Let's Make Teaching a Job People Want to Do

in hiring and retaining staff schools need to compete on working conditions not by trying to like hold people's contract or go after people's certificate if they take another job at the last minute i did a video about this yesterday and one thing i didn't mention is that when people are leaving the profession like if their option is a job outside of the education profession they do not care if you go after their certificate they don't care If you hold them like other industries don't care what school districts do.

Like if, if somebody wants to go become a realtor, they can do that anytime they want.

And I think if we want to hold on to people, if we want to make this a career that people stick with, we have to compete on working conditions in education.

And for too long, we've seen teachers as a bottomless resource, right?

Like if we need work to be done, we'll ask teachers to stay late and do it.

If we need money to be raised, we'll ask teachers to pay it.

We'll ask teachers to chip in.

And this idea that teachers are just kind of an infinite well of goodwill and time and money and personal sacrifice, I think just does not hold up anymore.

We have to treat people as professionals who have a choice of where to work, because honestly, they do.

That is the reality.

Teachers have a choice of whether to stay in education or go do something else that is probably easier, that probably pays better, and that they are probably amply qualified for.

One of the things we...

have relied on for a long time is the fact that it's hard to become a teacher.

It's hard to get your teacher certification.

So there's a sunk cost fallacy.

Like if you have a master's degree in a field, you're probably going to stay in that field unless there's a very good reason not to.

And now we're at the point where sadly there's a reason not to like people with master's degrees are walking away from this profession because it's so hard to work.

in the education profession.

So I think the obvious thing that we have to do if we want to keep people, if we want to compete with the private sector for talent is we have to make this an easier job.

We have to make working conditions better and easier and not just take people for granted.

And one of the things that I said last school year that resonated with a lot of people was this idea that teachers are usually the cheapest people to inconvenience, right?

Like making the teacher pay the price is usually the easiest option for the school district.

So again, if we need work to be done, it's easiest and cheapest to ask teachers to do it.

Or if we have a problem, like maybe we have a student who is not being safe, we just have some violence in the classroom and a student whose parents maybe are threatening to sue us, it's easier to put the teacher out and to inconvenience the teacher and to put the teacher in harm's way than it is to deal with the threat of a lawsuit from a parent.

And I think as leaders, we'd have to stand up and say, you know what?

We're not going to just let teachers be the punching bags.

We're not going to let teachers be the easiest and cheapest option for us.

We're going to recognize that teacher talent does not come cheap.

easy, that their skills are hard won and a lot of work was put into developing those skills and people will still, despite that sunk cost, walk away if we don't treat them well.

So I think we've got to make our competition for talent centered on working conditions and making this a job that people want to stay in.

Let me know what you think.