teacher shortage

Even though funding measures advocated for by 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout participants were stymied largely by Republican lawmakers, Oklahoma’s GOP is now authoring record-level education funding measures that include teacher raises, along with a slew of labor rights bills for educators. But the funding bills are far from a done deal — in fact, due to a disagreement in how those bills should operate, there could be no deal at all.

A group of education deans from public universities in Kansas say the state needs to raise teacher pay, elevate the profession and offer student teachers a paycheck — rather than just another tuition bill — while they work in classrooms.

The Government Accountability Office has released a report analyzing the nationwide teacher shortage in the US. The report lists low pay and a growing negative perception of teachers as the top reasons for dropping retention rates within the profession.

A growing number of teachers in Texas public schools aren’t going through the state’s regular certification process.

Few schools have been able to keep up with the recent wave of teacher resignations.

Texas schools have long had too few teachers. The pandemic made the situation worse — but issues like low pay, poor benefits and polarizing statewide politics all have an impact, too.

The switch to four-day school weeks is popular among smaller school districts that don’t always have the finances to attract or retain teachers with pay increases.

In cities across the country, teachers are almost always in demand. And amid the so-called “Great Resignation,” that may be truer now than ever. Until school starts in August, it’s impossible to know exactly how many teachers Texas will be in need. But some Dallas instructors suspect a higher-than-typical number of their colleagues won’t return to class this fall.

The Kansas teacher shortage has been building for years. But new research by the RAND Corporation shows that the COVID-19 pandemic increased teachers’ levels of stress and burnout and may be accelerating the exodus.

The policy sidelines educators, often for two school years, at a time when districts are already struggling to keep teachers in the classrooms.