The Problem: A Severe Teacher Shortage

The past 20 years have been a rough time for the teacher workforce in Illinois. During these years the size of the educator workforce has not met the demand of public school districts. Projections are that it will continue to be a problem and may get worse going into the future. The reasons why include burnout, lack of pay, and lack of essential support staff. CNBC ran a study ending in late 2022 that revealed that 61% of students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education regretted their choice, ranking it fifth most-regretted college major.

A study was performed by Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative in 2021. Their first findings were released in February 2022. It concluded that multiple sources point to the same conclusion with 88% of superintendents reporting a teacher shortage problem. 77% of those superintendents believe that the issues will get worse, with the rural schools getting hit the hardest with 68% of superintendents rating the shortage as a major to a serious problem. The recent IWERC study released in September provides a lot of information on why teacher leave.

The fundamental truth is that the shortage is not just an issue of small pools of candidates for teaching jobs. We have problems interesting kids to be teachers, supporting them through the pipeline, and keeping them in the profession. We must address all aspects of recruitment and retention across our region

The Solution: EIU Collaborative to Improve Recruitment and Retention

The College of Education has been awarded federal funding to support a new initiative to address the teacher shortage in southeast Illinois.  The new grant has three major goals:
1.    develop stronger P-16 partnerships to plan for the recruitment and retention of teachers
2.    develop some new Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and/or residency programs that will be delivered in a more flexible format backed up by a new faculty support program for online teaching
3.    provide more supports for candidates in the entire Grow Your Own pipeline; on and off campus.

This is not about short-term special programs to license people for classrooms. We already have a lot for these kinds of programs (including our own GYO and MAT programs). This is an effort to create a long-term pipeline for schools in our area. 

We invite schools, community colleges, ROEs, and other stakeholders to work with us to develop a collaborative plan of action… and really get it done. 

If you are interested in participating in this group – please complete this Recruitment and Retention Partnership Planning Group Form below. You can use that link to provide input on meeting dates. I will send a Doodle Poll out to participants next week to plan the date of the first meeting. We will send the date and location by the end of December. 

The planning group will start in January with a kickoff overview convening. We are also looking at two initial events that would include:
•    an April campus event for your students interested in being teachers. Along with that, we would like to provide a parallel track that provides an opportunity for schools to share with each other how they are recruiting from their own communities. 
•    a re-start of the June school forum we did for several years. This year we think the primary topics should be transitioned to teaching and retention of teachers.  

We are inviting schools, community colleges, ROEs, and other stakeholders to work with us to develop a collaborative plan of action on the first goal. We are looking for partners who believe the shortage is an existential threat to schools and want to develop long-term, local solutions.  

We will take the recommendations and implement starting in the summer of 2023.  If you are interested in participating in this group – please complete the form below. I will send a Doodle Poll out to participants next week to plan the date of the first meeting. We will send the date and location by the end of December. 

Thanks for continuing to work with us.