Prognostication - Extreme belt tightening ahead

State and local budgets are going to get very tight for at least the next two years. You can already see it happening in Michigan, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and many others. From NCES data for 2005, $214 billion came from local and $228 billion came from state coffers for education with only $45 billion from the Feds. The problem is that with severe real estate issues in our nation, the tax base is going to stay flat or go down, putting even more pressure on state and local budgets. But education costs are certainly not going to go down. Transportation costs, costs for supplies, staff benefits and wages are all going to continue to increase.

Bad news for teacher recruiters.

Recruiters are already faced with steadily dwindling enrollments in ed schools (see here) and increased retirements. Now faced with budget shortfalls in their education departments, they are going to see a greater increase in retirements and others leaving the profession as salaries stagnate and schools tighten their belts. At a time when they will need more to recruit teachers and get help, they will have less money available.

There are some who say that there is no teacher shortage. But I can tell you that with the perfect storm of budget shortfalls, decreasing education graduates and increased retirements facing recruiters in the next two years, those states and districts living in denial will have a lot of empty classrooms.