Arizona Opinion: Lack of teachers more significant than lack of funding

It is absolutely true, as Kalman P. Hettleman, an education policy analyst stated in his July 12 opinion column headlined “States must address school inequities” that President Joe Biden “must not flinch in the struggle for school equity.”

However, what is even more true is that individuals desiring to truly make a difference in our country today must not flinch from becoming teachers. The path to social justice, racial equality, economic stability and the acceptance that all lives matter starts at the schoolhouse door. That is how it has been for more than two centuries and that is how it will be for future generations to come.

Hettleman’s column focuses on the need to have all schools receive adequate dollars, and more particularly, schools in poor communities receive additional allocations “to remedy inequalities in existing school funding systems.” While this is a noble and worthy stance, and most certainly, the schools in the least economically stable communities need extra to counter the impact of poverty, the remedy goes beyond increasing funding.

What all schools, be they public, private or charter in rich or poor communities need is more highly competent, well-trained teachers in every classroom.

According to the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association (ASPAA), in January this year, almost 27% of Arizona teaching positions were still unfilled and 47% were headed by teachers who did not meet all requirements for a standard teaching certificate. While those percentages were averages with some districts faring worse than others, the reality is that teaching as a profession chosen by more than can be hired leaving those with education majors searching for alternative jobs is long gone — and is most likely not coming back any time soon.

There are numerous reasons for this sad reality, ranging from low pay to ever-increasing expectations for each teacher to solve every social ill that befalls mankind while instructing his or her students in the subject matter itself.

In addition, the end result of a growing lack of respect for teachers in general that once dominated the occupation is that fewer high school graduates are selecting teaching as a career choice going into college. Those that do, especially at the secondary school level, often change their majors before actually graduating, realizing that majoring in science or math or even English opens doors to more lucrative jobs that do not require them to be a social worker as well as whatever else they do day-to-day to share their love and knowledge of a particular subject area.

What needs to change, in addition to a more equitable funding distribution to schools nationwide, is the attitude that teaching is not a worthy career. It is a worthy career, and it is one with great benefits that truly have a ripple effect.

The way to make more students major in education and then stick with the teaching profession beyond three to five years is to greatly increase the pay and decrease the myriad duties every teacher is given beyond teaching by hiring additional personnel such as social workers, counselors and parent liaisons to all schools so that teachers can focus on teaching. In addition, there must be an overall attitudinal shift away from the belief that teaching has less worth today than it did decades ago.

If anything, teaching has more worth than ever before in that we all now know or should know that every student in every school deserves a quality education made possible not merely by more dollars but by more scholars. The teaching profession is indeed a profession, one that is dying an underserved death. President Biden will go down in history as one of the most positively influential presidents in history if he can turn around the nation’s teaching shortage.