Belaboring the numbers

Point #1: the chart shows that over the next 10 years we need 413,000 more teachers to accommodate the growth in population and schools. That means 41,300 per year MORE - not even counting those that leave the profession due to retirement etc. Our Ed Schools confer education degrees on 105,000 annually. That leaves only 64,000 to cover retirements. But 8% of the 3.2M teachers leave the profession each year - that's 264,000 per year leaving PLUS 41,300 to cover growth or 305,000 each year.

Point #2: general and operations managers have the second highest job growth with an average pay of $99,000 vs $49,000 for teachers. Looking at the growth or decline in number of degrees conferred over the last 7 years, business degrees are up 25% while education degrees are down 5%.

Point #3: if you were to take point #2 and say we need to pay as much, we would have to raise teacher pay an average of $50,000. Multiply that by the 3.2M teachers and you just need to find $160 billion per year.

Point #4: the largest job growth is in postsecondary teachers with higher pay. Some of that expansion is in the for profit postsecondary schools and with that kind of growth - pay will grow as well. How long before these for profit schools start pulling secondary teachers from the public schools?

So we can wait for our fearless leaders to find $160 billion and throw a whole generation of kids under the bus who have to learn from long term subs, or we can find ways to get more teachers now.