Solutions To The Emerging Teacher Shortage Crisis Even Republicans Will Like
A new report is making big headlines for showing that public schools across the nation are experiencing severe problems with teacher shortages that are apt to develop into a “crisis” if left unaddressed.
The report from an education think tank called the Learning Policy Institute took off from last year’s widespread news stories that reported how schools were “struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science, and special education.”
Where this new report goes way beyond last year’s news stories is that it draws from a deep well of statistical validity, meticulous analysis, and wise counsel.
The report not only finds clear and credible evidence of teacher shortages; it provides a baseline definition of the term, identifies the factors driving the shortfalls, forecasts a continuing problem, and offers policy recommendations to shore up the existing teacher supply and attract new, well-qualified entrants.
Nevertheless, there are skeptics who remain unconvinced of the problem. Last year’s anecdotal reports on teacher shortages prompted harrumphs like this one in Forbes that argued it’s still “not clear … how large or prevalent the teacher shortage actually is.”
This year, many skeptics seem similarly unmoved. A reporter covering the LPI release for Education Week found an unconvinced source, Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality, who claims, “Nobody has any national data that is justification for declaring a teacher shortage.”
I don’t think Walsh actually read the report, which indeed draws from several federal databases and numerous other quantitative studies and surveys.
Regardless of the evidence, studies finding deep and intractable problems in the teacher workforce always seem to draw the doubting crowd. Republicans, in particular, have always been resistant to the idea there is a teacher shortage. The reasons are somewhat mystifying (like why they Solutions To The Emerging Teacher Shortage Crisis Even Republicans Will Like:
