The Clarksville-Montgomery County School System said Monday that it’s on the hunt for new math and English teachers to fulfill open roles at its high schools. The district is offering a $4,000 sign-on bonus to fill the positions.
There are more than a dozen high schools under the CMCSS umbrella. Open positions can be found and applied to at jobs.redroverk12.com/org/CMCSS.
It’s likely no surprise that the state that comes in dead last in the country in school funding is also first in the nation in teacher loss.
WKRN reports on the latest dubious distinction Tennessee has earned thanks to Gov. Bill Lee’s lackluster leadership.
Tennessee classrooms are losing teachers at a higher rate than any other state in the nation, according to a new report from the National Education Association.
The report found Tennessee saw the largest percentage decline in its teacher workforce between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, losing 10.36% of its educators during that period, or more than 7,400 teachers.
Finally, a good idea from Cameron Sexton. Chalkbeat reports the House Speaker is proposing providing stipends to student teachers.
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton wants the state to start paying student teachers for their required internships, a proposal state education advocates say they support amid ongoing concerns about teacher shortages.
Sexton told Chalkbeat Tennessee this week he wants to provide additional state funding to allow local districts to pay teacher trainees directly.
Sexton said the amount could mean a $1,500 or $2,000 monthly stipend, though the proposal appears to be in the early days of development with few concrete details.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton has an innovative solution for solving the state’s teacher shortage: Less pesky education requirements.
When it comes to addressing Tennessee’s teacher shortage, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R-Cookeville) believes it’s time to “think outside of the box,” but his idea to possibly drop the state’s bachelor’s degree requirement for teachers is drawing some criticism.
During Speaker Sexton’s state-of-the-state address last month, he suggested creating a two-year associate degree program for teaching to churn out more educators in Tennessee.
When all else fails, just make it easier to become a teacher and “churn out more educators.”
It apparently hasn’t occurred to Sexton that there is a reason (or several reasons) why people aren’t exactly lining up for teaching jobs.
Perhaps if Sexton floated the idea of improving both pay and classroom resources, more college students would consider K-12 teaching a viable career option.
As it stands, Tennessee teachers are among the lowest-paid in the Southeast and school funding in the state lags behind our regional peers.
Interestingly, there are examples of districts and states where teaching positions are sought after – one big difference in those places is competitive compensation.
Now, though, there’s also an example of what might happen. A school district in Oregon moved starting pay in the district from $38,000 a year to $60,000 a year. In the process, all teachers received at least a 15% raise.
The move was approved by 100% of union members voting.
After announcing the salary schedule change, we had pools of qualified applicants to consider. It was a fun spring. Our administrators were having to have these rich conversations about best fit, really digging into things like, ‘Here’s a full table of highly qualified people; who is going to best fulfill the needs of our school? It’s a conversation that most districts don’t get to have right now.
One Tennessee school district is leaving free money for teacher pay on the table. The Grundy County School Board has decided not to accept the state’s $2000 bonus for teachers that was provided as part of the universal school voucher bill that passed this year.
Chattanooga’s NewsChannel9 has more:
“. . . the Grundy County school board did not approve thousands of dollars from the state for teacher bonuses.
Those $2,000 bonuses were tied to the Education Freedom Act and school vouchers.
After the votes failed last week, one board member said he voted against the bonuses because he believes vouchers are wrong.
But another board member said not accepting that money only hurts the county, no matter what strings may be attached.
The strings included passing a supportive resolution to accept the funds that some perceived as a tacit endorsement of Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher scheme.
Kentucky Faces School Funding Shortfall
How Vouchers Eat State Budgets
Tennessee teachers are some of the lowest-paid in the nation – and among the lowest-paid in the Southeast.
In fact, only 25% of Tennessee teachers earn more than $60,000/year.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact, in Washington State, it’s not.
I took a look at teacher pay in Olympia – starting teachers there can expect to earn $60,000 with a bachelor’s degree. Pay goes up to $120,000 depending on years of experience and education level.
In other words, it doesn’t have to be this way.
As I’ve written before, Tennessee continues to make policy choices indicating that the priorities of Gov. Bill Lee and his legislative allies are NOT investing in public education or public school educators.
The state spent $500 million to help build a new stadium for the Tennessee Titans.
The state in this past legislative session passed a $1.6 billion corporate tax break.
Past legislators have eliminated the Inheritance Tax and the Hall Tax on investment income.
For just a little more of what state taxpayers (at the behest of Lee and lawmakers) gifted the Titans, we could give all teachers a 20% raise.
Making that an ongoing commitment would be simple: Just repeal the ridiculous corporate tax giveaway the legislature just passed.
Tennessee policymakers could make investing in schools a priority – but they persist in choosing not to.
On the Ridiculous Idea of Rejecting Federal Education Funding
School Lunch Should be Free for Every Kid, Every Day
Teacher pay and support are not keeping up with the demands of the job, according to a recent report.
But also, challenges addressing student mental health. Challenges addressing cell phone use. Challenges addressing the behavioral and mental health challenges created by cell phone use.
The share of teachers who say the stress and disappointment of the job are “worth it” has fallen to 42%, which is 21 points lower than other college-educated workers, according to a poll by Rand, a nonprofit think tank. As recently as 2018, over 70% of teachers said the stress was worth it.
That’s a pretty rapid decline – and one that has accelerated post-COVID.
Policymakers aren’t exactly rushing in with solutions, either.
A Voucher Mess in the Hoosier State
Capitalism, Christian Nationalism, and the Takeover of Public Education
A recent story indicates that the long-running and persistent teacher shortage is not improving.
In fact, one recent survey of teachers found this disturbing stat:
Today, only 16% of teachers said they’d recommend the profession to others
This comes just two years after a survey of teachers that indicated most don’t want their own children to enter the teaching profession:
Just 37% of respondents in the national, random-sample survey would want a child of theirs to become a public school teacher in their community.
This pair of data points paints a disturbing story: Teachers are overwhelmed and no longer see the job as one they’d wish on someone else.
In fact, not only are teachers actively leaving the profession, but school systems are also seeing a shortage of qualified applicants to replace them.
Teachers cite two primary reasons for the crisis: lack of support and low pay.
Policymakers in Tennessee and across the nation have been warned about this problem for years. And have done and continue to do little to address it.
It’s a policy choice. And it says making investments in public schools – and by extension, the kids who attend them – is not worth it.
Free Lunch and The Race for The White House
Tennessee’s Teacher Pay Failure
In a state like Tennessee, where policymakers continue stagnant investment in teacher compensation, the question arises: How can educators achieve improved pay?
The answer: Strikes!
Yes, state law forbids teacher strikes, but there are ways around such a prohibition (as striking teachers demonstrated in states like West Virginia and Oklahoma).
Peter Greene takes a look at research on the impact of teacher strikes:
In “The Causes and Consequences of U.S. Teacher Strikes” from the National Bureau of Economic Research, authors Melissa Arnold Lyon (SUNY Albany), Matthew A. Kraft (Brown University), and Matthew P. Steinberg (Accelerate) “revisit the question of how strikes affect wages, working conditions, and productivity in the context of the U.S. K-12 public education sector.”
The findings:
Strikes were most often about compensation, and the researchers find that the strikes did produce positive effects, with pay increases following in the post-strike years, regardless of the length of the contract agreement.
Kentucky Voters to Weigh-in on School Vouchers
While current reports suggest that the shortage of teachers in Tennessee is improving a bit, the reality is a significant number of classrooms will start the year without a full-time, permanent teacher.
Again.
NewsChannel5 reports on this year’s situation:
Tennessee is still facing a teacher shortage.
That means some classrooms may not have a teacher to start the school year. As of the middle of July, 875 positions still haven’t been filled.
In 2022, I tracked 1,000 teacher jobs still open. That number has decreased this year.
Pay increases seem to be helping. However, it should be noted the state can and should do more.
It’d be interesting to see what would happen if Tennessee moved starting teacher pay to $60,000 – a number we could afford and which would put the state at among the highest in teacher pay in the Southeast.
Tennessee policymakers have chosen instead to invest $500 million in a new Tennessee Titans stadium and to give out billions in corporate tax breaks.
In fact, before Bill Lee leaves office, his spending priorities could very well create a budget deficit.