Dave Riley can remember a time when education job fairs were packed with young teachers hoping to secure a position at one of the schools present.
Now the opposite is true.
Hundreds of schools with openings are now working to recruit teachers.
“It’s crazy,” said Riley, assistant superintendent for human resources and operations for the Macomb Intermediate School District (MISD), who has been involved in teacher recruitment for more than a decade.
A school in Michigan used a $10,000 signing bonus to hire a teacher and spread the payment out over three annual installments to encourage the prospective hire not just to come to the district but to stay. Other schools have to do the same to compete for talent.
“The teacher shortage has become more and more intense in recent years,” said Judy Pritchett, who served as an educator and administrator for more than 25 years in MISD and other Macomb County school districts before retiring to become member of the Michigan Board of Education. “There are many reasons for this problem, and certainly the pandemic contributed to more teachers leaving the profession, but it certainly wasn’t the only problem.”
The problem is widespread
Since the start of the pandemic, many educators have left the profession, taken early retirement, to start tutoring, or to pursue an entirely different career path.
According to the most recent data collected by the Michigan Education Association (MEA) from local school districts (October 2021), there are currently more than 84,000 teachers working in Michigan public schools.
Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that more than half of all public schools in the country reported being understaffed at the start of the 2022-23 school year and 69% reported that very few teacher candidates applying for open positions were the problem. primary challenge.
The teacher shortage also stems from the number of students enrolling in educational programs.
According to the MDE, enrollment in educational programs has decreased significantly since the 2013-14 school year. At that time there were 23,203 students enrolled in Michigan educational programs. By 2019-20, there were only 12,018.
Contributing factors
“I think there are a lot more opportunities outside of education than before,” said MISD superintendent Mike DeVault, noting that many of the jobs in the private sector offer graduates between $70,000 and $80,000 a year.
Teachers in Macomb County earn an average of $53,000.
In Oakland County, according to data from Intuit Turbotax users, it’s $51,000.
Student teachers also face the burden of rising tuition costs and student loans along with a mandatory unpaid internship.
Laura Speinhauser said that’s a big financial hurdle facing student teachers.
“I was lucky because I was able to live with my parents again,” said Speinhauser, who graduated from Western University in 2009 but knows many other teachers who had to work in a school for free and then go to work. at a second job to cover the cost of her tuition and living expenses.
“It’s very difficult to do the internship if you also have to work while you go to school,” he said, which is one of the reasons he was glad to hear about a state measure to offer students a stipend to cover his unpaid internship.
“That encourages me,” Speinhauser said. “There is a basic form that the intern fills out to verify that he is not being paid for his work as a full-time teacher. I have already heard from some students that they qualify for it. I know I would have felt much more comfortable if I had this when I went to school.”
potential hires
The stipend is part of $575 million Governor Gretchen Whitmer negotiated with the state legislature for a variety of efforts designed to address teacher shortages.
“We appreciate the governor and state legislature supporting and appropriating funds for scholarships, student teacher stipends and Grow Your Own programs,” Superintendent Michael Rice said in a Michigan Department of Education news release.
Of the money allocated to increase the teacher pool, $175 is for initiatives created by the MDE to allow school districts and communities to help address the shortage of educators. These Grow Your Own programs, as they are called, include:
• Registered apprenticeship programs for teachers represent a new pathway to teacher certification in Michigan that will allow youth teacher apprenticeships to earn while learning through an existing educator preparation program with supervised on-the-job training from an experienced mentor teacher. .
• EXPLORE for students in grades 6-12 to participate in learning experiences as students with the supervision and mentoring of educators.
• The LAUNCH program for students who are interested in careers in education and other fields related to children, to be eligible for an out-of-school programming credential.
• Welcome Back/Welcome Home Proud Michigan Educator programs that invite former educators to rejoin the educational workforce.
Funding also includes $305 million for scholarships and scholarships that pay for tuition and other costs of higher education, up to $10,000 per year for eligible aspiring teachers; $50 million for student teacher stipends to pay $9,600 per semester for work as a student teacher; and $10 million is for intermediate school districts to recruit and hire career and technical education (CTE) instructors.
“We need to encourage members of our school communities to consider developing and utilizing their talents as proud Michigan educators,” Whitmer said. “That’s why I’ve worked hard to build Michigan’s teacher pipeline with investments in Grow Your Own programs, student teacher stipends and more. This new funding will make a difference for students in Michigan communities and bring high-quality educators to the profession. It is crucial that the state supports our next generation of educators as they invest in their local schools, and I am committed to continuing our work to attract
The new initiatives are also part of Michigan’s Top 10 Strategic Education Plan, which was updated and approved by the state Board of Education in August 2020.
“We know that a highly qualified teacher has the most positive impact on student achievement. Therefore, for this reason and many others, the problem of teacher shortages is a top priority for the State Board of Education (Goal 7 of our Strategic Plan) and the Michigan Department of Education,” Pritchett said, and added that the MDE is working to support local districts. and the ISD to alleviate the shortage and I am very grateful for the funding provided by the state for the new programming, which has proven to be successful.
An example of a new program addressing the shortage is the teacher cadet program launched by MISD.
“It’s a paid summer internship opportunity for high school students who might be interested in a teaching career or just want to learn more about it,” said Alesia Flye, MISD assistant superintendent of instruction and chief academic officer. “It has been very successful. In the initial year we had 50 students. Last summer we had 160. The feedback we have received from students and teachers alike has been positive.”
Flye said it’s obvious from the enrollment, which has nearly tripled in the last two years of the program, they’re onto something good.
“We’ve also had some students who have gone through the program and decided that teaching is not for them,” Flye said, but overall he seems to be creating a pipeline of students who are at least considering it as a possible career path.
“It’s not one thing that got us here,” Riley said, and it’s not going to be one thing that solves the problem, but at least now there’s a large-scale effort to improve the numbers.
“For me it was never something explicit,” said Steven Conklin, who will reduce the teacher shortage by at least one when he graduates from Oakland University in 2023.
However, looking back, what piqued his interest he would have to say were the teachers he had in high school. They inspired him. They showed him what it was like to learn something new and become good at it, including his music teacher, who raised the bar for everyone in his classes but was dedicated to helping his students achieve the goals he had set for them.
“He was super passionate,” Conklin said, adding that he knows several other classmates at L’Anse Creuse High School who became teachers because of him. “I think good teachers will always inspire others to enter the field.”
“I love it,” Conklin said of his job as a teacher. “I would say to anyone, ‘If you enjoy when someone learns something you taught them, at least think about education.'”