America's schools are facing a shortage of 300,000 teachers and staff nationwide, according to the country's largest teachers union. With schools reopening across dozens of states this month, what will education look like this school year and what solutions are being implemented to alleviate stress on school districts? Dr. David Andrews, Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Global, joined Cheddar News to discuss.  


Opening Bell

U.S. schools in crisis amid massive teacher shortage

Welcome back to Cheddar is opening Bell America's schools are facing a shortage of 300,000 teachers and staff nationwide. This is according to the country's largest teachers union with schools reopening across dozens of states in the month to come. Will the education kind of sector, what will it look like with the school year and what solutions are being implemented to alleviate stress on school districts? Here to discuss is David Andrews, Chancellor of University of massachusetts Global David, just want to get your take and your insight in terms of just how severe this teacher shortages and with some context in terms of how it compares to previous years in the education profession. Well, thank you for having me. And that's, that's a great question. You know, we know that there's going to be a crisis, but we've got a crisis for quite some time now, especially in certain areas, You know, certainly in math and science and special education, we've not been able to fill classrooms in previous years. We know it's going to be exacerbated by the pandemic, but we're not sure exactly how severe that's going to be. We know that 40 plus states are experiencing significant shortages are going to have to make some significant adjustments and how they serve the students because the students are going to show up on the first day of school and we need to make sure that we have highly qualified teachers in each classroom and we do know a lot of these districts and states across the country are trying to figure the problem out implementing their own solutions. One example of that is just was in the headlines last week florida Governor Ron de Santis saying that he wants to expand access to temporary teaching certificates to military vets, law enforcement op This is another kind of first responders to fill in vacant kind of teaching positions. I'm curious what's your take on something like that and then more broadly what is your take on on school districts and states, just trying to figure out a way to to fill these positions with people potentially from other professions? Well, it's a great, great question. The, you know, the challenges once we start filling these classrooms with less than fully qualified teachers, how do we reverse that when we're able to get more qualified teachers into the classroom? We obviously have to have people uh supervising Children and working with Children when they show up in school, but we need to make sure that we're not falling back on that as as even a permanent solution or even a short term solution for very long. We have to get more highly qualified teachers into the classroom. But I also hope that we we move towards better utilization of technology and other approaches online tutoring that we can use actually in the classroom or in schools in order to um in order to provide some relief in the short term, while we continue to look for better and highly highly qualified teachers that are produced from well educated institutions. That was actually gonna be my next question. I'm hoping you can elaborate more in terms of, you know, how technology is playing a factor in how these schools are filling in the gaps and what's the longer term benefits of that? Well, you know, in every crisis there's an opportunity and I think this is an opportunity to rethink how we're supervising and supporting students in the classroom, as well as giving them access to the most highly qualified uh instruction that's possible. You know, while we see a downturn in the teacher availability, we're actually seeing an uptick in tutors available online tutors. So how do we create a redefinition of the role of teachers in the classroom in order to take advantage of some of the expertise that's already out there, working with with students in an online tutoring, technology enabled tutoring and make sure that they have access to that same type of of opportunity in the classroom. You know, some believe that teachers aren't really running away from education, They're running away from a traditional classroom where they're required to be with a fixed number of students for a fixed period of time. You know, we're in a period of remote work now where many opportunities exist for these teachers to do other things, including staying in education without being in the classroom motive, interesting. I never thought about like that, but I do understand where that philosophy could be coming from. Um Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on sunday that schools and states and school districts should use federal covid 19 relief funds to address the teacher shortage. I wonder do you think this is an effective policy and they're actually doing that. You know, part of the shortage is we had an increase in funding for teachers that went across district. So they're trying to fill positions. Some of these are new positions that they haven't had in the past. So I do think it's a good opportunity to get a more talented and a broader set of individuals into the classroom. I think we have to be careful not to depend on that as the overall headcount is going to be available in the future because those funds will run out and then we'll find ourselves scrambling to try to keep those teachers employed that. And I was gonna ask if you thought, you know, then there's this effectively deal with the factors contributing to the teacher shortages. But it seems like you're saying it isn't a long term solution here. So what is longer term solutions? I think the longer term solution is providing more support for teachers in the training process in a mass global. We train as many teachers as anyone in the state of California, but when they go into the classroom and brand new teachers, the induction process to keep them and retain them in the, in the, in the classroom needs to be part of that solution. You know, one of the reasons that we have a shortage is that we have a very difficult time retaining our teachers across specific settings, especially settings where we're dealing with undisturbed learners and people of color. So we have to be really careful in how we retain students and support them in their jobs in order to be able to reduce the demand for new teachers coming into the, into the process. I mean to that point, 74% of respondents in the American Federation of Teachers June survey said that they were disappointed with the job. That's up 41% from 2020 and 40% said they'd probably leave the profession in the next two years with that in context. I wonder what's your outlook on the state of education here in the us more broadly. But then also as we're about to head into another school year, I think we have to be very careful that we watch this very closely um and make sure that we make the right types of adjustments and it's not just in the teacher supply pipeline. We really need to rethink how we're delivering education in the schools, better use of technology, better use of bringing in on demand availability for support, better support for students when they leave the classroom. Uh they're adaptive books that can help, there's online tutoring that can help. I think we can take this as an opportunity to really rethink what has become a pretty what a state, a pretty traditional profession when others have used technology and advances in data systems and artificial intelligence to be able to give just the right information at just the right time to students in order to help them. And I think this is an opportunity for us to rethink that traditional model. Hopefully, hopefully it's an opportunity that that is taken. Um, and a problem that is that is addressed as long as I've been a journalist for over a decade now, I've been talking about the teacher shortage in this country and it continues to seem like gets exacerbated every year. David appreciate your time and your insight. David Andrews. Chancellor of University of massachusetts Global.