Report: Minnesota Faces Worsening Teacher Shortage
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A new report says Minnesota is facing a teacher shortage that appears to be worsening each year.
The teachers union, Education Minnesota, said school districts are struggling to find enough licensed teachers for their classrooms.
The report cites information from the Minnesota Department of Education that shows a growing number of teachers leaving their jobs, and fewer people entering the profession.
Teachers with specialties in science, math and special education are increasingly hard to find, as well as teachers of color and substitute teachers.
The leaders of Education Minnesota held a news conference on Monday where they shared these findings and talked about possible solutions.
The report says the teacher shortage actually started back in the 1980s, but in the last few years retaining and recruiting teachers has hit crisis levels.
So much so that school districts are now relying much more heavily on teachers who are not licensed to teach certain subjects and grade levels.
"We know that within the first five years of teaching we have a higher loss rate than we do in analogous professions or in the private sector. We have fewer people entering and more people leaving," Carrie Lucking, the director of policy, research and outreach for Education Minnesota, said.
It is an honorable profession that requires skill and patience, yet the starting salary for teachers in Minnesota is close to what many recent college graduates carry in student debt.
In most districts, it's between $30,000 and $40,000 a year. The average salary is about $56,000.
"And then there is the relentless criticism and disrespect," said Denise Specht, who is the president of Education Minnesota and a teacher.
These union leaders and teachers said teaching today is much harder than it was years ago. Society has changed.
"We're called lazy. Our schools are called failures when we don't reverse those trends like homelessness, street violence, untreated childhood trauma," Specht said.
The group is recommending stronger financial support and training for teachers, and creating high school programs to promote teaching as a profession.
Nearly 30 percent of Minnesota's school children are kids of color, yet only 3 percent of licensed teachers here are teachers of color.
"Children need to see themselves within their education in order to achieve at high levels. One way to do this is to recruit and retain teachers of color," said Maria Le, a first grade teacher in the Roseville Area District.
"It's bad. We have certain licensure areas where we are short not just five or ten teachers, but hundreds and hundreds of teachers," Lucking said.
"Let's get educators the support that they need so they can teach, and let's get students the support that they need so they can learn," said Specht.
The report also recommends changes to state licensing practices to make it less complicated and less expensive for people who are interested in teaching.
Union leaders say a part of the reason teachers are leaving the profession is retirement, as baby boomers leave the workforce.
But another component is classroom environment and the challenges that teachers say they face with student behavior and readiness.
