MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
teacher shortage
"The broken system is breaking teachers faster than they can be replaced. This world has eroded my love of teaching beyond repair."
"It’s difficult not to respond when you hear there is such a significant need.”
Teacher shortages have been much in the news. After years of layoffs during the fiscal recession, an upturn in the economy has allowed districts to begin hiring again. The problem is that many districts cannot find qualified teachers to fill the new positions.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
The sad truth is that teaching is not as respected as other professions.
New York City wants to get 1,000 more men of color in classrooms over the next few years.
The last 15 years have been marked by top-down education policies that promoted testing over teaching, competition over collaboration, austerity over investment, and scapegoating teachers rather than valuing them. The Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal education law, moves us in the right direction, but past policies have left their mark.
What may be the strangest outcome of the teacher shortage and ESSA is that, for the first time in our country's history, we are going to have to treat teachers the same way we treat any other resource. In this case, it is a human resource.
If we can bring best-in-class leadership and management practices to education, we can create schools and school systems where our nation's most talented, diverse professionals clamor to work now and for decades to come.
