The Public Teaching Crisis
Why We’re Having Trouble Finding and Keeping Good Teachers
Civic Way continues its public education series, exploring themes impacting the public education system. This essay is about the public school teacher shortage. In future essays, we will discuss two other threats to public education, vouchers and public dereliction. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.
Personnel quality—teachers and principals—is the most important element of a quality school. – Hoover Institution
Introduction
For well over a century, the nation’s public schools depended on the idealism of underpaid female educators. The teaching profession remains predominately female, but the national labor market for women has changed dramatically. Unfortunately, many state legislatures and public school districts have failed to adapt.
The quality of our education system is influenced by many factors, but the single most important school-level factor is the quality of principals and teachers. When distracted by slogans and fear-mongering school choice, it easy to overlook more consequential matters like the need to invest in great teachers and principals.
The US public education system continues to slip in global rankings. Most of us say we want great public schools. The question is our willingness to do what is necessary to attain and sustain greatness. Our top priority should be to increase our commitment to—and our investment in—public school educators.
Teacher Shortages
According to the US Education Department, teacher shortages became a serious problem during the Great Recession but were exacerbated by the pandemic[i]. Teacher retirements and resignations are soaring[ii], the teacher pipeline is leaking, and teacher vacancies are climbing[iii]. And, with even more teachers planning to leave the profession, the trend could worsen.[iv]
Teacher shortages are a nationwide problem, but are even more acute in certain jurisdictions and teaching specialties. States and districts with low teacher pay struggle more to fill vacancies. Certain teaching fields—like math, science, foreign languages and special education—experience higher vacancy rates.
Public school teacher shortages have many consequences. Larger classrooms (more pupils per teacher). Rising student-to-teacher ratios. Greater usage of temporary—and less credentialed—instructors. Truncated schedules. Substandard student outcomes. Poor career readiness. Lost student earnings[v]. Some of the causal factors are outlined below.
Teacher Compensation
Teacher compensation, one such causal factor, has been stagnant for many years in the US. For the 2021-22 year, the average public school teacher salary was $66,397 up about two percent from the prior year. This slight increase does not account for inflation[vi].
There is little disagreement about the nation’s failure to keep teacher salaries competitive. The Reason Foundation found that national spending on teacher salaries has flattened on a per pupil basis. The Hoover Institution found that, from 2000 to 2016, adjusted for inflation, starting teacher salaries plateaued and average teacher salaries declined slightly. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average 2021-22 teacher salary was the lowest on an inflation-adjusted basis for decades.
Teachers are paid less than comparable professions. The Hoover Institution estimates that teachers are paid 22 percent less than non-teachers adjusted for differences in experience and skills[vii]. In virtually all states and DC, teachers earn less than other positions requiring a bachelor's or master’s degree[viii]. According to the Economic Policy Institute, public school teacher pay is 74 percent that of occupations with comparable educational requirements—the teacher pay penalty.
Teacher salaries are even lower in some states. According to USA Facts, in 2021-22, 31 states paid less than the national average cost-of-living-adjusted teacher salary[ix]. Over one-third of the states paid an average adjusted teacher salary of less than $60,000 per year. At $50,508, Florida paid the lowest average adjusted teacher salary, nearly $5,000 less than next three lowest states[x].
Salary is important but only one compensation component. Benefits such as health insurance, retirement and parental leave, which can impact teacher compensation competitiveness, vary considerably. Healthcare benefits vary by state. Retirement spending has risen much faster than spending on salaries[xi]. Relatively few school districts offer parental leave benefits[xii].
Average teacher pay is a proxy indicator of a district’s commitment to teacher quality. However, in most public school districts, teacher pay is less linked to classroom performance than other factors such as seniority, experience, degrees, credentials and subject matter expertise[xiii]. Still, as the Hoover Institution has argued, “compensation provides the best leverage … to improve the overall quality of the teaching force."[xiv]
We should continue to fund efforts to leverage compensation as a tool for improving teacher performance. We should strive to reward the classroom performers who produce the best student outcomes. We should be mindful that the best teachers aren’t necessarily the most experienced or degreed teachers. Teacher unions are right to ask questions about performance-based pay, but they are wrong to oppose the concept altogether[xv].
Teacher Preparation and Hiring
The interest of young people in teaching careers is fading. Since 2010, enrollment in teacher-preparation programs has decreased by 36 percent[xvi]. From 2008-09 to 2018-19, those completing a teacher education program declined by nearly one-third[xvii]. The percent of college graduates becoming teachers has plummeted.
Some young people may believe that becoming a teacher is simply not worth the investment. Others may be discouraged by the entry process, including hidebound teacher preparation and certification programs. New alternatives are emerging, but most new teachers use traditional university-based education programs.
As the teaching pipeline has faltered, more states are questioning their reliance on entry exams. These exams (e.g., Praxis Core exam) gauge an applicant’s academic potential (like the SAT and ACT). Regardless of college grades, an aspiring teacher must pass all exam parts to enter most state teacher preparation programs, obtain student teaching experience and earn the requisite degree. Their predictive power is far from proven.
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) reports that states requiring a basic skills test for preparation program admission is down from 25 in 2015 to 11 today (most of which are in the southeast US). Some allow candidates to fulfill the requirement with a minimum ACT, SAT or GRE score. Nearly 30 states have established teaching apprenticeship programs. Many states are trying to strike a balance—at least for public school teachers—between streamlining entry processes and ensuring high quality teachers.
A related issue involves accreditation. Accreditation standards in many states, especially those with ambitious voucher programs, apply only to public school teachers. Some traditional accreditation processes are slow and costly. The current regional accreditation model may limit competitive options and make it too cumbersome and costly to hire teachers with specialized expertise, especially those from other nations.
Teacher Assessment and Discipline
Arguably, the toughest challenge facing public school districts today is retaining high-quality teachers. It will help to pay teachers better, improve teacher preparation, licensing and recruitment practices, and strengthen teacher development programs. But we must get better at identifying and removing bad teachers.
Evaluating a public school teacher’s performance is not easy, but it is foundational to a public school’s success. Unfortunately, too many districts treat performance assessments as exercises in paper shuffling. Some large school districts, like the Los Angeles Unified School District, have known years when 99 percent of their tenured teacher evaluations “met standards.” Is there any value in such an evaluation system?
Some blame teacher union contracts for ineffective teacher evaluation and disciplinary practices, but states bear substantial responsibility. According to the NCTQ, states in 2011 started adopting more robust evidence-based teacher evaluation practices[xviii]. However, since 2016, several states have weakened their teacher evaluation policies (e.g., reducing evaluation factors and feedback requirements). As a result:
Standards – Only 10 states require a uniform statewide teacher evaluation system.
Evaluation factors – 14 states forego multi-factor teacher rating systems[xix] and several states have stopped requiring student growth and survey data, thereby undermining rating system integrity.
Classroom observation – 29 states don’t require or weight teacher observations in evaluating teachers, only 14 states require multiple annual observations for all teachers and only 19 states specify observer qualifications.
Evaluation frequency – Only 22 states require annual evaluations for all teachers (37 states require annual evaluations for probationary teachers).
Feedback – 19 states don’t mandate teacher feedback after observations.
Professional development – 20 states don’t link evaluation results to professional development.
Evaluation data – Only 13 states publish school-level data on teacher effectiveness.
In short, too many states are failing to bring effective teacher evaluation systems to school districts.
An effective personnel assessment system is essential. To distinguish great teachers. To identify teacher performance issues. To discipline or steer underperforming teachers to development programs. To dismiss subpar teachers unable or unwilling to respond to corrective discipline.
Some school districts make it too hard and costly to dismiss bad teachers, especially those with tenure. Some school districts spend inordinate time and money removing poor teachers. Some school districts dismiss teachers for violating contract terms or rotate poor teachers to other schools (dance of the lemons).
The problem varies by state but let’s consider California. According to the Los Angeles Times, it is tough to dismiss a tenured public school teacher[xx] there for any reason, especially poor teaching[xxi]. Most appealed dismissals are overturned. Even when dismissals are upheld, classroom performance is rarely a factor. California public school teachers are rarely dismissed[xxii]. Studies conducted in other urban school districts[xxiii]have documented similarly ineffectual dismissal practices.
The difficulty of building a dismissal case—and low probability of success—have a chilling effect. The result? Fiscally distressed districts retain bad teachers even as they lay off better teachers. Students endure inept teaching. Good teachers suffer an unfair system that ignores poor performance.
All of us pay for a system that President Obama once decried as one “that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences.”
We can do better.