Honestly, the problem isn’t that you have a shortage of present qualified teachers in the country. The shortage is that you have a lack of qualified teachers who are willing to put up with abuse and BS. Let’s be blunt.

It's not a teacher shortage. It's a shortage of pay and decent treatment of our teachers

I know a teacher with 32 years who quit teaching because the kids were so out of control. You can't reprimand kids these days because their parents come down on the teachers like a ton of bricks. He just said, you can't teach kids that don't want to learn. There's no respect anymore.

Everyone who's not in education seems utterly *shocked* by this. Everyone who is in education is nodding, rolling their eyes and saying, "We warned you this was coming." 😐

I honestly think teachers should be paid more, not only because of how important this job is to our society, but also considering the amount of BS and silliness they have to take from some of their students. All teachers deserve a raise.

It has everything to do with how teachers are respected. That’s reflected in how they’re paid and how they’re treated

This year we have kindergarteners coming in belligerent and back talking, and not even fully potty trained. When a child gets in trouble and we call their parent and says "well mommy will just let me play at home", you see what the problem is. Parents are expecting teachers to raise their children.

See how replaceable teachers are? Instead of increasing their pay and benefits, they’re willing to replace them with Un-certified individuals to teach our kids. An atrocity. SMH

Offer teachers HOUSING. Especially the larger school districts. It's inexcusable that teachers quit simply because they cannot afford to live in the district where they teach.

Being a teacher doesn't pay enough to cover the cost of living and students in many schools are becoming aggressive and dangerous. Are you good at dodging furniture, fists and scissors while de-escalating a situation? Parents are becoming uncivilized too. On top of that, you have to manage 45 to 60 students packed in one room instead of 28, because of a teacher shortage. So your workload is crushing, and now you have dozens of kids who refuse to put away their cell phones during class.

Watch any teacher talk on KZfaq & they all say that a MAJOR REASON why they’re so STRESSED & deciding it’s no longer worth it to keep teaching is because ADMINS AREN’T BACKING UP THE TEACHERS OR RESPECTING THE TEACHERS.

As a teacher I feel compelled to tell teacher practitioners to consider other careers as they are finishing their teaching degree. Starting the school year with class-size Above 30, no school supplies and a crappy salary way under the national level is seriously braking me after 12 years in the system. I’m always overworked, tired and burned out. Our social construct is messed up! There seems to be a collaborate census telling us we are not worth as much as an engineer or a paralegal even though a college degree cost is just as much…

Don't be surprised if you start getting teachers from overseas. When parents refuses to discipline their kids and continue to disrespect an adult, this is bound to happen. Not to mention the low salary and support they receive from the school. If you're a teacher right now, I just want to say thank you.

What's so wrong with paying teachers what they're really worth???

No student is surprised we have grown up watching our teachers struggle for years and nothing has ever gotten better because their struggle is normalized and downplayed

What did you all expect?? You pay them like a below average profession to do an above average job. AN IMPORTANT JOB!!! Then now parents want to dictate everything Teachers should teach like they know more about education. SO GUESS WHAT? HOME SCHOOL YOUR KIDS!!! you brought this on yourselves... I wish I could dictate where my tax money went.

Or hear me out ..... you pay them a living wage. SHOCKER!!!!

This country is such a failure. My god. There truly is no excuse!

She had 200 students and had to take on a waitressing job. Somethings wrong with that.

I have so much respect for teachers. They do something I can't do and wouldn't want to. Hats off to them! They're literally with our kids sometimes more in a day then us when we have to work. They help shape our kids outside of the home as well. My kids have been blessed with the best teachers

I left teaching because of the unrealistic expectations. Salary was great, but the burden on teachers to become pseudo parents to students is too much. It's emotionally draining and every day I felt defeated.

well first of all maybe the pay and dealing with disrespectful kids & school shootings are becoming popular so thats why

Duh? They act like they don't know why good teachers leave the profession.

I remember when my high school teacher told me she’s able to continue pursuing her passion of teaching because her husband earns decent income. She told me there’s no way she can afford costs of living if she was the only breadwinner

All teachers should strike until they get fair pay and free supplies. Let parents deal with their own kids and listen to them complain like they did with the during the pandemic.

Yeah I tried being a teacher for one year and I HATED IT. Never ever again but so grateful and amazed by teachers.

Former teacher here 🙋🏼‍♀️. Back in school for engineering now.

Teachers don't want to live in poverty.

In my school district, teachers would leave because of how the students treated them.

I quit teaching because I saw different teachers have a nervous breakdown every day for a week …I was like I’m not going to completely lose my mental health …dueces im out ✌🏾

I don’t blame her Teaching is not what it used to be 🤦‍♂️

The next generation is only going to know tiktok & going viral smh 🤦‍♀️

Instead of offering bonuses and incentives to anyone with a pulse and a desire regardless of qualifications, how about taking all the money that would be spent on that nonsense and just pay current, qualified, certified, experienced teachers a decent salary?

Teachers don't want to leave. It's not worth it anymore.

My heart goes out to teachers especially middle to high school. I have zero patience for nasty, disrespectful attitude’s🤦🏾‍♀️

It’s a combination of low pay, burnout, lazy parents and the politics of school administrations 🤷🏿. It’s sad that teachers are not respected like they should be.

This is what happens when you keep cutting public funding. Oh and also keeping some of that money into admins' pockets

I taught 1 year and I had a student in my class who did not follow 1 single rule. She wouldn't do any work, she would climb furniture, she destroyed my property, and she would hit and bite other students. I was too busy trying to keep her from hurting herself or others to even get through a lesson. Despite me complaining to the office over and over and over again for months they just let me struggle through it. One morning I came in ready to quit because I wasn't willing to get charged or sued if anybody got hurt in my class. They must have sensed I was ready to quit because that same morning they removed her from my class. I sub now and unfortunately it wasn't an isolated situation. I see this all the time.

Here's an idea, offer more pay and discipline the kids. have actual consequences for their actions as well as their parents.

If things don't improve significantly on the whole in American education by the end of this school year, don't expect in-person schooling to exist in 2023-2024 and beyond.

I feel bad for teachers that actually love their job but feel like they have no choice but to find another profession. I was a paraprofessional for four years and until you sit in a classroom day in and day out for a full school year you can't grasp the full scope of what all teachers deal with. Low pay, no supplies, bad kids, absent kids, beligerant parents, slow academic children, ESL students, difficult staff, demanding principals, kids fending for themselves because parents have to work, I can go on but it's definitely not worth the pay or headache they get dealing with your little angels all day.

I retired from teaching in Texas. High school. Loved the kids. Loved most of my fellow teachers. Hated the bureaucracy and the silly “best new ..whatever program..we all had to learn about. Hated the dog & pony show we had to stage every time somebody from “head office” appeared. Most of all, hated being told in millions of subtle ways, those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach. The day I walked out of that school, I vowed never to let my shadow cross another school threshold. There are millions of us out there.

Last year I left my teaching job after 12years of dedication to my students and family at same school. When I left I cried. My children and their parents and my boss cried. It was so heartbroken. It wasn't because I stopped love teaching but because of the exhaustion from everything since the pandemic. The constant struggle of losing new teachers and training new teachers and other hopeless factors... it was a really hard decision to make but it was necessary for my personal mental and physical health. I wish there is a big change for this field soon because the children and the teachers all deserve better!

I’m a teacher going into year 8. Last year was it for me. Kid brought a weapon to school, nothing happened to him. They do not discipline at all.

I had a professor who told me that when she entered the field, her starting salary was 31k back in the late 90s and now the starting salary is around 40k. Factor in inflation is 80% higher now than in '98, and you'll see that teachers are making way less than they used. This is absurd, teachers deserve better than this!

teaching is a VERY hard field to "stay in" long term... the burnout is just too severe

Everything about this is absolutely true from my experiential point of view. I was a teacher for 17 years and loved it until I didn’t. I left burned out.

How about this incentive: Offer teacher housing plus salary. That ought to do it. Oh, and teach children respect for teachers not the opposite.

Who wants to teach a bunch of self entitled brats with self entitled parents?

I taught for 16 years in DC Public Schools. Left the profession 10 years ago. There is NO amount of money anyone can pay me to teach again.

I loved my students, I was a firm believer in education. Here's why I lift education. 1. Lack of a living wage. After all the time to get my degree, the hours of continued education, countless sacrifices made for OTHER PEOPLES CHILDREN. My wife, who works at a grocery store makes more than I did. 2 The public. Do any of you parents truly understand the sacrifices teachers make everyday for your kids? To watch one of your kids go down a dark path, to know it is the parents' influence pushing them that direction and to be powerless to stop any of it. The hate you parents had for us doing the best we could during the pandemic. Look I get being stressed out, but who do you people think you are. 3 the dumbing down of our nation. As a history teacher. The lessons of the past are my bread and butter. Across all demographics, in every region. There has been a systematic dumbing down of the coming generations. While I have my theories, not stating them here. It is very obvious to the initiated, that this is occurring. An under educated population is easier to manipulate and control. But are more prone to violence.

If they're hiring fireman and just anybody, then doesn't that mean that the teacher doesn't need the credentials anymore?

Good! If you don’t ban assault weapons, secure schools and increase Teachers salary then you don’t deserve Teachers. A friend used to be teaching and she never had personal time. After school she would still be working.

We get treated like disposable, incompetent frauds. Too many kids have absolutely no respect or work ethic. Then, the pay…

Never working in a school again. There is no point. Such a stressful experience. 😫 No No No!

America... First world country and yet teachers are paid a low wage??? In Sweden, teachers are paid high salaries. This is disgusting. In South Africa, I received a bursary to study teaching. I receive a housing subsidy, birthday bonus and a decent salary. 😊

I have friends and family members who are teachers in elementary school. One common denominator I heard is that the parents don’t discipline their kids. They treat school like a day care center. Teachers have to put up with their kids and the parents. I don’t hear this at the community college level. I just finished my mba degree and want to teach business at a CC but I am having a hard time getting a job. I definitely don’t want to teach middle school or HS.

A lot of folks have been pooping on educators and telling them to either take it or walk ? Guess what , they walked. Now we have to live with the consequences.

Military housing sucks… can’t imagine what government housing for teachers would look like 😅

If you have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet as a college graduate why would you become a teacher? As has been mentioned in the comments section, teachers are undervalued and treated like babysitters in some school districts. Suddenly homeschooling is starting to look appealing again.

We need to help teachers and not only pay them more but also please remind your children to RESPECT their instructors they give so much and it cannot be stated how important it is

Teachers should earn 6 figures! The amount of stress 😩 we endure is ridiculous and unnecessary. Tired of people saying "well they have summers off". Uhhh no we don't!!!! We make up for it throughout the year. I know alot of teachers who work +50 hrs/week. There's also mandatory training, after school meetings etc etc Not to mention the amount of money we spend on our classrooms and students smh I LOVE my students dearly. Every single one of them. I just hate how we are not compensated for our hard work. Teacher are leaving because of the crappy salaries. End of story!

As one that has already left the school system. Good. Trust me it's a hard break up. And hard shift in career. And I know the feeling sucks, we all cry, I did, but good. It is a very needed move. It is a healthy move and it is wrong of the system to use the kid's future as an emotional hostage. Trust me, you'll find something and that "teacherness" (not a word, but teacher understand the feeling) will always be with you. You'll find you don't need to be in a school in teaching and help younger gen grow. Again, just from experience.

There is missing staff EVERYWHERE. Those teachers found better employment with better pay, more respect and NO crazy elected officials to FORCE them to lie, or change history and reality to fit a lunatic personal notion of what the world SHOULD act and think like. You decided NOT to have a public infrastructure. Here is the result.

we need to fund schools, fully. if educated kids and people scares you, you’re the problem.

Raise your hand if you want a job that requires you to live in constant fear of being politicized, where you have to spend your own meager wages for supplies and where you have lockdown drills in case somebody wants to shoot up your workplace, not to mention all of the extra years of postgraduate study and state licensing tests that you have to pay for and pass just to get into the profession. Those same people are smart enough to get jobs in tech making five times as much salary from the comfort of their homes.

In a nut shell I blame Republicans on there war on teachers I wish they have that same energy on bad policing in America

In a school district where I live, theres at least fifteen teachers who teach four different subjects throughout the day and act more like substitutes than actual teachers, even though they are not substitutes. Its simply just because there aren't enough teachers

The reason......... who wants to stay in a profession where it is now acceptable to be disrespected by students and their parents for low wages.... using your personal funds for ungrateful students.....

Canceling the multi-billion dollar football programs would be a great start. When my parents started teaching in the early sixties, housing was supplied. Let's do that too

I got my degree in education last year, and quit before school started. My degree was in secondary education for science, but the school I got hired for kept changing the subject they wanted me to teach during PD in July (first Algebra 3, then Algebra 2, and finally decided on Algebra 3 and Geometry at the same time). Once I finally knew what I was teaching, I didn't even have a full week to study Algebra 3 and Geometry so that I could make good lesson plans! They gave me my classroom the weekend before school started, and the desks/tables/boards were falling apart. They wanted me to come out of my own pocket to replace anything, but wouldn't pay me until the end of August. If they want to fix the teacher shortage, then they need to help teachera be able to teach instead of make it more difficult

It’s not right that a professional teacher take on a second job. Teachers prepare our future, their pay NEEDS to increase already.

I went to both private and public schools growing up in the 90’s and early 2000’s… The discipline, respect, pay and standards are completely night and day difference. In private, we literally have the fear of God put in us and our parents defended and stood with the teachers when there were behavior problems. In public, well you know how it goes.

If they want to recruit and retain good teachers, they need to pay them six figures. For real.

Teachers are sadly underpaid

I am preparing to leave in the next few weeks. Sixteen years of my life spent on this career and I’m burned out. Best of luck in the future.

When I was a teacher I could barely pay bills. I enjoyed working with the students.

My school struggled horribly with being understaffed last year. To resolve the issue, they included a $10,000 teacher retention bonus into our contracts which will be added to our base pay. The first payment will be issued after the first 30 days of employment, then another one in December, and the third payment on the last paycheck of the school year. This is the route that school districts need to be taking instead of hiring unqualified teachers in my opinion. Doing so will likely only cause more stress to the teachers since they will likely not be experts in their content areas and more stress on the school districts and states since testing scores will probably decrease. Wising everyone a safe and successful school year!

Interesting how any shortage for any industry is blamed on the worker - when in reality the worker isn't paid properly and in many cases, like teachers, have to spend their own money in order to do their job (like school supplies).

Teachers need to be subsidized financially by the government, in terms of special financial exclusions for people who mold our future generation I have nothing but respect for teachers.

Teachers are the key to us students to learn and achieve greater things.

My father taught school for years (70’s throughout 2001). He quit because he knew what was coming. He couldn’t of been more right. Back then, when a teacher told a student he or she was punished, the parents would side with the teacher. Now everything is backwards. Kids don’t have respect for their elders and the parents assume it’s the teachers fault when they don’t realize it’s the way they taught their kids to be. I didn’t even know about when I was in school until after I got out in 2014. Edit: Could be the other solutions explained in the comments but that’s just my opinion.

I went into teaching this year and am absolutely miserable. The disrespect I encounter every single day and I’m just supposed to take it and accept that “they’re just kids.” I work 12-14 hour shifts every day, I am barely am even able to teach content in my classroom, and I deal with behaviors every single day. I’m underpaid and overworked. I have anxiety and stress and think about quitting my job every single day.

Like when you realize health care workers, engineers , streamers, sports players make more money it's really dis heartening.

Teachers are quitting because they are consistently disrespected by children, parents, and principals. We are tired of the useless paperwork that districts require, that takes hours to do, and no one looks at it. The pandemic put kids 2 school years behind academically and behaviorally. This is burning me out. I feel like I'm teaching 1st graders, but I'm teaching 3rd graders. Children climbing on desks and chairs, talking while I'm teaching, yelling at each other, hitting each other, having each other inappropriately, swearing, and can't even write their own name. It's pretty gross right now. I've been wanting to quit for 2 years. I thought it would get better this year, since kids spent a whole year in an actual classroom. It hasn't! My sanity is worth quitting this mess!

It is realistic for that teacher to say pick something else. I wish I could shout it from the rooftops. The exodus is causing the people to look harder at compensation, voice, and working conditions. It’s what we need.

I’m an education major at UMIAMI and honestly it’s terrifying

nah. Just raise their wages and there won't be a shortage

What also doesn't help is that, depending on where you are, some schools aren't hiring people for full-time positions unless they have a license, which requires either part-time or full-time experience of up to one academic year, amongst other requirements. I'm currently a substitute teacher with a BA in History, and I've applied to full-time positions, only to get rejected because I'm unable to qualify for the position. As of right now, I'm hoping that after a year or two of subbing, I can qualify for a provisional license that will allow me to get a full-time position. I was told by a member of my family that my situation resembles a "catch-22", which is a difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions - sounds about right, all things considered. Edit: I just want to say, in regard to a lot of comments saying that teachers should get paid more - I would like to add that this should include subs too. We're an important resource for teachers, taking up their role in their classrooms when they can't do so. You ever tried teaching a class long-term when their full-time teacher was fired for disorderly conduct? I have, and while it was tough as hell and incredibly testing, I did my very best for those kids and would gladly do it again if given the chance.

It's disgusting that the people we trust to educate the next generation get treated like crap.

Here’s a answer: increase salary with cost of inflation(the actual rate) and cost of living.

Is raising rent 48% a normal thing in the US? ... ‘cause nobody is talking about that!? When will Americans finally band together and fight for their rights???

Parents need to back up the teachers As well- they send their bad ass kids to school & when they’re made aware of the horrendous behavior in the classroom, they will either defend/make excuses for their little crotch demons, or brush it off as “kids being kids.” The kids learn to walk all over the teachers (or anybody in authority really) over time. My kids know, getting in trouble at school is just as reprehensible (if not, worse) than getting in trouble at home & that their will be consequences for their actions. The stories my daughter has told me about classmates cussing at the teacher, destroying classroom materials, & being mean to other students makes me want to confront the parents myself- she’s in the second week of kindergarten 🤦‍♀️

Supply and demand! The pay will go up, or schools will shutdown.

This has been a decades long issue- Public Schools have been under attack, held to surreal standards with less community and state support.

I left the last school I was at because they treated me and the special education students I worked with like complete garbage. 😅 Now this year I'm working at a small specialist school. Fingers crossed because it's a private school so, no union benefits but there's other benefits.

A friend went into teaching and wasnt making much on a bachelors. She went back and got her masters and is doing pretty well. It ,may come down to doing 6yrs of college if you want decent pay. Politicians know whats going on but arent doing much about it. The US is spent 20yrs and billions in Iraq and is now sending billions to Ukraine and Taiwan but US education hasnt been nearly as financially bolstered.

Bring back discipline in the schools. Respect your teachers. Start having them teach kids how to think, not what to think. Pay in some areas is bad and not bad in others. Fix that. When it comes to parent issues, administrators need to back their teachers when their right and correct them when they're wrong. Don't throw your hands up like you don't know what's going on. Do all of those things and you'll end the teacher shortage.

Why interview a teacher who only taught for two years? She was and is a newbie …. What a horrible person to interview

I have been a teacher for 11 years. I'm leaving this year for the following reasons in order: 1. Lack of respect on behalf of students, parents, and upper level district management. 2. Low pay 3. Lack of ability to affect change.