Last week my son walked away from his teaching career to manage valet parking services at a hospital, so the headline: “Illinois still suffers shortage of teachers,” on the front page of the March 28 issue of The Voice, caught my eye. With many friends and family members who are teachers, I can offer some insight into why the shortage is unlikely to be remedied soon.
It’s hard to overstate the damage done by former U.S, president Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who worked to de-fund public education and create a for-profit system of charter and private schools. Charter schools are operated independently from the local school boards, and have a different curriculum and educational philosophy. That independence can lead to abuse.
In one charter school, two administrators made six-figure incomes, while living in other states! They provided occasional online “trainings” for the teachers that contained no new information. That money could have been spent on support staff inside the school and supplies for students. Superintendents and top administrators often make salaries that are many times what teachers make.
Survey responses from the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, as noted in last week’s edition The Voice, stated that some of the “Alternative measures” used by schools to cope with the shortage were: Hiring substitutes, combining classes, and increasing class sizes.
Unmanageable class sizes and lack of qualified support staff drive teachers to leave the profession, which creates a vicious circle.
The survey said 54% of respondents cited burnout from working conditions as the reason for leaving. My daughter said the number is probably higher, but schools know the surveys are not truly anonymous.
My son, Alex, summed it up well. “Too many decisions are made by people who, ironically, have no experience in education. The result is that education, at least at the teacher and support levels, has become overworked, underpaid, undersupplied, underappreciated, and unsafe.”
What does he mean by “unsafe?” A colleague of my daughter was badly injured while trying to protect a student, when a group of other students were literally kicking him to death. The teacher sustained a concussion and had half his face bruised purple. He was called into a meeting with the human resources department prior to being transported to a hospital.
A crisis prevention trainer casually mentioned how a student broke her jaw. Physical violence is commonplace. My daughter used to keep notes of fights that ended with blood, trying to find patterns. Now when she reads through it, she just wonders why she didn’t quit on many of those days. She understands many professions have problems with violence, but the danger and death threats are very much downplayed in teaching. She said she only wears quick-release jewelry to work, to avoid choking or ripped ears. Some of her former students are now in jail.
Most teachers have second and third jobs to make ends meet and to buy the extra supplies they want their students to have. They spend their free time correcting papers, doing continuing education, giving students extra help, and improving lesson plans. They see teaching not as a job, but as a life’s mission. It’s frustrating to know they can make as much money parking cars.
Rather than offering teachers the supplies and support staff they need, backing them up when they give students consequences for disruptive behavior, and paying them wages that are commensurate with the work they do, teacher pay stays stubbornly low in most districts, while the job becomes ever more difficult, and if this continues, so will the shortage.
Those who have stayed in the profession “for the sake of the kids,” are now realizing they might be fighting a battle they can’t win.