As Texas school children return to the classroom this fall, their teachers are there to welcome them back, support their academic growth, and spark a love for learning.
Texas teachers are the heart and soul of our state’s public schools, and in recent years we have faced unprecedented challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers. Coupled with COVID-19-fueled inflationary education costs, it’s creating a workforce crisis.
Teachers are retiring earlier and in more significant numbers. About 8,600 teachers retired in 2021, an increase of about 1,000 from teachers one year earlier. That’s up from an average of nearly 7,500 teachers retiring each fiscal year since 2018. We are losing teachers faster than we can replace them. A Charles Butt Foundation poll that surveyed Texas teachers found that 77% seriously considered leaving the profession in 2022, up nearly 20% from the year before. Teachers polled said they feel undervalued and underpaid. Looking at salaries, the average pay for teachers did not increase between 2010 and 2019 --- and, according to a University of Houston report, salaries actually decreased from $55,433 to $54,192.
As districts across the state vie for qualified teachers, smaller and rural districts generally can’t compete with the larger districts’ salaries and incentive pay. This has forced some districts in rural areas to be creative in their recruiting. For example, Follett ISD and Lockney ISD, have tried to lure teachers with four-day school weeks to allow for more planning time, professional development, and accelerated instruction for students. But such a shift in the school week isn’t sustainable for all parents, students, teachers, or communities.
What can be done to address this crisis?
Previously, lawmakers have addressed the teacher shortage as a recruitment problem. Instead, we should not only look at short-term staffing needs, but also the longer-term urgency in retaining teachers.
In 2019, the Texas Legislature made significant progress in recognizing the increased needs of our communities under House Bill 3. Still, those statewide gains never entirely made their way to rural Texas and, with inflation, have actually decreased the amount of funding our school districts receive from the state over time.
With a roaring Texas economy, the state is poised to invest significantly in teacher workforce this coming session. To retain our best teachers, state investments into shorter loan forgiveness programs and greater deference to scholarships for grow-yourown programs could positively impact rural school districts. Additionally, increasing state funding for public schools’ basic allotment would provide automatic increases in teacher salaries while also alleviating recapture.
Pay is only one part of the equation for retaining teachers.
Creating and funding research- based training, along with encouraging mentoring and coaching of new teachers, will go a long way towards improving their work in the classroom and their tenure in the profession. Effective mentoring programs, especially for new teachers coming into the job through Grow Your Own grants, can help keep good teachers in our rural communities where they can impact the future of their hometowns.
Any solution to address the teacher workforce crisis needs to look at systemic issues in staffing for communities outside of the major metropolitan areas in our state. A one-sizefits- all approach isn’t sufficient, given the vast differences in recruiting, training, and retaining teachers in big cities compared to our rural communities.