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When There Is a Shortage of Teachers, Will Any “Teacher” In the Classroom Do?

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Every year school principals post openings for classroom teacher vacancies with the intention to hire a licensed teacher with the academic and pedagogic preparation to teach the children a school curriculum. However, the shortage of licensed and prepared teachers seeking employment as teachers means that a principal may not find any candidates with a valid license to teach the posted assignment. This is New Personnel 101 for principals in thousands of schools every year – how to make do without a licensed and prepared teacher.

So, a principal scrambles to hire the next best – a teacher with a different license but who knows how to teach. Or a long-term substitute teacher without a teaching license or academic and pedagogic training. Or an apprentice teacher who is enrolled in an on-the-job teacher preparation program but not yet fully trained. Or a local resident well known in the school who has a baccalaureate degree and is willing to try out as a classroom teacher. The WI Department of Instruction has protocols for issuing permits or temporary licenses with stipulations that allow a school board to employ any of these people who are explicitly prepared for the vacant teaching assignment. Or the principal may give up on finding a teacher and reassign the children to other classrooms. Each of these options has an immediate upside and a longer downside.

New Personnel 101 does not go away when an unlicensed, unprepared teacher is hired. The principal is supposed to continue posting this position as a teacher vacancy until a licensed and prepared teacher is hired. If an unlicensed teacher with a temporary license is hired, the principal is responsible for assuring and supporting the “temp” in meeting the stipulations of the temporary license. That amounts to significant extra time and effort. New Personnel 101 is an ongoing unanticipated and unwanted work effort.

The rub comes if the principal believes the “next best” is good enough and that reposting will not find a better “next best.” This is acutely true if there are no student discipline or parent issues arising from a “next best” teacher in a temporary assignment. The WI DPI will renew a temporary license with stipulations almost indefinitely, if the temporary teacher continues to make “efforts” to remove the stipulations of the temporary license. It does not take much to be an “effort.”

The sad outcome of New Personnel 101 is that a continuing contract for “next best” who never completes a licensing program but never has classroom problems gets lost in all the other high demands a principal faces in the business of administering a school. When the critical attribute for good enough is the absence of discipline problems and parent complaints, the good enough of New Personnel 101 makes the expediency of putting a teacher in the classroom more important than giving all children the quality instruction they deserve and need.

The reality of New Personnel 101

There is a significant corps of unlicensed teachers in our classrooms. “Different sources estimate between 42,000 and over 100,000 unfilled teacher positions nationwide. Moreover, another 270,000 to 365,000 employed K-12 teachers are reported to be unqualified or not fully certified for the teaching assignments that they have been given. In some areas, the inability to find qualified teachers is so bad that anyone who passes a background check gets hired, even without holding a relevant degree.”

In Wisconsin, there are 2,400 unfilled teacher vacancies for the 2024-25 school year with 4,057 unqualified teachers in classrooms.

https://www.fullmindlearning.com/blog/teacher-vacancies-by-state-us?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Apprenticeship resolves New Personnel 101.

One of the options available to school boards is to employ apprentice teachers. An apprentice teacher meets four immediate criteria. An apprentice must –

  1. Have an earned baccalaureate degree. Although this baccalaureate is not in education, it signifies that the apprentice has intellectual knowledge and skills for a college degree and the capacity to become a trained teacher.
  2. Be enrolled in an educator preparation program (EPP). There are a variety of EPPs in Wisconsin and most are affiliated with Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs). The DPI teacher licensing department supervised EPPs to ensure that the EPP’s teacher training program meets WI’s statutory requirements for teacher training as well as the initial teacher preparation standards for a teaching license. For example, all licensed math teachers must meet the preparation standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
  3. Be employed by a school board as an apprentice teacher assigned to a classroom aligned with their educator preparation program. Employment as an apprentice is a HUGE asset for apprenticeship programs – apprentices earn while they learn. Unlike enrollment in a college or university teacher prep program that require almost full-time class attendance, apprentices teach classes in school, attend the EPP’s online courses, and have an ongoing income that meets their life needs.
  4. Pass a criminal background check. This is the same requirement for all public education teachers.

The essential benefit of the apprenticeship program is that a “next best” teacher is not hired and forgotten. Apprentices are supported by

  • EPP instructors. I use preparation for a math teacher as an example. As apprentices learn each of the seven NCTM teacher prep standards, the instructor uses course assignments that directly connect each standard to the apprentice’s teaching assignment. Apprentices use their daily work as the application of each standard. Instructors are first-hand supporters of the apprentice’s daily teaching practices.
  • EPP licensing observers who observe the apprentice teaching and coach the apprentice to apply what the apprentice learns in EPP courses into practice in classroom teaching.
  • School principals who make required evaluative classroom observations of the apprentice’s teaching and provide the apprentice with both critical and constructive recommendations.
  • School mentors who teach the same grade level or the same courses as the apprentice.

The downside to hiring an apprentice teacher is that on the first day of classroom teaching the apprentice also is in the first days of course work learning how to teach. As a teacher, the apprentice immediately is a work in progress.

The upside to hiring an apprentice is that the apprentice is constantly learning about the best teaching and learning practices. There is not a settling for good enough that never changes because the apprentice is constantly learning how to become a fully prepared licensed teacher. And at the end of the apprentice’s EPP courses the apprentice has pedagogical training that is equal to the preparation of any university or college depart of education.

The Big Duh!

New Personnel 101 leaves school boards and principals with critical decisions to make when they cannot find a fully licensed teacher that meets their employment needs. They can settle for a “good enough” adult to be a classroom teacher.  They can allow “good enough” to become a permanent employee forgotten in the grind of a school year’s work. Or they can work with an EPP and hire an apprentice and collaborate to create a fully prepared and licensed teacher.

I endorse the employment of apprentice teachers. Through personal and professional experience, I know that this program works when school principals and EPPs collaborate to educate, train, and grow a new teacher one at a time.

New Personnel 101 is not going away. The lack of new teacher candidates is a recurring fact of school life. The question of how to make do with less than fully prepared teachers is our problem and requires school boards and principals to invest in new strategies for causing all children learn.

Reflection On Instruction Begets Improved Student Learning – Give Teachers Time to Reflect

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Time and tide wait for no teacher when there is a school year of curriculum to be taught. There never is enough time to accomplish what takes inestimable time! Instruction that causes all children to learn, including children needing adjusted instruction, requires time for a teacher to reflect and determine how to clarify, correct, and teach anew. Reflection plus adjusted teaching improves learning for all students.

Form follows function – time is attached to what we prioritize

A teacher’s school day is dominated by the clock much like the chain driving an assembly line. Classes, meetings, lunch, prep, paperwork, work that goes on til midnight and then do it again the next day. The class bell does not wait for anyone – teacher or student – and a tardy teacher is worse than a tardy student. And being prepared for the continuing instruction and student learning is never-ending. Yet we know that significant accomplishments – Rome and student learning – require planning, careful work, and checking assurances for quality outcomes. When then, is a teacher able to reflect, really think about the effectiveness of her teaching in causing children to learn?

The easy answer for administrators has two parts.

  • Every teacher has contract-guaranteed prep time as well as time before and after the school day.
  • Professional teachers understand that their work is not limited by the school day and often requires more than eight hours per day.

Easy for an administrator is not easy for a teacher. A teacher’s school-assigned prep time is invaded without forethought. Urgent matters are a principal’s note to “see me during your prep” or a principal’s scheduling an IEP team meeting during a prep time. The “tapping into” teacher prep time happens with abandon in every school every day.

A teacher’s immediate needs must be met during “untapped” prep time. These include

  • Bio needs in the restroom.
  • Returning parent calls and e-mails.
  • Assembling student work collected prior to the prep time for later inspection.
  • Arranging materials for student instruction after the prep time.

If these are not accommodated during school day prep time, they don’t get done. Consequently, these tasks get done and instructional planning and reflection do not.

Before and after school time also is requisitioned by faculty meetings, grade level and departmental meetings, IEP team meetings, and professional development. Then, add the time needed by a student who “needs extra help” or has a question that could not be asked and answered in class and an eight-hour school day grows into nine and ten hours. The time crunch is exasperated for the many teachers who need to be home after school to take care of their own children.

The reality is that very few teachers use school day prep time for the planning and construction of instruction or the review of instructional effectiveness.

Automaton teaching is easy; informed teaching is hard

It is too easy for a teacher to be an automaton – a person who works in a mechanical, unthinking, and unemotional manner. I observed veteran teachers who had files of units and lesson plans and every year they literally taught through their file drawer. They used the same units and lessons year after year with the justification of “it seemed to work last year, so it will be just as good for this year.” When asked why they automatically repeated units and lessons, they told me “It took a lot of time to develop my units and lessons, and I don’t have time to develop ones or even to change why I have.”

Automaton teaching includes teachers who teach strictly from the publisher’s guide for curriculum their school has adopted. They do not make adjustments or modifications because “this is what my school board expects me to teach.”

Against this model, I observed veteran teachers who used their prep time for informed teaching. From her classroom doorway, I watched a kindergarten teacher using self-talk as she laid out materials on student desks. “Willie needs…, Jackie needs…, Aiden needs…”, and at the end of the lay out she reviewed exactly what each student needed to accomplish the objectives of their next lesson.

I watched a high school chemistry teacher use her whiteboard to review the results of a student quiz the day before. She used data to identify students who demonstrated clear learning and those who did not, and she listed the specific learning that needed to be clarified.

I talked with an ELA teacher as she shared the specific criteria, she had taught that she wanted students to demonstrate in a writing assignment. She used a holistic reading approach to identify assignments that met the requirements and those that did not and added post-a-notes to each writing sample telling the writer the detail that was missing or incorrect.

These teachers buck the pattern of automaton, same old/same old teaching by reflecting daily on the effectiveness of instruction and the adjusted teaching they will use to cause all students to achieve curricular success.

Break the pattern of same old/same old: protect time for instructional reflection

If a principal believes reflection is essential for ensuring high quality teaching and learning, the principal must assign and protect time for reflective work. The time does not need to be the same time of the school day for all teachers. If it is the same, it is too easy for that time to be stolen for other purposes. Ensured reflective planning time needs to be equitable, balanced and inviolate.

Second, the principal needs to “sit in” with teachers as they reflect. “Sitting in” is supportive not evaluative. Different teachers will reflect and plan differently; the just need the principal’s encouragement and affirmation that instructional reflection is a valued professional for improving teaching and learning.

Plan-teach-reflect-teach

I always smiled when told “Mr. Smith is a good teacher” without hearing the criteria for the statement. It was a cynical smile. Good teaching is hard work that requires curricular and pedagogical mastery and consistent use of best practices. Good teaching knows each child being taught and how to connect each child’s uniqueness with instruction. Good teaching requires planning, teaching, reflection, and adjusted teaching. When I heard any or all of these criteria, I gave a true smile.

To make the magic of teaching work, teachers need time to assess the quality of student learning after their initial instruction, provide appropriate next assignments for students who were successful, AND plan how to correct, clarify, and appropriately students who were not initially successful. The magic requires informed reflection and time to reflect.

Woe Be Unto Those Who Do Not Understand the Alphas – Their Destiny Matters, Ours Is History

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“Demography is destiny.” (August Comte, 1798). Alphas, those born between 2010 and 2025 and are of school age now, need our consideration because they are unlike those who came before.  Alphas add qualitative dimensions to the quantitative game of demographics – they are our destiny.

Using current demographic data to predict the future is in vogue today as decision makers determine which demographic groups and changes in demography to consider in crafting future policy and practice. However, the demos are changing. Millennials replaced Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation in 2020. Non-whites soon will be a majority of the population. The number of workers/contributors to the economy is declining as the number of non-working/retired increases. The ultra rich are richer and the number of impoverished and needy increases. America is decreasingly the world’s Land of Opportunity. Our past and present are a world the Silent, Boomer, X, Z and Millennial generations created. The future lies with the Alphas.

America historically was characterized by the belief life that each successive generation will have a better quality of life than their predecessors. The American Dream inspired people to engage and achieve. If Alphas abandon the Dream, what will happen to America? We need to consider the possibility, probability, and consequences of no American Dream. Hence, we cannot apply past generational assumptions about children to the Alphas and the world they will occupy. Woe be to those who ignore the Alphas.

The American Dream that was.

Boomers were born and raised in the American Dream. Their Dream provided prosperity and lifestyle greater than their grandparents and parents. Post-WW2 economics accelerated Boomers’ employment, civil rights legislation made the Dream more inclusive, and America’s global dominance kept the “good times rolling.” The Dream of stable employment and increasing income, purchasing a home and car, marriage and children were achieved by most Boomers, depending on race. Significantly, Boomers were born to be achievers through perseverance, and they prospered in the pre-technology age.

Gen X sits right on the edge of a changing American Dream. They are half-like Boomers and half-like Millennials and Gen Z. Financially, they are less well off than Boomers and less debt-burdened than Millennials. They are more independent thinking and adaptable than Boomers and more comfortable with technology. While Boomers are work grinders, Gen Xers prefer work-life balance and are less confrontative. The Dream still lives for them.

Millennials and Gen Z, generally, still believe in the American Dream but their reality is not Dream-like. The cost of education, housing, health and childcare have eroded their potential for achieving greater prosperity than the Boomers and Xers. Today only 53% of Americans still believe the Dream is possible. Critically, that optimism fades within age groups. Only 39% of the 18- to 29-year-olds believe the Drean can be theirs and 43% of the 39- to 49-year-olds see themselves in the Dream. The conditions for achieving the Dream are changing and fading for younger Americans in the prime years of the working lives.

Millennials and Gen Z also are caught in the reality that the retirements of Boomers and Gen Xers are depleting Social Security and Medicare. Millennials and Gex Zers will need to work more and longer if they are to achieve their anticipated “golden years.”  All of this becomes increasingly unlikely.

The above comparisons and contrasts of older generations set the stage for why Alphas are significant.

What we should know about Alphas.

For Alpha children born in and after 2010, the world is rapidly and always changing. Comparing Alphas to the Boomers is like comparing Boomers to their grandparents, people born between 1885 and 1900. That comparison sounds outlandish but is truer than not. Recent historic effects will be as important to Alphas as the Great Depression and World War 2 were to the Silent Generation (born between 1924 and 1945).

Consider –

  • The first Alphas were born the same year as the IPad and technologies have shaped their every development. They have no memory of life prior to touch screens and instant and constant access to the Net.
  • Alphas are screen time. They are constantly connected through what they see and hear on their devices. They don’t wait for the news – the news is theirs instantly.
  • The pandemic was more than a disease for Alphas. The death of more than a million Americans was a numbing and then cold statistic. Adult arguments and hostilities over vaccination, masking, school closure, childcare, isolation, and attacks on medical science appeared more important than their childhood. Disease, death, and divisiveness shape their thinking and feelings.
  • As politically hot as diversity is as a topic, the majority of Americans in Alpha world will be non-white, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and no longer “white America.” Alphas are part of diversity.
  • Violence is just a news story. Gun violence happens and Alphas see adults who do nothing to prevent it, they only respond. Alphas know children will be shot in schools. There is nothing they can do about it.
  • They hear facts, alternative facts, and lies with equal frequency. Alphas have abandoned traditional news outlets and rely on media that is quick, digestible, and somewhat entertaining/controversial instead. An ability to remain objective to understand information has never been greater in greater need.
  • If they do not worry about their mental health, they are told they should. Their adults give mixed messages claiming mental health is a root of many school-age problems but do not supply significant resources to address mental health issues. Mental health issues are real but mental health also is just a labeling and blaming for what happens in the world without real address. It is symptomatic of the hypocrisy Alphas see in the adult world.
  • Most Alphas are raised in childcare centers, attend education in schools of their parents’ choice, and enter adulthood being constantly socialized. Alphas’ ability to think and work independent of group think and influencers will shape their generation.
  • Chaos is becoming the Alphas norm. American politics of 2024-2025 is the story they will talk about in the future not the traditions of democratic stability and community commonwealth. The rule of law will survive only if Alphas have a will to uphold the rules.

And so?

Alphas will make a different world. Hence, educators need to make schooling a different experience for them, especially as Alphas age. Alphas will learn much like children in earlier generations learned in early childhood through the upper elementary grades. They will profit from play-based education, socialization with each other and with school, learning to read, early literacy and numeracy that are the mainstays of primary education. However, as they age Alphas will grow into the above characteristics of their generation. That is when child/student-centered teaching and learning is essential.

  1. Alphas require maximal active engagement, because trust of adults and adult/institutional thinking will not be a given for Alphas. In the pre-pandemic eras 70 to 80% of a student’s day was dominated by teacher talk or demonstration. This pattern changed dramatically as children returned to many but not enough post-pandemic schools. Pandemic use of Google Classrooms, virtual meetings, flipped models of teaching/learning responsibilities, and a reluctance of children to return to pre-pandemic rules and forced teachers and schools to change instructional delivery and student relationships. We need to sustain and extend the flip so that 75% of a student’s day is active engagement and 25% is watching and listening.
  2. Alphas require real world technologies in school. Alphas need to productively use the technologies they use outside of school inside the school. Our past habits of forbidding students access to non-school tech alienates all students, especially Alphas, and have failed to create a student-centered learning environment. Perhaps Alphas will follow the Boomer/X pathway into post-secondary education. Internships, apprenticeships, tech schooling, and “gap yearing” will become their new patterns. Hence, our heavy college tracked curriculum must change. We need new course sequences that prepare Alphas for their future not our out-of-date past.
  3. Alphas are diversity. Current machinations to negate diversity programming does not match their realities. Non-whites are becoming and will be the majority of our population. Alpha education must prepare them for living diversely.
  4. The Alpha world view will be global not national only. Their technologies do not know national boundaries neither will their interests.
  5. Alphas will be multi-lingual. Schools that are dropping for language instruction due to costs need to reprioritize their programming. Alphas need to be fluent in their languages of choice.
  6. Education cannot be debt-creating. It must be universal and free.

The Big Duh!

Soon, Alphas will assume adult roles and responsibilities in our communities and world. If we continue to educate them for a Boomer and X world, they will flounder and founder. Our current educational programming is not prepared for their demographics. We need to make changes today that our progeny will thank us for in the future.

Atlas is Shrugging

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Think Ayn Rand and then think 2025. Think John Gault and then think the American commonwealth. Think the consequences of industrial leaders shuttering their talents and then think the American people shuttering their care factor. Think the tenets of democracy and then think the pettiness of empirical rule.

When a slim majority of our electorate believes an egotist will elevate their status and cure their woes, what happens if everyone else shrugs? We are finding out.

Fellow educators, we shall not shrug.

Rousseau, Come Back

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“Education is an opportunity, and children should make the most of it. You can never have too much education.” Guilty as charged. As a principal, superintendent, and school board member, I overloaded children aged 5-18 with too many education requirements and compelling programs.  School was an open frame of time, and I led educators in prescribing as many things as we could for the education of children. We labeled our programs as curricular and extracurricular opportunities and were proud of the total education available to our children. Even after traditional academics, activities, arts, and athletics, we wrapped our arms around atypical school activities, like sailing, bowling, archery, trap shooting, biking and hiking, and electronic gaming and made then school sponsored. Schooling was the full Monty.

Seldom did we experience an existential moment, notably “what am I doing and why am I doing it”, the answer always was “this is good for kids.” Today I am no longer convinced of that answer. I would do it differently. Rousseau, come back!

Nature or nurture should be nature and nurture.

Adults have forever wrestled with the question of the best way for children to learn about the world. Do we let children explore and experience the world and from their natural learning prepare themselves for adult life? Is education the child’s responsibility? Is self-education a natural and adequate phenomenon? Or do we create, pre-plan, and program their education to ensure they learn what we want them to learn? Is education the adults’ responsibility? Does education require direct nurturing?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped us understand the value of allowing children to explore and learn naturally. In writing Emile (1762), he created an educational philosophy aligned with the physical and mental development of a child and their exposure to experiential learning. He said that children learn best through direct interaction with a natural environment that optimizes their curiosity and exploration. Learning should be hands-on and active. He was opposed to adults lecturing children, rote memorization of information, and mandatory school attendance. To Rousseau, experiencing life and its consequences taught children critical thinking, moral, and social lessons that were superior to didactic lessons in a school. Life is full of problem-solving needs and children develop skills to match and meet their needs.

Rousseau’s philosophies live in Montessori, Waldorf, and outdoor education programs. They are apparent in school curricula that uses problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based education. And they are apparent in early child education’s play-based learning curricula.

Horace Mann provided the contrary view; the education of children is a public responsibility and should be regimented. Mann is labeled the “Father of American Public Education.” He espoused universal, free, compulsory education of all children. At a time when a lack of social and economic status barred children from education, Mann led the movement for common schools that would meld all children into a more unified and democratic society as adults. Mann’s schools were taught by professionally trained teachers and used a standardized curriculum focusing on reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and science. He embedded teaching of common morals, civic responsibility, and character development. Schools were funded by local taxes to ensure that all families could afford to enroll their children. Mann created our educational industry.

Regardless of political leanings today, most adults hold to these as the purpose of universal 4K-12 education.

  • Democracy requires educated citizens, and public education equips children with the basic knowledge necessary for informed decision-making, civic engagement, and understanding their communities.
  • Economic self-sufficiency requires foundational skills for personal and professional growth that contribute to the economy and self-support.
  • Public education instills shared values, tolerances, and cooperation necessary for diverse people to live in a stable and unified society.

Mann’s philosophies live in the WI statutory requirements for teacher preparation and subject area curricular requirements. A quick review of any public school’s vision and mission statements and district policies demonstrates Mann’s influence today.  

Why revisit Rousseau?

We have forgotten to balance the fundamental elements of nature and nurture for the best education of children. We are ambushed by these very misleading and disruptive arguments.

  • The education of children is a national priority that ensures the international dominance of the United States on economic, scientific, and political issues.
  • Through public education we shape the ideological thinking of the next generations. They must be taught the right ideology.
  • Because education is funded with public tax dollars, we demand that all children achieve our predetermined outcomes.
  • Public education is the primary daycare provider for children in the United States. The state has a responsibility for the total welfare of children while parents work.

Each of these is balderdash if we believe that the primary and fundamental purpose of education is to cause children to develop into wholesome, inquiring and thinking individuals who are prepared to participate and thrive in a democratic society. To achieve this purpose, we need to provide balance between nature and nurture.

Too much nature creates a Lord of the Flies scenario, and too much nurture creates a totalitarian scenario. As we bent toward too much dictum in the education of children in the last 30 years, we need to take our adult hands off the throttle and allow children opportunities to learn from their innate curiosities and wonderment.

In the argument of nature versus nurture, who speaks for children?

In my late career thinking, I observe that few adults speak for children. We speak from self-evident biases and for our self-serving needs. Almost all, if not all, critical decisions about the education of children are made by the political negotiations of adults. There are no children at the table or in the room.

In our post-pandemic data, it is clear that when children do not see themselves and their needs being met in their public education, they bail out. The major dilemma we face in this decade will not be the loss of academic achievement and the onset of socio-emotional problems in youth. The problem will be that as children matriculate into middle and secondary education, they lose faith in the efficacy of the education adults deliver to them. Our issues today are not lack of achievement but lack of engagement. We need to reassess the overwhelming manner in which we dictate schooling and life for children and reincorporate more of Rousseau. We need to rebalance the virtues of nature and nurture in the educational development of all children. If we do not, we will stand alone in classrooms that children have fled.