mr. Wiley, if he was teaching today, would agree education is radically different than it was 10 years ago. Nearly every school district in California has done away with basic math prerequisites for chemistry and physics. I have … Read More
I am a high school science teacher of 20 years. Throwing money at teacher salary as well as more “training” is not going to fix the teacher retention problem. Teaching high school science is a shell of itself. Mr. Wiley, if he was teaching today, would agree education is radically different than it was 10 years ago.
Nearly every school district in California has done away with basic math prerequisites for chemistry and physics. I have students (and not one or two) that literally cannot do basic arithmetic on single digit numbers. Getting kids to gather data, graph it, and make inferences and predictions to explain phenomena, which is what the Next Generation Science Standards call for, requires an act of god. Furthermore, seemingly annual additions to teacher roles and responsibilities, such as the Multi-tiered Systems and Support, where teachers are now responsible for student emotional health, only move the job description goal post.
We do not need more money or more training, we need our jobs to stop changing from year to year.
Wilson 2 months ago2 months ago
I don’t know what statistics are found, but statistics are only a small sample size. In this case, I do not believe they reflect the reality, at least of what’s happening in the Bay Area. Perhaps it is true that California is attracting more teachers. But this is definitely not the case here. Not only is there still a significant teacher shortage, but we can’t even get enough subs to fill schools little school … Read More
I don’t know what statistics are found, but statistics are only a small sample size. In this case, I do not believe they reflect the reality, at least of what’s happening in the Bay Area. Perhaps it is true that California is attracting more teachers. But this is definitely not the case here. Not only is there still a significant teacher shortage, but we can’t even get enough subs to fill schools little school days.
Money isn’t everything, but it is a necessity. We are still losing teachers by the drove for cheaper housing, especially after a teacher gets married, or decides to have children. And the working conditions are still incredibly tough. You share a story of teacher. Inspiration is wonderful but there just is not enough time or energy in the day to do that for all students – and they all need it, when a teacher is now having to leave at the end of the day to go work at another job in order to afford to live in a an RV parked on another person’s property; that is not a sustainable way of life for a teacher.
At the end of last school year, I was finally exhausted from all the extra responsibilities that occur from outside the classroom. With no chance for relaxation, I finally burnt out and burnt up. I’m one of the left and forgotten roadside casualties of this profession.
Jim 3 months ago3 months ago
Given how poorly students are learning basic reading and math skills maybe we should give low quality teachers a chance.
Replies
Doug 2 months ago2 months ago
You are not wrong. I was an intern without a mentor. To say I absolutely sucked the first few years is an understatement. However, I am tenacious if nothing else. I can hold my own in the classroom, and I know I help a lot of kids be successes. That said, as a high school physics and chemistry teacher, i share your frustration with lack of student skills: How do I teach physics and … Read More
You are not wrong. I was an intern without a mentor. To say I absolutely sucked the first few years is an understatement. However, I am tenacious if nothing else. I can hold my own in the classroom, and I know I help a lot of kids be successes.
That said, as a high school physics and chemistry teacher, i share your frustration with lack of student skills: How do I teach physics and chem to kids that cannot multiply and divide single digit numbers? I have a lot of these students. District office specialists always like to go with “it’s the teacher’s fault for not ‘differentiating’ enough,” or “it’s in the name of equity.” If I were doing the actual hiring, I would look more at a candidate’s determination and grit and less at the credential or school they attended.
Craig 3 months ago3 months ago
Before we start dumping more and more funds into recruiting more teachers, we must first look at why there's a shortage in the first place. Adding more teachers without first addressing why teachers nationwide are leaving the job merely "kicks the can down the road" and doesn't solve anything. For example, in many districts, teachers have their paid contract time but often no additional compensation for Special Ed IEP meetings that occur after hours, … Read More
Before we start dumping more and more funds into recruiting more teachers, we must first look at why there’s a shortage in the first place. Adding more teachers without first addressing why teachers nationwide are leaving the job merely “kicks the can down the road” and doesn’t solve anything. For example, in many districts, teachers have their paid contract time but often no additional compensation for Special Ed IEP meetings that occur after hours, and no additional compensation for the case management side of being a special education teacher. It’s basically two jobs, the classroom portion and the case management. This doesn’t even count the amount of time spend on lesson plans.
Next address the issue of teacher safety on campus. Teachers often don’t feel safe at work and don’t believe administration is doing enough to protect them. Lastly, there are several stories on social media of teachers quitting and getting non-teaching jobs at places like Costco and reporting that they’ve never been happier. Of course stories like this don’t do much to further teaching as a satisfying career path.
Dr. Bill Conrad 3 months ago3 months ago
A few special case hero stories are not enough to make up for an overall K-12 education system that is totally unattractive to potential highly qualified teacher candidates because there are so many other great professional options for our highly qualified students! Teaching is still considered charity work. Highly qualified candidates may enter the system through the Teach for America portal in order to burnish their resumes. It takes them a year to figure out the … Read More
A few special case hero stories are not enough to make up for an overall K-12 education system that is totally unattractive to potential highly qualified teacher candidates because there are so many other great professional options for our highly qualified students!
Teaching is still considered charity work.
Highly qualified candidates may enter the system through the Teach for America portal in order to burnish their resumes. It takes them a year to figure out the job and then a year of work after which they return to their real profession.
Potential Black candidates especially Black males eschew the opportunity having been harassed and oppressed by the system with over the top discipline, suspensions, expulsions, and so on.
The K-12 education system must be totally transformed before it will attract significant enough highly qualified candidates to make a real difference.
Replies
Chris Stampolis 2 months ago2 months ago
Bill, as I am the Dad of University students, I ask how you would “totally transform” K-12 education. Barriers I see to teacher recruitment primarily are financial: Pell Grants and Cal Grants do not cover any part of post-Bachelor’s degree education. Cover part of the cost of required graduate school and one will find many qualified University graduates seeking a teaching credential.
Dr. Bill Conrad 2 months ago2 months ago
Money plays a role but a small role. First of all, the colleges of education are extraordinarily weak. They recruit the least qualified and then train them poorly in content, pedagogy, and assessment skills. Half of them fail to teach the science of reading. And don’t even get me started on mathematics. Secondly, CA must establish rigorous, mandatory career ladders for teachers. No more assigning the newest teachers to the most challenging classes. Read my book, The … Read More
Money plays a role but a small role.
First of all, the colleges of education are extraordinarily weak. They recruit the least qualified and then train them poorly in content, pedagogy, and assessment skills.
Half of them fail to teach the science of reading. And don’t even get me started on mathematics.
Secondly, CA must establish rigorous, mandatory career ladders for teachers. No more assigning the newest teachers to the most challenging classes.
Read my book, The Fog of Education for more details and additional recommendations.