There isn't a shortage of teachers. There's a shortage of support for teachers, which they desperately need. If you don't have the support, you don't have the teachers.

I just walked away from teaching after 10 years teaching in the US and in the Middle East and it’s the best decision I could have ever made. Teaching has caused me so much anxiety and has taken a toll on my mental health and I finally had the strength to walk away and it feels amazing.

Nothing is going to change until more teachers leave and districts and local governments really start to feel the impact. Pay teachers what they are worth and make working conditions better for everyone!

What broke my heart is when a I ordered chipotle and this older women maybe in her 40s delivered my food and I gave her decent tip and she was so grateful. She said she had just had a board meeting and is 6th grade AP math teacher and was told that she had to teach two additional regular math classes because of shortages. She burst out crying and I just gave her a huge. Man it made me tear up. What’s worst is that she didn’t get a pay raise and said her rent was going up. This is sad especially with so many making millions for sitting n KZfaq, throwing a ball etc. no disrespect but it’s really sad how much public workers get paid when they do so much

Pay them better and give them better benefits and they won't leave!

It's the administrators. Plain and simple. ---30 year classroom veteran

A national teacher shortage is just a clever way of saying that some people have made a passion driven profession so unbearable that the people who were once willing to work for the low wages and poor quality benefits are no longer willing to do so.

Another story broke in the mid-south about a bus driver shortage. I pointed out there is never an administrator shortage at these schools. There is always a bus driver shortage, a teacher shortage, you name it, but there is NEVER A SHORTAGE OF ADMINISTRATORS

DO NOT go into teaching in the US!!! It is a stressful, unappreciated, and even dangerous profession. If your calling in life is to become a teacher, learn a new language and go teach someplace else, like Asia or Latin America where teaching is hard but at least you get the respect you deserve. If you like working with kids in a school setting, go be a school custodian, bus driver, or safety officer...No eight years of school required and you make almost the same in salary.

Our education system needs an overhaul, starting with administrators. Administrators are granted license to bully and threaten teachers, resulting in widespread emotional and psychological harm to teachers. Administrators lack the ability to control students (i.e., they have no good solutions), but they can control teachers (e.g., by holding their jobs and teaching license hostage with an archaic and convoluted observation system, and worse), so blame teachers for what students do, and hold teachers rather than students accountable for discplinary issues and poor grades. In particular, high schools are dominated by narcissists individuals with doctors of education, which is the most useless doctorate. Until we curb the abuses and excesses of EdD principals and administrators, our education crisis will only worsen.

Yep. My cousin was a teacher for 15 years she quit last year. Maybe if they took better care of the teachers and paid more this wouldn't happen.

Our County schools have absolutely no problem hiring teachers. In fact, it’s very competitive. Teachers from other schools districts are trying to get a teaching job here in our County. Why? It’s because our schools, thankfully, still have good policies concerning the removal of disruptive students. Our teachers do not have to deal with behavioral problems day in and day out. They can actually TEACH! And, our school teacher salaries are lower than the counties the teachers are fleeing from. So, until all school districts adopt better policies regarding disruptive students - to remove them from a regular classroom setting, so the teachers can teach and all of the other students can learn- these school districts will continue to suffer a lack of enough teachers. It’s really simple. What do we do with the disruptive students? They go to a special class or school who have other types of professionals / teachers who are rotated out after a year or two, tops, so they don’t get burned out, to deal with and to try to teach the disciplinary problem children, while we allow the teachers in the regular classrooms do what they are hired to do- TEACH.

I taught in Japan for about 6 years and loved it. Came to the US and began teaching, and I quit after two years. More than pay, the two main issues were 1) admin and these fancy new teaching ideas that do not work (Japan still teaches phonics over sight words which is why Japanese kids can read English well despite not speaking it. Please go back to 90s phonics-- I also worked a tutoring center and that's the main thing they do to catch your kid up, using materials from 1970s-1990s, pen and pencil!) 2) Parents not disciplining their kids and teaching them basic etiquette, and then not allowing teachers to correct these issues and hold students accountable. No respect or responsibility from about 2/3 of the students in classes I taught. Not doing that again.

It's egregious that one of the most important professions just doesn't pay what it should and the people in this profession are treated miserably. Add to that the fact that teachers have to put up with kids who act like they were raised in the wild and so you can't blame them.

I’m so glad I just graduated, senior year I didn’t get a real teacher until second semester not kidding. Now I get professors at college !

The discipline problem with students is a huge problem. If teachers could just have problem kids removed even temporarily, from the classroom would go such a long way to reduce stress levels for teachers. We are largely at the mercy of students who are troubled, disrespectful, verbally abusive, and sometimes violent. Who wants to get up everyday and go into an environment like that?

Everything these people said is 100% correct. I was a middle and high school teacher for about 10 years. I have a batchelor degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters degree in Technology Education. If I had to weigh a career choice again: I would rather shovel horse manure for living then set a foot in a public school!

At the beginning of the school year when your school goes from unfilled teaching position to saying "We're fine. We've got it covered." Parents and the press need to start asking questions about HOW those positions were filled. Here are some ways that schools are "filling" those positions. 1) If the class is an elective (nonrequired class) they simple eliminate the class and redo the schedules of all the students who had wanted to take those classes. 2) For elementary classes and core mandatory classes, they don't fill it and then divide all the students into existing classes so class sizes increase drastically. 3) They eliminate an elective class such as Home Ec. and move that teacher into a mandatory core class such as science or math. While at least their is a certified teacher in the classroom, the teacher does NOT know the material and will be one chapter ahead of the students all year long. 4) In middle school and high school they will divide a teacher's six class and then beg for volunteers and then force six other teachers into giving up their prep periods\. This has a double whammy because not only are they loosing their prep periods, they are probably teaching an area they are not certified in so it takes ten times longer to prepare for each lesson. 5) Hire one of the schools subs to fill the position until its filled. Some of these positions will not be filled at all. So the sub becomes a long-term sub. They get paid significantly less that teachers and this means that when the school needs a sub because a teacher is sub, there's not one available. Best case scenario is the sub is a certified teacher, but probably not in the area they are teaching. PS we also have a sub shortage as well. 6) They hire someone with a degree in the area that they are teaching, but they have never worked in a classroom before. Most of student teaching is spent not on content information but on classroom management and thing that you should and CAN NOT do in the classroom. I wonder if anyone has done a study on how many more legal issues have come up because of just throwing non-certified teachers into the classrooms. I'm especially thinking about all the mandatory things that we have to do for Spec. Ed students here. 7) They put a para into the position. In this case the para does not have a degree, but does have some school experience from working as a para. But it comes as a real shock to paras to make this move, just how much lesson planning, prepping, parent contact, training, meetings etc. that goes into the job. You can't leave at 3:00, 8) A combination of 6 and 7, they put someone in who has no recent experience in a school and had no content area either. This person may or may not have a degree. 9) They divide the students and put them in a teachers classroom who is teaching a different subject. Its basically a glorified study hall with the teacher monitoring them plus trying to teach her regular class. 10) Here is the most recent one. The teacher and the students are not in the same building. The teacher is teaching her class in one town and having a "zoom meeting" on the overhead projector with an entire different class in a different town. SO now she is teaching twice as many students, plus having to deal with all the discipline problems that come from not being in the same room as her students and oh yeah being forced to essentially stand still so she stays withing the camera view, which means she can't walk around her own classroom and help/monitor students. 11) Same scenario with one teacher and two different classes in two different buildings/towns. In this case it is not a zoom meeting, but A and B days. On A days the teacher is in A school and the B students are working on packets. Then if flipflops on B day with the teacher traveling to the other school. So half the time the kids are getting very little instruction. 12) Students are basically forced into online classes if they want some of the electives. 13) They give college seniors in the education field and quick start and essential free pass to their teaching certifications. The problem is the last thing you do as a student is your student teaching. This semester of working in the classroom under a certified teacher is where you actually learn how to be a teacher. This is theory becomes practice. Skipping this means that the chances for success their first year, drops drastically. We already see almost half of all new teachers leave before their 5th year, we can't afford to increase this percentage. 14) Hiring new teachers from other countries. This can lead to some interesting issues. I am sure I am missing a few. Back to what I was saying at the beginning of the list, if the school is saying they've got it covered, more questions need to be asked about how they are actually covering it and what the long term consequences will be. Maybe its time to seriously start looking at why so many teachers are quitting and deal with that issue instead.

Any band-aid is just that. Fixing the problems are not even on the horizon. But teachers keep leaving and I’m proud to say that I’m one of them.

One of the reasons is every school has at least a half dozen assistant principals. Assistant principals deal with administrative work and do not teach in the classroom.

"We love u" ain't gonna pay our bills or get our dignity back from those disrespectful kids aaaand their parents

Too many people at the top making decisions for the people at the bottom. We expect too much too soon for kids just because a small minority of students are able to achieve a high level of success in their k-12 experience. State testing reflects this.

Admin and gamesmanship is not something I didn’t realize. No nurse no counselor no librarian. The parents blame you for the students not succeeding when teachers say the student needs support at home. Any comments about students the teacher is called a racist. Teachers who speak out about working conditions are transferred to substandard schools. The teachers I know have quit and became real estate agents.

Yea by still paying the teachers that stayed like crap but doubling their workload. This will only get worse as the government ignores all the problems.

The fact that we're still talking about this is absurd. Everyone should know at this point what needs to be done, but nope, people keep flapping their gums about it and the actual actions to solve the issues are either developing way too slowly or they're non-existent.

Good job NOT reporting the real reason teachers are leaving.

At the end of this story, they talked about shortening the school week. They seemed to imply that it is a way to attract teachers to the field....oh!, Look only working 4 days! That is a bunch of crap. We work our nights and weekends now.....that "Day Off" is not for us to relax....it is for use to recover and catch up. Here is a solution. PAY US A LIVING WAGE!

5 yr science teacher here...so happy I left. Please don't go into teaching. Value your health

I taught in nyc 5 years...its was the worse time of my life..

I’ve applied to many jobs and haven’t heard from any of them!

No administrative support, especially in Special Education! I will finish my Master's degree in special education in December, while I pursue my second year in the field. Let me tell you: Administrations and HR are the scum of the Earth; they hate teachers and undermine the growth of students with special needs.

If by "creative" you mean dumping the extra work on the already underpaid teachers who are left?....then yes, they're getting creative.

It seems like we hear this story at the beginning of every school year, but no body in positions to make change give anything but lip service to this issue. What happens if this continues? We will reach a breaking point where, I worry, schools will be privatized and education will no longer lift all students, but only be accessible to those who can afford it. When that time comes, the shortsighted will realize the economy can't function without a populous with a basic education. I hope we don't have to wait to get to this point to enact some meaningful, structural & systematic change.

This shortage started during the Great Recession when teachers were demonized. Age discrimination was rampant. By the end of the Great Recession there were 500,000 fewer public school teachers in America. Add to that the 600,000 who have left since then and you have a disaster. I had to student teach for free for 6 months. Glad to see that some districts are paying teachers to student teach.

So instead of *PAYING A LIVING WAGE* they’re… -?

Every teacher needs to go on strike. The country would rather nickel and dime and bleed out its citizens than to give them a work life balance with a good paying salary.

How about having parents as "guest teachers"? They can see what it's like spending time with their kids. See how they like it!

Not just teaching shortage in the USA. Canada as well. Many are not going into this profession because the pay is not great anymore in Canada. America and Canada is the same with a huge teacher shortage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The teacher complaining about lgbtq and black history has me rolling lol. That is not why the majority of teachers are quitting lol.

There is demand, but the offer does not change. If they really want the teachers they should be offering more.

As a retired educator I know schools are a microcosm of what is going on in the greater society. Presently, the U.S is a mess starting with congress and we all know a fish starts to rot first at the head. I pray for all students.

The people who have implemented the no punishment policy and reward the violent disruptive kids need to be held accountable as well. Obviously this is not working.

OUR LAWMAKERS ARE LEAVING OUR SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS IN THE LURCH -- IT'S NOT FOR PROFIT SO THEY DON'T GIVE ONE HOOT!

If we want to retain good teachers, we need to change Federal and State educational laws, especially Special Ed. Schools are forced to keep behaviorally challenged students, as well as violent ones, or they may lose funding. If the school decides that a student is not appropriate for the school, it’s a long process to get them placed elsewhere. Not only a long process, but the cost to the school district for these special schools is 200 to 400 dollars a day, plus transport costs.

The problem is the parents. It always has been and always will be until parents grow up and act like model adults around their own children and respect that teachers know more about educating their child than they do.

Teachers don't need loyalty to their kids. They need loyalty from their district.

No wonder our kids so dumb. you dont want to pay them anything. heres to our future generation

Unreasonable teacher requirements also contribute to teacher shortages in a major way. For example, some counties require teachers to submit at least three RECENT references not only from principals of schools, but also principals who work in the county where they want to teach. This type of requirement limits teaching opportunities to people who are already in the system and already have established relationships with administrators. What about first-year educators? What about educators who left teaching for years and want to return? Human resource personnel will often tell people in these situations to apply for substitute teaching jobs. Well, that isn't a solution because substitute teachers aren't needed everyday. Substitute teachers also don't work at the same school everyday. Therefore, they don't work in a school long enough to build relationships with principals, who substitute teachers rarely see anyway. Substitute teachers could easily spend an entire day at a school and never see or even know the principal. Throughout the day, principals are tied up in meetings. They don't observe substitute teachers. Moreover, not everyone is called back to be long-term substitutes. Those positions might go to resident substitutes who have been waiting for years to become long-term subs, and eventually teachers, long before a new sub got there. The public school system is incredibly disorganized and far too political.

So many districts would rather have substitutes than teachers. They will not pay substitutes a teacher salary even if they’ve been teaching classrooms single handedly for five years. Why not hire the subs if they have college degrees and are willing to take teacher training? Why wait for them to pass a test and certify first if they have years of work experience? They can do that simultaneously.

Where’s my 4 day work week huh?

I left teaching since I wanted to go to graduate school. I now TA college classes and it’s definitely less stressful. Can’t wait to be a professor real soon hopefully

Some people are wise enough to pick their own fights. Teaching is not one of them.

A 4-day school week is a joke.

Live streaming cameras need to be in every classroom, so that parents can log in any time to review what is happening in the classroom. Total transparency. And to Heather Felton, which books have been banned?

You wouldn't need creative solutions if you paid and treated teachers properly.

These effects are even felt as a college student. The experience has been awful.

And who is left having to mentor those in alternate programs? This is not the same! It's an insult to those teachers who put in the work and hours and paid to go to a university, and for what? It's not the same quality education. The experienced teachers are quitting because they are left to train new teachers as if doing their job isn't enough. Those in an alternative program need someone dedicated to them the whole day. The politics is just way too much. The numbers will keep dwindling, and our children will be the ones hurt in the end. Can you imagine how this affects the children's emotional well-being? Teachers are feeling it, and it's exhausting. It's sad and hurtful to see what the school system is doing. We all have good intentions, but the pain can be unbearable at times-the emotional pain. I pray daily to give me the strength to keep going for the kids' sake. If im not okay becuase I am emotionally tired, then that would be my time to quit. I'm not helping others if I am not taking care of myself. I love these kiddos way too much.

I live in Nevada, ranked 49th in the US in Education. The Superintendent received a Big Pay Raise, Teachers organized Call Offs, School Money Spent on School Building Expansion. No Money spent on Teacher Safety or Teacher Raise. The city for 30 years have a drive for donated school supplies, teachers also buy school supplies for poor students. Follow the Money to find the Real problem why Schools can not keep Teachers from Quitting. Paul

I have 3 certs and work in a wonderful state and district with a strong union and I am well paid. I get at least 4 unsolicited job offers a week asking me to come work for them (NO WAY!)

A crisis of our own making--true.

Homeschool already. Can anyone argue that public Ed is not a joke?

*LIVING WAGES* should be Mandatory // for ALL jobs- but paid even for jobs that require degrees (like being a teacher..)

Parents , administrators, and districts are getting EXACTLY what they deserve. And this is only the beginning. And no they’re not a teacher’s kids. They are students. Don’t get it twisted.

There isn't a teacher shortage. There is a shortage of teaching jobs that are willing to pay a livable salary and that give support to teaches. And that help teaches deal with difficult children.

You can make more money working at door dash then you can as a teacher with a bachelors 😂

Why not close the schools and let the parents educate their own children? Maybe it would reduce everyone's taxes. Why not? No one likes the way education in America is being done anyway, so why not just do away with it. Make education the responsibility of the individual, and not the country, state, or community's responsibility. Why not? We've dogged the teachers for decades now. That didn't work. Why not just give up on educating America and call it a day?

Teachers that quit articulating why they quit. Them, “looking for solutions “ not related to the problem. 🙄

Kicking men out of the teaching profession was not the best idea, now, was it?

Not a day goes by when I don't give some thought to teaching grade or middle school children after retiring from my practice as a family physician and weekend trauma surgeon. But, what holds me back is the realization that American schools are unsupportive of its teachers and the parents are largely uncooperative and even physically threatening. This is why I'm considering moving back to Japan to teach.

So school administrators get your act together & put the quality of education first. But you don't.

Ah yes...let's get creative among the teacher shortage instead of actually giving support to the teachers

I know a lot of AA teachers who cannot get hired or are made to resign. I’m shocked about a shortage!

You get what you pay for

What should happen is that school administrators and school board members should have more than 5 years of teaching experience accountable for their child's education and behavior. I would say have a school schedule between 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. teachers can have time to do their paperwork. Have higher pay and not be unrealistic with qualifications

Teachers are underpaid relative to their education level and subjected to rampant disrespect and abuse from all sides (students, parents, administration, society in general). It's not going to get better anytime soon as American culture becomes more anti-intellectual and our politicians are so dysfunctional that they struggle to even agree on paying their bills. Why would any sane person sign up to be a teacher under these conditions? Maybe just because they love the profession/kids so much, which is admirable. But under those conditions, most will eventually burnout and change careers.

Thank Michael Bloomberg. He went after us in NYC for politics when he was Mayor. Labeled schools like restaurants, A, B, or C school. Bashed us as unqualified- 15 years later- teachers done…

Maybe if college didn't take so long, I would've had my dream job by now.. But I'm on my 2nd year.

I have a career in software engineering with a BS in CS . Looked into becoming a Computer Science teacher at a County high school. They require a mechanical and electrical engineering background to teach database fundamentals and how to work excel spread sheets. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot with job reqs

How would the children as well as adults learn ? Online ? AI ?

No money for teacher...but billions to Ukraine. and the featured teacher that spoke about book banning and that is why she quit...please! Give me a break.

We need qualified teacher. Unqualified teachers are ruining education system. Not all who loves to teach know teaching profession. Most teacher never learn teaching-learning process in their career. They just love kids and teaching which they never fulfilled as duty in life.

Poor behavior and they make it impossible to become a teacher. Too many qualifications

That’s weird. I am an English teacher and cannot get hired because no district wants to hire an English teacher for what I make. So I have changed to a Special Education teacher.

Get rid of the DEpartment of Education.... Get rid of bureacratic mess with school boards.

I work for a school district and luckily I’m not a teacher. I advise people to not become teachers.

4 days school will create the habit to expect 4 days work week as adults

There's no shortage of qualified candidates either. Many districts are just using this as an excuse not to hire.

Students have realized there aren’t enough opportunities for them at a younger and younger age.

There’s never an ADMINISTRATOR shortage!

Two of the most essential jobs in our society that of a teacher and that of police’s officers are no longer appreciated. It’s just a matter of time before teacher will have to put on body cameras to protect themselves from frivolous law suits from undisciplined parents and children. America is in serious decline.

As an educator, education is a business and it is ran as such. You have to be at the top to make a living wage in today’s economy. Class sizes are too large with the expectation and the need to do small groups. Schools won’t lower class sizes because of the money needed to effectively run a school, district, etc. just like a developer will squeeze as many units possible in a apartment complex schools will do the same with students. Capitalism is ruining schools. For profit charter schools, public schools who are underfunded because of charter schools and crumbling schools they can’t afford to pay to replace. It’s not about the kids anymore and teachers have realized we can only do what we can with what we got , now we have to find a better way to make a living with student debt.

Its a old system thats not working 😢

stop worrying about the kids genitals

Pay more. It’s that simple.

In order to get more teachers / substitute teachers into the classroom they need to raise their salary to, or above the national average maybe, they will get more people interested in the teaching profession!

put them back online

they removed the boys bathrooms at the publics schools here ... girls bathrooms and unisex bathrooms ... COME ON NOW

Give teachers qualified immunity, and make it easier to remove disruptive students from schools. Its difficult to describe the level of sheer hostility and contempt some of these kids act out on a daily basis. I used to work with addicts deprived of their chosen drug and the personality type is almost identical to a tweaker on a purge.

The country’s education systems need leaders who have demonstrated many years of success working in a school setting and know that teaching is more than testing. We don’t have that right now. As a result our schools are chasing the fools gold of linear improvement in test score data. No more business executives or basketball players or any other clueless non educators who don’t know a god d*+m thing about what it means to teach children… and that includes you Randi Weingarten.

hahaha good that teacher quit cuz she could not indoxtrinate woke crap on children