Who Will Teach NJ's Kids After Mass Exodus From Education?

NEW JERSEY — The end of the school year may well mark the end of their careers for hundreds of New Jersey teachers and support staff in a mass exodus the leader of the National Education Association says has reached crisis-level proportions.

As many as 55 percent of educators said in a National Education Association survey in February they were thinking about leaving education, up from 37 percent in August. The NEA is the nation’s largest teacher labor union.

Teachers of all ages and at different stages of their careers are leaving the profession, education groups say.

NEA President Becky Pringle said in a news release that educator shortages “a five-alarm crisis” that is denying the nation’s K-12 public school children “the one-on-one attention they need.”

The nationwide shortage has significantly impacted schools in the Garden State and has been festering for some time, according to think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective. The 2018-19 school year was the first time in two decades when the state's number of new teacher candidates fell below 3,000. There were nearly 10,000 new candidates in 2007-08, according to U.S. Department of Education data cited in the left-of-center think tank's report.

Around the U.S., teachers quit in droves at midyear, leaving schools in a lurch, according to Education Week, an independent news organization that has covered K-12 education since 1981. The COVID-19 pandemic burnout may be the driving force behind the teacher exodus, but other factors come into play, too.

Lack Of NJ Teachers A Longtime Issue

On top of the lack of candidates, New Jersey's colleges and universities — the providers of teacher training — produce far fewer teachers per 1,000 students than the rest of the nation, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective. (The think tank has received donations in the past from the New Jersey Education Association, the state's largest teacher's union, according to Influence Watch.)

In 2008-09, New Jersey higher education produced five students per 1,000 who completed teacher prep. That figure has since declined to two per 1,000 as of 2020, but the state has fallen short of the rest of the nation in that regard during that entire span, despite national figures falling from nearly 14 students per 1,000 in 2007-08 to about nine per 1,000 in 2020 who completed teacher prep.

The data suggests New Jersey overly relies on out-of-state teaching programs to fill its classrooms, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective. The report suggests that remedying the teacher shortage will require significant changes, including increasing pay to attract the best candidates, stopping the erosion of teacher health care benefits and for state leaders to commit to "improving the state’s level of appreciation and regard for its educators."

"Teachers have been caught in the middle of culture war battles over masking, critical race theory, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other issues," the report says. "New Jersey, unlike other states, has wisely avoided introducing controversial laws that would surveil and punish teachers (and students) for simply doing their jobs. Policymakers must continue, through their words and actions, to send a clear message to prospective teachers that New Jersey values its educators, sees them as professionals, and supports their work."

How Is NJ Combatting The Shortage?

The New Jersey Board of Education unanimously passed policies June 1 designed to broaden the pool of prospective teachers. The policies will let teachers enter the profession through the state's alternate-route program, even if they fall slightly short of the required grade point averages or standardized-test scores.

The candidates would still need to receive mentoring and take courses in teaching to earn standard certifications. The state approved 118 districts for the five-year pilot program as of June 1.

Board Vice President Andrew J. Mulvihill questioned department officials about the consequences of lowering standards for teachers. But Julie Bent, the New Jersey Department of Education's active chief of staff, tried to alleviate his concerns.

"We have seen longstanding barriers to well-qualified candidates, and this pilot looks to rectify them," Bunt said.

Additionally, the Newark Public School District will raise the starting salary for teachers from $55,000 to $62,000. Newark educators and school officials hope the pay raise will attract more teachers to New Jersey's largest school district.

"While teacher shortages across the nation have been exacerbated by the global pandemic, we in Newark are leveraging multiple strategies to attract and retain great teachers," Superintendent Roger León said June 9. "These new salaries will attract fresh talent and at the same time foster retention by increasing the salaries of experienced teachers."

The Fix: Pay And Support

Ultimately, there's a theme in suggested solutions across the nation: improving the job. Teacher pay is a big reason high school graduates are looking at other professions. A recent analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that on average, teachers earn 19.2 percent less than workers with similar education.

Schools increasingly have to compete with private sector companies recruiting teachers, according to the Society for Human Resources Management, or SHRM.

Cliff Carlson Sr., a recruiter for CompanyCam in Lincoln, Nebraska, told SHRM that teachers are ideal candidates for marketing, inside sales, business development and customer success positions because they typically have above-average verbal communication and presentation skills.

Also, teachers are used to working with limited resources, “so they are very good at working with what they have,” added Alexis Monson, co-founder of the San Francisco-based greeting card company Punkpost. “The teachers we work with are incredible, and I am always blown away by their kind and gentle yet get-it-done attitude.”

But besides greater pay, teachers also want supportive working conditions.

"Teachers have never minded doing a hard job; but now that we are fighting a losing battle against those who actively seek to destroy the work we care so passionately about, the rewards of teaching are far less discernible," Plotinsky said in her essay for The Hechinger Report. "Educators are tired of seeing our efforts erased like a blackboard.

"Unless lawmakers and politicians stop attacking the very people who so staunchly advocate for children, the consequences are foreseeable: The end of educators."