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- Mo News: Behind America's Teacher Shortage - Classrooms In Crisis
Mo News: Behind America's Teacher Shortage - Classrooms In Crisis
Mosheh Oinounou
October 10, 2022
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Hi everyone!
A severe teacher shortage is the latest problem gripping America's classrooms - spurred by low pay, a perceived lack of respect, and pushy parents;
Where we're seeing the biggest drop in teachers... and the 'culture war' that's adding fuel to the fire;
Five key issues that could decide the midterms;
American polling places' new security measures ahead of midterms;
Kanye West's managed to get effectively suspended by Instagram and Twitter over the weekend for anti-semitic messages;
The Supreme Court is about to decide on the fate of millions of pigs;
Which actor is set to become the first to shoot a movie in outer space;
And as always, Good Mood Monday to start the week right.
I will see you tonight at 9pmET on my regular Mondays with Mosh Instagram Live. Bring your questions.
~ Mosh
✏️🍎 AMERICA’S TEACHER SHORTAGE
The challenges of the past couple years have made one already-demanding profession that much harder: teaching. The coronavirus pandemic ramped up pressure on teachers, with the added stress of adapting to remote learning. But now, even with the worst of the pandemic behind us, teachers are facing the next set of challenges in the classrooms – from pay, to parents, and politics.
The issue: Educators nationwide have been underpaid, undervalued, and under-resourced for years. Those problems were exacerbated by the pandemic, and put on under national spotlight-- forcing many teachers to leave the profession altogether.Many of the nation’s public schools have started the 2022-23 school year with teacher shortages. A new survey from the National Education Association found 53% of public schools were understaffed at the beginning of this school year.60% of them reported struggles with shortages since the start of the pandemic, when teachers were working on the front lines, overhauling lesson plans to adapt to virtual learning, and helping students understand and make it through the pandemic.It’s difficult to nail down the exact number of classrooms facing teacher shortages, but reports from across the country detail staffing gaps that stretch from the hundreds to the thousands. ~ Washington PostOne school official says they’ve "never seen it this bad." ~ Washington PostThe September jobs report proved just how serious the shortage is. The U.S. recently recovered the total number of jobs lost during COVID---but the education sector is seeing no such recovery..and continued to see losses in September.
Why we have a shortage: Past the pandemic-induced teacher exhaustion, experts point to a number of other factors for the shortage – including low pay, a lack of respect, more red tape, lackluster support, unprecedented political intervention, and overbearing parents.
For example, one study found that roughly three quarters of Texas’ teachers seriously considered leaving the profession over a lack of respect and support. ~ The Dallas Morning NewsEducation Secretary Miguel Cardona attributed recent teacher shortages in the U.S. to low pay and a lack of respect. ~ Yahoo FinanceTeacher shortages are most common in special education and elementary school, followed by math and English as a second language or bilingual education, according to the results of the August survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Education Department. ~ Washington PostSchools nationwide are also reporting a shortage of bus drivers, custodians, and mental health counselors.I've collected of messages from teachers on the Mo News Instagram account with first-hand stories. Here is one I received this weekend from a high school teacher, with 22 years of experience, in Indiana.
Pay: The topic of teacher compensation isn’t new, but has gained significant attention following the pandemic.A stunning report by the Economic Policy Institute found teacher wages have been mostly flat since 1996 when adjusted for inflation — going from $1,319 to $1,348 in 2021 dollars – a mere $29 weekly wage increase in 25 years.Many states and school districts have utilized the billions of dollars in federal Covid-relief aid to reduce shortages by using the money to boost teachers’ paychecks through bonuses, raises, and college loan forgiveness. ~ New York Times
Retention and recruitment: Where budgets can’t accommodate raises, school districts are forced to think outside of the box to incentivize teachers to stay... and some are widening their search nets in an effort to find more people who can do the job.Some school districts are putting entire school days on the chopping block – using a four-day week to entice teachers.In Missouri, 25% of all districts will be on a four-day schedule this fall. The shorter week is also being tried in New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho and South Dakota. ~ NPR in Kansas CitySome school districts are loosening certification requirements to recruit more teachers.A new state law in Arizona, signed by Gov. Doug Ducey (R) last month, allows college students to become teachers - making it easier for aspiring teachers without bachelor’s degrees to gain work experience in the classroom.In Florida, a similar law allows military veterans who served for at least four years to hold K-12 teaching jobs.
Parents and politics: Surveys find parents are deeply concerned about teacher shortages, too. But some teachers say parents play a large role in driving them toward the exits.Teachers writing into Mo News this weekend say many parents expect 24/7 immediate communication, including during the school day, berate teachers for giving their child a lower grade with some even taking to harassing them on social media. Then, there is a a growing movement of parents who say they want more of a say in their kids curriculum. That has left some teachers feeling like parents and politicians — and sometimes their own school board members — have little respect for their profession. Teachers say there is a lot of misinformation on social media driving some of the controversies.It comes amid escalating 'culture wars' in education that has left parents uneasy about certain curriculum being taught in the classroom – like Social Emotional Learning, race and history.It’s driving a deep divide between parents, teachers, and school boards.Some parents believe that education around or acknowledgment of sexual orientation has no place in the classroom. Others take issue with history lessons that put an emphasis on racism’s role in shaping U.S. history will lead kids to view people for their skin color first.Advocates of expanding sex education in schools say learning about what it means to be gay or transgender can help children understand how to treat those different from them, and will therefore reduce bullying down the road. Proponents for race-related history curriculum say teaching kids to be colorblind actually perpetuates racism, and that lessons around structural racism are key to eradicating it.As Americans get set to vote in midterms in four weeks. education has emerged as one of the top voting issues, with many Republican candidates amplifying the fight for parents’ say in education on the campaign trail.
Pew Research
While it's a contentious and bitter feud, there may be a silver lining in it all: a growing number of lawmakers are finally waking up to (and responding to) the needs of our educators, students, and schools.
Needless to say, the biggest strain of the teacher shortage crisis lands on the shoulders of America’s students.Some schools have had to combine classes to maximize the number of teachers, and it’s taking away from students who aren’t getting the one-on-one attention they need and deserve.A 2019 study found higher teacher pay correlated with a higher performance by students. ~Ed WeekSchoolchildren are still struggling to recover from the lasting impacts of pandemic-related school shutdowns, where months of online learning severely setback students' academic progress, social skills and mental health.Fourth grade students’ reading and math scores plummeted to a 30 year low this year – the worst drop in decades that could take even longer to recover from. ~ Wall Street Journal
🗞 THE SPEED READ
Some election offices across the country are bolstering their security efforts in anticipation of the midterm elections. From security guards to bulletproof glass at election offices, the enhanced measures come in response to the increase in threats to election workers during and in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
In Flagstaff, Arizona, for instance, an election office will be barricaded by bulletproof glass, and anyone wishing to enter will have to ring a buzzer.
At an election office in Tallahassee, Florida, the walls have been fortified with kevlar, which is the same synthetic material used in bulletproof vests and military helmets.
The Department of Justice in June 2021 launched the Election Threats Task Force in response to rising threats of violence against election workers.
Democrats and Republicans agree the midterm elections will turn on just a few key issues — but they disagree on what those will be. Democrats believe they can win at least some of the fights in the final stretch over abortion rights and former President Trump. Republicans would rather battle it out on the margins over inflation and crime. The five issues that could shape the elections’ outcome: inflation, abortion, crime, immigration, and Donald Trump.
Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz’s chief economic adviser, said on Sunday that the U.S. is heading toward a recession that was “totally avoidable” amid ongoing concerns about inflation and economic stability. “I fear that we risk a very high probability of a damaging recession that was totally avoidable,” El-Erian told CBS, arguing that the Federal Reserve has made mistakes that will “go down in the history books.”
“One is mischaracterizing inflation as transitory. By that, they meant it is temporary, it’s reversible, don’t worry about it. That was mistake number one. And then mistake number two, when they finally recognized that inflation was persistent and high. They didn’t act. They didn’t act in a meaningful way,” El-Erian said.
185 People Killed in Iran Protests (National Review)
A human-rights group said at least 185 people had been killed so far in demonstrations in Iran, including at least 19 children. Protests have taken place in response to the death of a 22-year-old woman in police custody last month.
Over the weekend, protesters hacked Iranian State TV during a live news broadcast (embedded above). Iranian authorities have dismissed the protests as a plot by their adversaries and have accused dissidents of violence that has left at least 20 members of the security forces dead, Reuters reported. On Sunday, videos on social media showed protests in dozens of cities in Iran. High-school and university students were present at the protests even as security forces used tear gas, clubs and live ammunition, according to Reuters.
The administration sent the CIA’s deputy director and the top State Department official responsible for Afghanistan to the Qatari capital of Doha for the talks with the Taliban delegation which included their head of intelligence, Abdul Haq Wasiq.
Californians passed a landmark law that bans cages for pigs. Now the Supreme Court could overturn it. The case — National Pork Producers Council v. Ross — hinges on a simple question: Can California set its own standards for how pigs are treated on farms, even when they’re raised in other states? Each year, over 6 million female breeding pigs, or sows, are raised in “gestation crates” — narrow metal crates that confine the pigs so tightly they’re unable to turn around for the duration of their four-month pregnancies (and they have about four pregnancies in their three- to four-year lifetimes). In 2018, California voted to ban the crates and require sows be raised with at least 24 square feet of space. The agriculture industry backlash was inevitable, asserting it would cost pork producers $293 million to $347 million to comply.
Twitter confirmed that it has locked Kanye West out of his account after he posted an anti-Semitic tweet on Saturday. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” the now-deleted tweet read. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” His tweet came a day after he was locked out of Instagram for an antisemitic post implying Puff Daddy aka Diddy was controlled by Jews.
Tom Cruise is in the process of making a deal with Universal Films Entertainment Group to shoot a movie on the International Space Station. Of course, that would require Tom and others to be rocketed up there. The idea's actually been talked about for years, but it was shelved during the pandemic. Tom's got lots of power these days to make things happen... 'Top Gun' receipts have gone north of $700M in the domestic box office, and $1.4B on planet earth. Universal seems to be on board, with Chairman Donna Langley saying, "I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space, he’s taking the world to space." Cruise would be the first actor to shoot a movie in space.
☀️ GOOD MOOD MONDAY
In real astronaut news, the first Native American woman has officially landed in space. Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, is serving as mission commander for the SpaceX Crew-5 mission. Her historic achievement comes 20 years after the first Native American man, John Herrington, walked in space in 2002. Mann is also the first woman to serve in the commander role during a SpaceX mission. ~ Smithsonian Magazine
Astronaut Nicole Mann ahead of the launch | Getty Images
[Top Banner Photo: Getty Images]
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