Miller is a local author, professor at San Diego City College, and vice president for the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931. He lives in Golden Hill.
As we head into the beginning of a new school year, there has been a lot of attention given to the national teacher shortage. One headline at The Washington Post screamed, “`Never seen it this bad.’ America faces catastrophic teacher shortage,” while a recent Politico report made it clear that “The teacher shortage problem is bad. Really bad.” Indeed, the national media landscape across the country has been littered with stories about states like Texas and Florida proposing to abandon credentialing standards simply in order to get bodies in the classroom.
Here in San Diego, CBS 8 recently reported that after bleeding teachers throughout the pandemic, “San Diego County schools saw the fewest new teachers in five years last year during the 2021-2022 school year, with only 1,382 new teachers entering county classrooms.”
With this in mind, I decided to ask two excellent, experienced local educators who I know and respect what they think about the national teacher shortage, how they see the state of local education and what might be the root causes for some of our current problems. Francisco Garcia, who teaches sixth grade at Roosevelt Middle School, was the best teacher my son had during his K-12 education. Francisco had a huge impact on my son’s self-confidence, love of learning and ability to think deeply and critically. Francisco’s wife and fellow educator, Monique Garcia, teaches first grade at Birney Elementary and shares her husband’s dedication to quality education.
Francisco explained to me that the number of college graduates enrolling in teacher credential programs has been steadily decreasing over the last few years. “Teacher preparation programs in California are just not as attractive to 20-somethings as they were 10 or 20 years ago,” he said. One reason for this, Monique noted, is the financial burdens that come when young people must put themselves through expensive, rigorous credential and masters’ programs with little or no financial aid and then do student teaching for free.
This, combined with the high cost of living and housing on a teacher’s salary, make it less attractive to do a hard job with scant resources at school and other external pressures, Monique said. “We’re fortunate to work in a district with a strong union that protects our benefits and keeps fighting for better school conditions for teachers and students,” she said. “But this is not the case in other districts across the country, especially with the proliferation of charter schools and states that continue to push for vouchers for those wanting school choice. I see the momentum being gained in this area as a threat to the organization of unions in schools as funds are diverted from community public schools. When there are short-term solutions like hiring people with little or no educational background those folks who are hired may not be invested in the community. It does a great disservice to students when there is a revolving door of adults in their lives even when those adults have the best of intentions.”
The Garcias see the current ugly, contentious public discourse around education as a deterrent to the recruitment of new educators
“Young potential teachers are very aware of the political climate,” Francisco says. “News feeds on their phone are incessantly providing articles about the politically-motivated policy shifts on what and how educators can teach in states like Florida and Texas. The pedagogical nature of teaching and the growth mindset in the instructional process are considerably compromised when teachers have to precariously wade through a hazardous ideological minefield on any given instructional day. To a young college graduate, this aspect of teaching is not at all enticing. Emancipatory pedagogy diminishes while students’ voices are quelled to satisfy the demands of reactionary sectors in our society that aggressively bark the loudest.”
In other words, the current aggressive ideological assault on educators is a deterrent to idealistic young people who might have wanted to teach as part of the noble pursuit of educating students to be critical thinkers and active citizens in our democracy.
And, as bad as this is for recruitment, Francisco thinks some of the short-term, quick fixes are also cause for concern. “There is much talk about hiring people outside of the profession to teach. Additionally, there appears to be widespread momentum toward watering down the requirements to become a teacher. This is profoundly concerning because it deprofessionalizes the profession. Would you want a lawyer who went through a watered-down law school program and ed a ‘quickie’ bar exam to represent you in court?”
Francisco argues that “the deprofessionalization of teaching” is being pushed by forces more concerned with scoring culture war points than with “promoting the pluralistic democratizing values that unify Americans.”
At a time when the basic institutions of our democracy are under assault, this is something that should trouble us all.
