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.
