America's MANUFACTURED Teacher Shortage | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Krystal and Saagar have James Li break down the causes of America's teacher shortage and how the problem can be fixed

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[Le-vhiv]

Administrative bloat is a huge problem in healthcare too. Bad for nurses, bad for patients but good for pencil pushers and shareholders.

[HoisHoywood]

James Li has been, by far, my favorite addition to Breaking Points.

[greatrafusio]

As a teacher myself, I greatly appreciate your coverage of this important matter. My high school building is literally running out of rooms because of all of the newly hired administrators who need offices. They convert the classrooms into offices and force the teachers to stack up on top of each other because there is no instructional space left. These administrators look busy, but those of us in the trenches can't figure out what they actually do. A cynical person might attribute this to prioritizing paperwork over what is supposed to be the objective: teaching kids.

[Hardwaregeekx]

What James Lee said was exactly my experience. A few years ago I went to a school board meeting where teachers came out to protest the school board's decision to hire 13 new administrators while they fired 50 teachers due to a "budget shortage." I thought maybe that was an isolated incident. But it looks like this is a widespread phenomena.

[UnderhillKoufax]

Sadly true. Many states create so many unnecessary economic and educational barriers to becoming a teacher. Even people with Masters Degrees cannot teach their subjects in schools despite many years experience successfully doing so in other states. This teacher shortage is self-inflicted. And yes, teachers need to be paid a living wage everywhere, because no one deserves to go broke…especially the fully employed.

[bdean]

This exact same thing is happening in Canadian hospitals - the administrators are more than happy to sacrifice patient safety and care in order to preserve their own jobs. Administrative bloat is a huge problem.

[UrNotThatGuyPal]

This dude is truly top notch. Keep James around BP 💯

[bigsprucerabbitry]

A teacher's job is 2 parts prison gaurd and 1 part teaching math. I wanted to be a STEM teacher at one point so I could do some good. I have an MS in STEM and can make 3 times the income without the terrible kid behavior and no respect from parents. Also not being able to teach the material in a way that makes it useful to students instead of for standardized tests really doesn't attract talent. I do tutor homeschool students where I feel I can actually do some good. The kids bother to learn the science and math I am passionate about and I can chose to work with people that respect me.

[sarahteare]

I love this reporting! He was completely unbiased. Breath of fresh air.

[fashionablelena]

As a teacher, I can tell you that there is no shortage of certified, highly-qualified teachers. Highly-qualified, certified teacher have decided to leave the profession. They are going back to school or have chosen different careers.

Our superintendent is not pleased and held a principals meeting about the shortage in our district. It’s gotten worse. School started on 8/22, and teachers have already resigned. Most said it’s because of administrators and student behavior. What was once a dream job has turned into a nightmare.

[pamelathomas]

This is happening right now. I'm a high school teacher and see the tutoring and the administrator pool getting bigger every year. What he failed to mention is the real critical eye that administrators level at teachers in their schools. It's very difficult to feel valued unless you teach one of the advanced or stem classes. I'm retiring at the end of this year, and feel sad for my students, who are less prepared for life than their peers 10 years ago.

[Wiz-Boricua]

Stop giving the big money to Administrators. Remember we don’t need more Admins, we need well paid teachers.

[ecole]

It's really getting hard to be optimistic about the future of the US today - I've always wanted to have kids, but knowing that the public school system isn't going to provide them the same level of education as it did to me is really eye opening and makes me reconsider. There are so many big time problems in the US that seem to just be getting worse and worse year after year - from climate change, wage stagnation, inflation, housing costs, education costs, healthcare costs, police brutality, etc and the list goes on and on.

The America I grew up in, where people were optimistic and happy about the future, started eroding after 9/11. As I've grown up, all I've seen is that this country continues to become a more uncaring, militaristic, corporate controlled mess who's only purpose is to extract as much money and labor from it's citizens as possible to benefit the ultra-wealthy. The teacher shortage is no different. We spend so much damn money on education, but most of it isn't even going to EDUCATING kids anymore!

The United States unfortunately is on the decline and will need a major cultural reset if it's going to continue to exist into the next century. We are getting to the point where the next generation is going to be severely handicapped and ill-equipped to compete on the world stage. It is time for us to elect leaders who recognize this.

[smarterchild]

I'm a teacher and feeling the effects of the shortage greatly. It is regularly expected you give up your prep period to cover a class, which just ensures any lesson planning/grading must be done at home on your own time unpaid. If you give up your prep period for the day, your only break time is the lunch break, which in my school is a mere 25 minutes. I also have to walk the students down to the cafeteria, pick them up when lunch is over, take my one bathroom break of the day, and then quickly shovel down my lunch, which oftentimes these days I skip lunch and just stick with a cold diet soda as my only calories during the day.

While we issue student Chromebooks, my school has now been without WIFI for two days (and was recently told this might continue through Monday), which results in me today having to get up at 5 AM to create a new lesson out of thin air and having to get to school an hour before contract time so I have time to print and prep the classroom for the day, and all but one day a week I have morning meetings that start at contract time.

My class sizes average 27 students, and regularly have classes with many students on IEP's and am not given special education support because of staffing issues. The stress is unreal, no real solutions in sight, and my dad who works in a traditional business setting makes more than I do yearly with his end of the year bonus. This is an unsustainable system we have in place, and every year I'm asking myself how much longer I can put up with it. It's not fair to students who deserve a quality education to have their teachers be put in a situation where they cannot adequately prepare quality instruction.

[Falconlibrary]

I was a teacher for thirty years and saw every district I worked for become "top heavy". In my last district (before I retired), a new superintendent came in and nearly doubled district office staff while cutting teaching jobs. District office staff get double digit raises every year. I taught at both the college and high school level and this phenomenon occurs in both places. Most of the administrators have redundant functions and try to justify their existence by meddling in the day to day running of schools, about which they know little or nothing. I retired early because the district made what appeared to be a coordinated effort to harass veteran teachers and make our lives (even more) miserable. The tactic worked, because 25% of the district's teaching staff retired in 2021, taking with them most of the successful teaching experience of the district. There's such a shortage that the district couldn't find a replacement for me until two months into last school year, and the person who replaced me has ZERO experience. But she works cheap and doesn't have tenure, so she's easily bossed around. I've been through a lot in the last thirty years, but the last few years were by far the worst and most demoralizing, and NOT because of the pandemic. I opposed closing down the schools, but we all managed to get through that. What hurt was parents and administrators saying that we teachers were lazy and just wanted to stay home in our jammies, when in reality we were working 12 to 16 hour days to adjust our teaching to an online environment.

[EndCorporateWelfare]

I think they mean that the US spends more money in the athletic department than other country in the world.

[DoubtfireClub]

I blame "careerism" the only thing the managerial class cares about is themselves. They don't care who they have to destroy on the way up the ladder

[slushpuppii]

My cousin just became a teacher
Had no idea they relied on others purchasing things they need for their classroom through Amazon.

[boxing_biologist]

I've been teaching high school science/ biology for 15 years but none of it in the states after I got my masters. I started teaching at international schools abroad where I could earn a respectable wage, not deal with the out of touch parents, or the cultural wars. Not only does the USA have a teacher shortage but a talent drain as well.

[kevinsmith]

well if this isn't the most concise analysis of the issue I've seen... well done.