Teaching is a Thankless Profession, and the Situation Just Took a Turn for the Worst — Again
If you thought low compensation and overcrowded classrooms were a problem, wait until you hear how one state is intellectually gutting the profession.
Remember the old phrase, “The children are our future?”
Brings to mind all kinds of images . . . mostly those of a more intelligent, thoughtful, and productive world, with today’s youngsters offering the possibility and promise of making the planet a much better place for everyone.
That’s always been the goal — a better world.
And although it’s seldom said, the underlying assumption driving this lofty premise has always been education — elevating the standards of competency, recognizing the best and brightest, and assisting those who need extra help with the curriculum.
It’s a huge responsibility. And it’s always fallen on the shoulders of one tireless soul — a teacher.
For generations, parents have entrusted their children’s education to teachers. That’s what we’ve always called it . . . “an education.” But in reality, it’s so much more than that.
Along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, there are communication skills, social development, empathy, awareness, motor skills and physical development, and a myriad of other cross-over skills and abilities.
It’s a big job — a lot to ask from anyone, regardless of their qualifications. But then, teachers are a special breed. Always have been.
How special are we talking about?
Just like the rest of us, they have bad days, frustrating conflicts with administrators, irrational demands from parents (their version of a customer), and the constant need to produce an orderly and convincing flow of paperwork for the boss.
But unlike the rest of us, they can’t complain, vent, or show any degree of transparency while on the job. Because they know their words and actions can have a huge influence on their students.
And they also know keeping the environment positive — or at least neutral — is vital to the learning experience.
The job teachers do today determines the quality and condition of tomorrow’s world.
It’s a foundational component of predicting how well we’ll get along with others. It also influences how many young people decide to pursue a particular profession. And that’s in addition to imparting a minimum level of proficiency with math, reading, and a general understanding of how the world works.
It’s a big responsibility.
And you’d think someone with the credentials, experience, education, patience, vision, and perspective to perform this job would be at the top of the list of professional compensation — similar to a doctor, lawyer, or the CEO of a major company. Because a teacher’s paycheck is more than compensation. It’s an investment that pays future dividends.
But that’s not the reality.
The reality is a sad mix of budget cuts, low salaries, and unsafe working conditions that essentially say, “Why did you become a teacher? We don’t value you or your contribution.”
Why such a discrepancy between the importance of the job and the compensation?
State legislators say they don’t have the money.
That’s a lie. They don’t have money for teachers. Conversely, they have plenty of money for pet projects, political grandstanding, and funding agenda-based projects that buy votes, seniority, and tenure.
Think my opinion is unfounded? Read the third-party reports about how your political leaders are “re-directing” money intended for teacher compensation for other, more obscure projects. You can start with this one:
The result? Teachers are leaving — walking away from an honorable, vital, and necessary profession because they can’t financially support themselves and their families.
To put that into perspective, let’s compare the compensation of two professional groups. The median compensation for a public school teacher is just over $51,000. By comparison, a family doctor can expect a median income of $ 197,000.
But wait! Certainly, a doctor’s job is much more important than a teacher’s, right?
If you believe that, ask your family doctor what inspired her to pursue a medical career. Ask her how important her teachers were in motivating her to become a doctor.
If compensation is any indication of how much we value the profession, teachers might as well pack it up and hit the road. Because frankly, it’s pathetic — an embarrassing reminder of how much we take teachers for granted.
Until there’s a shortage.
Until the lack of new teachers forces schools to double up on the number of students in each class. Until schools realize they must divide the school day into half-day sessions, resulting in less face-to-face teaching time for each student. (Here’s the source link.)
Seems like an obvious and measurable decline in the number of teachers would raise a red flag.
Seems like a teacher shortage would be enough to motivate legislators to re-consider their budgets for public education. And it has. But not in the way you might think.
The answer coming out of Arizona isn’t in favor of higher wages. No, instead of paying teachers what they’re worth, the intellectual brain-trust that is the Arizona legislature has decided the answer to the problem is to lower the hiring standards — to be less scrutinous when hiring those who perform the most important job in the country.
In a nutshell, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey recently signed legislation that creates exceptions to laws that previously required traditional public school teachers to have a college degree and/or to have completed some form of supervised, in-classroom training. (Here’s the source link.)
The exception is applicable to those applicants who are currently enrolled in a degree program, but have not completed it.
Translation? School superintendents and principals now have the authority to hire applicants who have no formal training to teach in a classroom.
And that means the current generation of Arizona parents can now anticipate a less qualified individual taking over the responsibility for the education of their children.
Is this a future trend? A harbinger of things to come?
Hopefully, the political morons who inhabit the halls of Arizona’s legislature are not representative of other states. But it only takes one to get the ball rolling. That first outlier often justifies the next, and the next, and so on.
The reduction of teaching qualifications in Arizona began in 2017, with the passage of a bill allowing those with five years of private-sector experience or possessing a degree in the subject to be taught, to receive a “subject matter certificate” to teach grades six through twelve.
A traditional “teaching certificate” was not required. (Here’s the source link.)
Even then, not all Arizona residents agreed with Governor Ducey.
“The governor’s plan invites people without any preparation and without any classroom experience to educate our children.” — Joe Thomas, then- president of the Arizona Education Association.
When asked how this change could affect the future of the quality of education in Arizona, Thomas bought the issue right to the bottom line: “All this does is set up a churn-and-burn model of low-wage teachers who will continue to leave after a few years, and our children will continue to suffer for the profit of adults.” (Here’s the source link.)
Arizona state schools chief Diane Douglas, also found fault with the governor’s solution to the teacher shortage: “Lowering the standards for new teachers is not the way to correct the problem.”
State Representative Kelli Butler, in casting a “No” when voting on the bill, added this: “We know that there is a teacher shortage because we have made the job of teaching nearly impossible in Arizona. They do not make enough money. The class sizes are huge.”
But frankly, those dissenting voices came too little, too late — especially for Arizona students and their parents.
Here’s the Takeaway
When it comes to choosing our teachers — based on the importance of the work and the life-long influence the profession has on our culture — you’d think we’d want the very best.
We certainly need the best.
Teachers make the difference between a world of misfits, outcasts, and malcontents, and one in which mutual respect, empathy, and a love of knowledge create a safer and more responsible population.
It’s a lot of responsibility. And you’d think we would not only pay teachers what they’re worth, we would also pay close attention to who is granted the authority to become a teacher. We certainly do with doctors, lawyers, and plenty of other professions that require educational and experiential evidence to confirm an individual is properly trained and qualified to do the job.
Maybe the situation in Arizona is a fluke — an isolated event that has a slim chance of being repeated in other states.
But the shortage of teachers is not a new problem. It’s been going on since the late 1970’s.
According to an article by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, more than 200,000 college students received teaching degrees annually in the 1970’s. But less than half that amount (90,000) were awarded educational degrees in 2019.
In contrast, the National Center for Education Statistics shows the number of children enrolled in a public school grew from 40,977,000 in 1980, to 50,438,000 in 2015 (the last year covered by census count). The projected count for 2025? Add another million plus students.
More students. Less teachers. The situation is obvious. So is the solution.
Provide teachers with better working conditions. Give them a salary boost to offset the shortfall in compensation compared to other, equally responsible professions. Give them the respect and the tools they need to do their best work.
After all, we’re talking about how much priority to place on educating our future engineers, politicians, architects, doctors, business leaders, and a hundred other professions we count on every day for their expertise and accuracy.
And while we’re at it, we should make sure there are plenty of our future graduates who want to pursue a teaching career, not only because it’s a job that pays well, commands respect, and builds professional equity, but because it’s the most important job on earth.
Thanks for reading,
Roger Reid | Success Point 360
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Roger A. Reid, Ph.D. is a certified NLP trainer with degrees in engineering and business. Roger is the author of Better Mondays and Speak Up, and host of Success Point 360 Podcast, offering tips and strategies for achieving higher levels of career success and personal fulfillment in the real world.
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