Tia Morris is an advocate for equity, dedicating more than 25 years to improving educational opportunities for young people. In 1998, she began her teaching career with the NYCDOE through Teach For America and returned in 2020 as Executive Director. Tia has served as Executive Director for Teach For America New Jersey, a founding member of a school network, and held chief-level central office positions in both the Newark and Camden school systems.
According to a 2022 report by the U.S. Department of Education, 41 states and D.C. are facing teacher shortages in at least one subject area or grade level. We are experiencing a crisis in education around teacher talent, especially in subjects and schools that are typically hard to staff. There are still many barriers that keep talented leaders from entering our classrooms and serving where their skills are needed most. One of the biggest ones? Finances.
World Teachers’ Day is held annually on 5 October to celebrate all teachers around the globe. UNESCO shares, “It is a day to celebrate how teachers are transforming education but also to reflect on the support they need to fully deploy their talent and vocation and to rethink the way ahead for the profession globally.” This year let’s thank our teachers by putting our money where our mouth is. If we want to boost student performance — and combat pandemic-inflicted learning loss — we need to give our teachers more than platitudes. Let’s support new proposals to make teaching a more economically viable profession and show our educators how much we truly value them:
- Pay teachers what they’re worth. We entrust teachers with this country’s greatest gift: our children. Every day, educators are given the opportunity to help our children’s inherent spark turn into a flame. However, this hefty responsibility and opportunity to shape our youngest leaders does not come with a salary to match. Historically low pay, coupled with greater postsecondary student loan debt, has caused many young adults to overlook teaching jobs in search of more lucrative career fields. The Economic Policy Institutes report on teacher wages and compensation through 2022 found that, on average, teachers made 26.4% less than other similarly educated professionals in 2022—the lowest level since 1960. An educator’s financial security and stability is directly connected to their overall job-related stress and potential decision to leave the profession. This is especially important given the average schoolteacher’s pay nationwide has failed to keep up with inflation over the past decade.
- Offer educators student loan forgiveness. Offering student loan forgiveness to teachers—especially those teaching in high-need districts or understaffed schools—is another way to make education a more viable career path. And because student loan debt is held disproportionately by people of color, this will help establish a more diverse teaching workforce, something we know benefits all students and especially students of color. The average student loan debt is $37,000, almost the same as the average starting teacher salary. Many teachers are still repaying their student loans and on average, teachers with a bachelor’s have $20,000 in student loan debt and $50,000 for those with a master’s degree.
- Make robust investments in organizations that support those who serve. For thirty years, AmeriCorps members – including Teach For America (TFA) corps members – have provided critical services to communities in need across the nation. However, this year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that contains drastic cuts to AmeriCorps when demand for its services is needed most. Most notably, these cuts include the elimination of funding for many AmeriCorps grants and the AmeriCorps Education Award. Participation in AmeriCorps, and the educational award benefits that come with it, are a key factor in our members’ decision to join our work. These awards make it possible for recipients to use them to either offset student loan burdens or to further their own education by utilizing them to pay for things such as master’s degrees in education. Cuts to these institutions directly impact the quality and quantity of our nation’s teaching pool.
For 35 years, TFA has been one of the biggest and most diverse teacher talent pipelines in the country and every year we receive thousands of applications to the Teach For America corps. Today, as Executive Director of the organization’s largest region, I had the honor of welcoming more than 400 1st and 2nd-year teachers to New York City classrooms this school year where they will reach more than 23,000 students in low-income communities across the city. As state officials estimate New York will need more than 180,000 new teachers in the next decade, these young people provide hope that there are still many willing to answer the call of service, especially for our students.
Applicants are not only eager to enter the education system but to end the societal injustice of educational inequity that has historically harmed disadvantaged and low-income communities. This is both necessary and heartening when we consider that teacher recruitment issues and severe teacher shortages are experienced the most in rural and urban districts with high child poverty rates and racially diverse students. Sadly, the barriers to both becoming and remaining a teacher, which hinge predominantly around financial health, are so pervasive that I often meet excellent candidates who ultimately determine that they cannot enter or remain in the field after all.
Investing in our teachers is one of the biggest ways we can fight back. If we want to create a strong teacher-talent network benefiting all school communities, we must boost teacher support and pay so that we can help more leaders bring their talents to our classrooms.