We teach North Carolina’s teachers. This state is in crisis.

Robert W. Smith is a faculty member in the Watson College of Education at UNC-Wilmington who prepares high school teachers. Kylee Maarschalk is an English teacher at New Hanover High School in Wilmington.

Teaching is a profession in crisis. With school starting in less than month, districts are reporting significant shortages of teachers and other staff.

My co-author is a longtime N.C. teacher and I’m a university professor who prepares teachers to teach. In my 30-year career of preparing high school teachers in North Carolina, this is the first time in which no students are choosing to become science teachers.

If we want to keep teachers in the classroom — and attract new teachers — we need to urgently change the narrative.

While low salary is a factor in current vacancies, people choose to teach because they believe education is important and that teachers and public schools are valued. But times have changed. State and national policy makers must recognize that the devaluing of the profession is driving good teachers out of the field and deterring people from becoming teachers.

School districts are instead forced to hire unqualified, unlicensed personnel to be in the classroom. The future of our state is at stake.

Schools are critical to North Carolina’s future, in preparing students to be citizens and in creating the workforce needed for a vibrant economy.

There are multiple challenges. Educators are weary from two years of dealing with the pandemic while also trying to protect their own safety. They’re weary from not having enough substitutes to cover teachers out sick and having to cover their colleagues’ classrooms.

At a time when teachers and schools were working overtime to support children’s education and needed the support of parents and politicians, they were chastised for valuing their own safety.

Teachers are also on the front lines of a contentious political and cultural climate which includes parent protests against mask mandates, legislators accusing teachers of indoctrinating children by teaching critical race theory, and states passing laws which ban teachers from teaching about race and racism and from making students feel discomfort or guilt.

For example, in the midst of the pandemic when teachers were overwhelmed with juggling unprecedented tasks, N.C. teachers were required to post their lesson plans online for parents to screen for hints of indoctrination. While there were few examples in any state of teachers engaging in “indoctrination,” a blanket of suspicion was spread over all teachers.

Rather than supporting and praising educators for persevering as trained professionals, these policies directly undermined respect for them and for teaching as a profession.

Over the last decade legislative policies towards public education have continuously chipped away support for traditional public schools by endorsing alternatives in the form of charter schools and vouchers for students to attend private schools. Instead of championing the value and importance of public education and the work of educators, alternatives have been heralded as the way forward.

Teachers are frustrated working under a compliance model of school improvement in which teachers, schools and districts compete, with rewards and punishments for teachers and schools doing what a culture of compliance might define as ‘the right thing.’

This model limits teachers’ professional judgment and discourages creativity, innovation and collaboration. Every business sector recognizes innovation as critical to an organization’s success. It is time that policy makers and education leaders tap into the innovation and creativity of educators to drive school improvement.

While the first two challenges are more recent, the underlying decline in support for teachers and public education is not new. Interest in traditional teacher preparation programs has dropped by 30% in 10 years. To fill teacher shortages, districts are having to hire people who are unlicensed.

With low unemployment, and employers having to compete for workers, graduates and teachers have many other career options. Legislators and education policy makers must champion the importance of public education and value the excellent work of our public school teachers to make teaching an attractive career choice that inspires our strongest students and professionals.

This story was originally published July 31, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "We teach North Carolina’s teachers. This state is in crisis.."