Amidst a “teaching shortage” that is driving almost 25% of Missouri school districts into four-day school weeks, Missouri schools and officials are searching for relief and solutions.
The Missouri Blue Ribbon Commission has been tasked with finding solutions for this “crisis.” The commission proposed additional funding for the Career Ladder Program (opportunities for professional development and extra pay), Grow Your Own Program (local teacher recruitment), and raising the base salary for teachers to $38,000.
Two key questions arise from this proposal:
- What is the nature of this teacher shortage? Is it truly a crisis?
- How will handing out more money solve the issue?
To answer the first question, it is important to note that the total number of public school teachers in Missouri (71,055) in 2020–2021 is the highest it has been in the past five years. One might think this is a normal occurrence because the population of the United States is increasing.
However, public school enrollment in Missouri has been steadily decreasing, from over 915,000 students in 2016 to under 860,000 in 2021. Additionally, enrollment is projected to dip below 800,000 by 2030—a 10 percent drop in less than fifteen years.
So, what gives? Why are schools feeling the burdens of shortages and claiming that there is a crisis if they have an increasing number of teachers for a decreasing number of students?
It is not because of a shortage of total teachers, but a deficiency of specific teachers. Teachers for special education, mathematics, physics, and biology are in low supply.
One of the reasons for these specific vacancies is the lack of pay differentiation for teachers. In Missouri, public school teachers are expected to be paid equally across the board, whether they are special educators, calculus teachers, or elementary music teachers. This isn’t to say that any of these jobs are easy—there are difficulties in each of these different sectors—but objectively, a special educator and calculus teacher require higher credentials than an elementary music teacher.
Lack of additional pay likely means many future teachers are not pursuing credentials that cost additional time and additional money because it doesn’t pay off. This contributes to a lower proportion of teachers entering these fields.
This brings us to my second question: How will raising pay across the board solve this issue? It won’t. If the ratio of special educators to elementary music teachers is 1:1, an additional uniform $6,000 raise likely won’t change the ratio. The problem of specific teacher vacancies would remain. While the commission’s idea of increasing salary and recruitment is the right one, the funding needs to be allocated more carefully.
If the commission wants to solve this “teacher crisis,” pay differentiation, or at least extra compensation in these low-supply fields, needs to be implemented. The extra time and money required to become proficient in high-demand fields should be balanced with a pay increase, and teaching roles could then be more evenly filled in Missouri.
