How the Next Secretary of Education Can Stop the Teacher Shortage
Educational leaders and policymakers must take proactive steps at the local, state and federal levels to increase pay and resources for teachers, and alleviate pressure by reducing class sizes.
Miguel Cardona – President Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of education – faces several urgent and contentious priorities, including reopening schools safely, addressing systemic racism within schools, and reversing the ever-growing teacher shortage. Here, four experts explain how to recruit more people to become educators in the nation’s public schools.
1. Increase pay and reduce class sizes
Bob Spires, associate professor of education, University of Richmond
Author: Bob Spires
(MENAFN - The Conversation) Editor s note: Miguel Cardona â President Joe Biden s choice for secretary of education â faces several urgent and contentious priorities , including reopening schools safely, addressing systemic racism within schools, and reversing the ever-growing teacher shortage. Here, four experts explain how to recruit more people to become educators in the nation s public schools.
1. Increase pay and reduce class sizes Bob Spires, associate professor of education, University of Richmond
The teacher shortage has become a crisis in the United States. In 2018, there was an estimated shortage of over 100,000 K-12 teachers. Meanwhile, the demand for K-12 teaching jobs is expected to continue to increase 5% per year through 2028.
Richard L. Schwab’s experience in education has spanned four decades, beginning with a job in Chelmsford, Mass., as an eighth-grade history teacher. He went on to earn both a master’s degree and doctorate in Educational Administration at UConn, before spending 10 years on the education faculty at the University of New Hampshire. He spent the next eight years at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he served three years as head of its Department of Educational Administration, and then five years as dean of the School of Education. In 1997, he returned to his alma mater to serve as dean of the Neag School of Education. Dean Schwab served 12 years as dean from 1997 to 2009 before returning to the faculty as a Raymond Neag Endowed Professor of Educational Leadership. In July 2014, he returned as dean to lead the Neag School in implementing the University of Connecticut’s New Academic Plan. With his return, Dean Schwab is the longest-serving dean in the history of the Neag Sc