Education needs help too

Why are so many people leaving?

as we enter the pandemic’s third year, America’s public schools are at risk of defaulting on their moral obligation to millions of children. Teachers, aides, principals, bus drivers, school lunch workers, custodians and other school staff are leaving in droves or are out of service due to illness. A dearth of substitutes and backup workers means day-to-day decisions about whether a school can remain open are the norm.

The pandemic has accelerated our staffing challenges, but this concerning trend has been at our doorstep for the better part of a decade. Fewer recent college graduates are choosing teaching, and a 2021 survey showed that nearly one-third of America’s teachers were thinking about leaving teaching earlier than they’d planned.

Once seen as a stable career that came with the potential to make a significant positive impact on a community, teaching can no longer compete with positions offering more flexibility and higher pay. We need solutions to school staffing that go beyond what any one city or state can provide. Our state and federal government partners must work with us.

First, to avoid a mass exodus of exhausted educators, we must offer retention bonuses that reward educators for staying in public schools. America’s teachers have weathered some of the worst of the logistical and cultural battles of covid-19, and they’ve earned this recognition. Retention bonuses would also help build a deeper bench of young teachers.

We need to recognize that choosing a career in teaching is as important as joining the military; both are critical to our national security and economic sustainability. We should offer free college tuition to students who commit to public education careers and loan forgiveness to current teachers who remain in the profession for 10 years. Let’s also set a national minimum starting salary for teachers of $75,000 per year. And let’s eliminate fees for teacher’s licenses, tests and fingerprinting.

the federal Education Department should create a national teacher licensing system. Such licensing would help create uniformly high standards from state to state and allow teachers to easily transfer their credentials when they move. And, as we ramp up our efforts to rebuild our teaching corps, we should create incentives to welcome back recently retired teachers who can fill gaps without reducing their pensions.