Title: Teacher Shortage Report Diagnoses Causes, Suggests Fixes
Source: Educationnews.org/ Kristin Decarr/9-16-16
Key points: This article approaches the issue of teacher shortage and how school districts can work at keeping teachers and recruiting others to the job. A report titled “Solving the teacher shortage: How to attract and retain excellent educators” talks about how things like higher pay, loan forgiveness programs, allowing teachers to retain their current benefits, and high quality administration that include teachers in decision making would help bring new faces and dedicated staff to our public schools.
Relevance: Most of us in either cohort recognize that there are many things wrong with our treatment of staff and how that mistreatment can lead to issues like burnout and resignations. It's important that we can advocate for ourselves and know the things that we need to keep our schools in a high quality condition, starting with the people who work there. The people in the building are the foundation of the school itself, and without them, our schools will fail.
I believe this is a great article showcasing our chosen profession and the challenges that coming to the realm of education. Recruiting, salary, and teacher support are factors that demonstrate the reasons why teachers choose to leave the profession. I believe that the idea of loan forgiveness towards teachers is an excellent way to bring more candidates to the job. The conclusion of the article was interesting as to leaving the decision to individual localities to determine which set of policies are most relevant to the area.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting article, because I feel like many current SPED teachers are unhappy and frustrated (I know not all of them fall into this category). When I speak with SPED teachers, there always seem to be something that is causing problems for them unrelated to the students, such as administration, policies, lack of support, not feeling valued, etc. The points from the article would definitely help encourage people to join the teaching profession and it would be nice to have those perks, but as you mentioned – the people in the building need to all be on the same page and support each other.
ReplyDeleteI know someone who had an interview for a recruiter in our school district, so I know we have recruiters, but I have not heard much about their work. Does our district need to hire a few more recruiters? I also have heard of teachers not coming back to teach because of the lack of support from their district and such. Maybe their needs to be more focus on new policies that support and give more freedom/power to teachers in their own classroom. Of course it always help when all teachers come together and work together to make our work environments better as well.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great article! bringing attention to the fact that we just don't have enough teachers is crucial. However I also think we don't have enough schools which doesn't help us having enough teachers also. I know that many teachers get burnt out quickly which causes them to have short careers mainly because of lack or resources or support that they need to teach affectively. Great choice on your article!
ReplyDeleteOur district is taking many steps toward more and better recruitment. Steve Nelson has made many changes and worked with multiple universities to create cohorts like ours. Special education is of course one but we also have a bilingual cohort. The article makes many great points including increasing teacher pay, but we will always want to make more, right?
ReplyDeleteOur district is taking many steps toward more and better recruitment. Steve Nelson has made many changes and worked with multiple universities to create cohorts like ours. Special education is of course one but we also have a bilingual cohort. The article makes many great points including increasing teacher pay, but we will always want to make more, right?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteI thought that this article provided some good ideas on how we can try to solve the teacher shortage, specifically with loan forgiveness. Loan forgiveness is something that a majority of co-workers I have talk about and is obviously an issue many people in our profession face. As a Special Education teacher, I know that in my school district the teacher shortage and the "burnout rate" of teachers is at an all-time high because of the continually high demands (paperwork, legal obligations, student behavior, parent expectations, etc).
ReplyDelete