Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education, stated that teachers should not be made “into arm security” to respond to the shooting at Uvalde High School in Texas. Instead, they should be supported and given resources in the face of a teacher shortage.
“Teachers already do so much. “We shouldn’t expect teachers to be armless security, or that they will risk their lives when they enter school, as some ignorantly suggest,” he stated Thursday at the Bank Street College of Education, New York City.
“Instead, let’s give teachers the support they need to do their best work, which is helping children grow.”
Cardona stated that education leaders are struggling to fill vacancies, and increase diversity in their workforce.
He stated that “our schools and students require qualified teachers” and added that it was important not to only consider starting salaries but also teacher retention.
“Are they paying them a competitive wage?” Cardona stated that we are giving them a salary so they can support their families. “That’s the question we should be asking ourselves today. It shouldn’t take schools being closed or the crisis in which we see a shortage of teachers to make us appreciate the contributions that teachers make.”
According to the Learning Policy Institute, the average starting salary of teachers in the United States is $41,163.
Cardona stated that teachers in many states are eligible for government assistance to cover their salaries, despite the fact that they often need postgraduate degrees.
He said, “Name another profession that has been accepted to be able to do more on your own time and on your own dime.” “We have to stop that and stop normalizing it.”
FutureEd, a think-tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy released in April an analysis of spending plans for almost 4,000 school districts that teach 65 percent of the nation’s public school students.
Analysing the $55.4 billion of designated spending from these districts, $13.5 billion (or about 24%) was found to go towards staffing. According to the analysis, about one-third, or $4.7 billion will go towards teachers, guidance counselors, and academic interventionists.
It stated that “but given the shortages of teachers in certain parts of the country and other staff, some districts might struggle to hire the staff needed.”
FutureEd estimated that $2.3 billion will be spent on staffing to support teacher retention and recruitment.
Due to the Covid pandemic, there have been more resignations and retirements in schools than ever before. According to data from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, 44% of schools had at least one teaching position, while nearly half of them had at least one staff vacancy as of January. The data showed that more than half of the vacant positions were created by resignations.
Cardona stated that Americans shouldn’t be surprised by a shortage of teachers.
