(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

For a number of years, schools across the country have struggled with a teacher shortage.

How do we address the issue?

Well, joining us today are Dean Dawn Shinew from the College of Education and Human Development at Bowling Green State University.

And Dean Julie McIntosh from the University of Findlay's College of Education.

Welcome both of you to Journal.

Obviously, we can talk.

We'll talk about the teacher shortage.

But first of all, for those who may not know, how do you become a teacher in the State of Ohio?

What's the process?

Because I think people figure, you go to school for four years and we now bestow upon you, you're now a teacher.

But talk a little about that process.

It's a little more complex than that.

And the education side of it is a lot more complex than you simply attend some classes and we bestow a teaching degree on you.

So talk a little about how that process works.

- So actually, if you wanna talk first about the four year degree, I'll talk about the alternative route.

- Okay, sure.

So in the State of Ohio, we obviously require students to go through a four-year program.

They get a bachelor's degree in the area that they want to be licensed in.

There are some state requirements such as if you're early childhood, which is now primary, middle childhood, or intervention specialist, you have to have 12 hours of reading.

So there's a 12 hour reading core.

And then there's field experiences.

So at the university and other universities across the State of Ohio, we'll have a field experience each year.

So we have a field experience the freshman year.

We build upon that sophomore or junior, and then all the way to student teaching.

So along the way, it depends on the licensure area that students are looking at.

They're either taking education courses all four years, along with some general education requirements that the university were to require.

But if they're going to do middle childhood or adolescent young adult, which is grade seven through 12, they're also taking content courses.

So at the end of this, they can pass the Ohio Assessment for Educators, which are the tests that they have to pass, and that there's a variety of tests based on what licensure area.

So some students just have to take a pedagogy test, which is an assessment of professional knowledge test and a content test.

But the broader the licensure area, the more tests they have to take.

- When you talk about content, so if I'm gonna be a math teacher, obviously, I go through the education courses, do I specifically then take a lot of courses in the Department of Mathematics, Department of English if I'm gonna be an English teacher?

So that all fits together as a program like that.

As you said, a very designed pattern for content specific to what you believe you're going to teach.

- [Julie] Yes.

- Okay.

- And every program in Ohio that offers a program has to have that program approved by the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

So we might vary slightly in the courses that we offer, but they can get a major in mathematics and adolescent young adult.

They can get that license.

But some areas like science, because they're taking courses in biology, chemistry, and physics, they can't double major, but they're taking quite a few content courses in those areas.

- Okay.

And when you look at that, you talked about the different age breakouts.

Is there one area more than another that needs more teachers?

- [Julie] Yes.

- Which one would it be?

- Historically, it's been science, mathematics, foreign language, and intervention specialist.

I know we're gonna talk more about the shortage, but those have historically been high need areas, yes.

- And now, that's the way we've typically have viewed how people become teachers in Ohio.

What are some of the alternative?

And some of these came up for a variety of reasons.

So talk about why we have alternative paths a little bit too.

- So particularly in those high need licensure areas, so Dean McIntosh mentioned the intervention services, the mathematics and science.

We in Ohio and like many states have an alternative path.

It requires that students come into the program having completed an undergraduate degree already.

So they have a baccalaureate degree.

This is an ideal thing for people who might have gone into a field, done something else for a little while, and then decided they would like to teach.

So they come back, they first get hired by a district, they complete a 12-credit series of modules with the state, and then they also have to pass the Ohio Assessment for Educators.

So that's where they demonstrate their content knowledge.

And then while they are teaching and earning a teacher's license, they're able to complete the licensure requirements through an alternative pathway.

- Ah, yeah.

And so that's open to anyone basically who has a four-year degree already.

They can come back and choose that path.

Are there other alternative paths as well now?

- Not in Ohio right now.

- [Steve] Not Ohio, okay.

- And one of the things that we've been looking at in response to the shortage is ways that we might be able to streamline even this process that we have.

This one depends on people already getting a job with the district.

And if they're not able to make those connections with the district, sometimes, it's a little challenging to get those folks in classrooms.

- And switching gears a little, what about substitute teachers?

Because we hear they're, it's almost, that seems to be a more critical, if there's such a thing as a more critical need in this field.

But that is difficult now to find substitute teachers as well, which you obviously need if you're running a school district.

What are the paths for that and what are the ways to fill that need?

- Well, the need was so great coming out of the pandemic that the Ohio legislature took what is now a temporary measure to allow people with only a high school diploma to become substitutes.

And that's left to the district.

So some districts are in more dire need of substitutes than others.

We tend to see it in large urban areas or small rural districts.

Some of our suburbans, smaller town don't have quite the same need.

But there are districts in our area who are using people who only have a high school diploma.

And so the need is pretty great.

But typically, it has been at least a four year degree.

And then you register with a provider.

Most people use larger providers and go through that as a mechanism to fill those positions.

- Is there any concern, not to get into the weeds too much, but is there any concern that maybe someone who doesn't have all of that education background suddenly is in a classroom as a substitute teacher?

That probably is a little bit of a challenge, because let's face it, not everyone, even who has gone through all of the programs turns out to be comfortable teaching.

So to just put, I won't say, average people there, but people who had not ever thought of that as a career suddenly are in a classroom, that's gotta be a challenge in a lot of ways for people.

- Yeah, and I think that since it's opened up to have people able to sub with a high school diploma, school districts in our area really want to hire our students.

And we do not have an alternative pathway.

We have helped people who've been hired by districts to take the courses that they need to, but we do offer a post baccalaureate licensure.

So someone who has a bachelor's degree maybe in science or math can come back and in a year, take all the education courses they would need to get their license.

A lot of research, there's things that have come out of the Learning Policy Institute that 25 alternative licensed candidates are 25% less likely to retain in the profession.

So that's another issue that we're really looking at is not only are we filling the pipeline, but we have a retention issue of teachers in the field.

And we can talk more about that.

- Yeah, because you don't wanna go through all of that process of training and education, then only yield a few people out of, yeah.

A smaller percentage than you would under a normal set of circumstances.

When we come back, let's talk about that.

And obviously, you had a large seminar event earlier in November to talk about this very issue.

So back in just a moment with Dean Dawn Shinew from the College of Education and Human Development at Bowling Green State University.

And Dean Julie McIntosh from the College of Education at the University of Findlay.

Back in just a moment.

Thanks for staying with us on The Journal.

We're talking about the teacher shortage, and we have the deans of two of the universities here in Northwest Ohio.

Dean Dawn Shinew from Bowling Green State University, and Dean Julie McIntosh from the University of Findlay.

When we left the last segment, we were talking about the fact that retention is a problem, even in the training programs in the educational paths you currently have.

That's been a problem, to some degree, teachers leaving the field who have been in it for a long time.

But talk about, as you said, that the retention issue now, recruiting people to become teachers and then keeping them in for the typical amount of time we've been used to.

So what do you do now with retention?

How do you deal with that challenge?

- It's a huge challenge.

I just saw a statistic that between 2019 and 2021, the United States has 578,000 fewer teachers.

- [Steve] Wow.

- Than we did going into the pandemic.

And we had a survey that was done annually by the National Education Association that says more than 55% of teachers are considering leaving the profession.

So you're right that this has been kind of a chronic problem, but I think coming out of the pandemic, we're seeing new challenges.

When I think about what we asked teachers to do, it was incredible.

And coming out of the pandemic, we all feel a little more stressed and a little anxious about the world and teachers carry their own.

And if you're an elementary teacher, maybe that of 25, 30 students in your class or if you're at the high school, 150.

And so I think we're starting to see that teachers are saying, "I'm just tired.

I'm not sure I can keep doing this."

And so retention I think is critical to this.

Well, while Julie and I are often focused on preparing new teachers, it would be a missed opportunity not also to be talking about how we can keep teachers in classrooms, because that experience really counts for a lot.

- Sure, and as we were talking about earlier, the fact that you have people go through all of these programs and then to only yield a certain percentage of them, and it's true in a lot of fields right now, but especially with teaching.

And just the demographics of the teachers that have been in the pipeline, there is a large turnover there simply because of the age of teachers.

There's a lot of people who began teaching in the '70s, '80s, whatever.

Well, even someone who began teaching in the '90s, they're in their 20 plus year now, which usually is you start to get 25, 30, that's when people start to think about retiring.

So you've got that challenge just demographics working that way as well.

The challenge of recruiting people into the field, what are some of the things you guys look at now?

Because obviously, as you said, Dean Shinew, there are a lot of challenges that teachers didn't face years ago that they now face.

When you're talking to people who are potentially students in either of your schools, how do you convince them to say, "Oh, this is a good profession.

This is a positive profession.

Here's the values."

I mean, because they're looking at, all they hear is, well, you have this difficulty.

There's issues, you have to take care of that.

All the things you mentioned.

How do you go about encouraging people to get into this field?

- I think it is about messaging.

And I think that we really try to, and I know that Dawn does this as well, we want great educators because every student deserves a high quality educator in the classroom.

And I think honestly, teaching is a calling.

And I think that students sometimes hear, "Oh, it's low pay, it's low pay."

Well, when you compare it to other professions, it's in line in some ways.

I mean, obviously, everybody always wants to make more money.

I think that we have to look at also, if we're going to look at this retention issue and recruitment issue, maybe there's some loan forgiveness or things like that that we can do.

So we've applied for, to address the science and math shortage, we've applied for grants through the National Science Foundation to fully pay for a license for post baccalaureate candidates.

We did the addressing educator shortage grant that the state made available, so that is also providing license at a discounted rate and giving scholarships.

So there's ways that we're trying to help as much as we can.

I think there's more we can do to reduce that debt that students have when they leave that four year degree.

But in a recruitment standpoint, I think we really want to focus on the positive, because teaching is still a rewarding profession.

And if you have that calling and you wanna make a difference in the life of a child or 150 students, if you're a high school, I was a former high school science teacher, you can do that.

And it's a rewarding career.

You feel that you've been successful at the end of the day, at the end of the week.

If you're goal-oriented and outcome-oriented, this is a fabulous profession.

It's something I encourage my own daughter to do, and she's a teacher.

So I think that we just need to change the messaging around education.

- And I think the one thing you always hear too is that former students will say, "Wow, you made a difference in what you did."

So when you talk about that, when you're making that messaging and that pitch to people, do you deal with the parents who might say, "Well, really, I don't want my son or daughter."

Because they hear a lot of negatives.

And as we know, negatives sell on television there.

They're great news stories, all of that.

But the reality is there's so much good that comes from being in this profession.

And as you said, that's what you're trying to emphasize when you talk to potential students here.

- And it always makes me a little sad.

Sometimes we will hear from other teachers who will say, "Yeah, I'm not sure I want my son or daughter to become a teacher."

I'm a third generation educator.

So that really, and to Julie's point, it has been kind of a family calling.

I mean, we get generations of educators.

And so I think the idea about messaging is important.

When people talk to me about education and what they can be doing, I always start with, just show some appreciation to the educators in your lives.

I've started asking them to stand and be recognized.

We do that with military personnel.

But I think teachers are giving a lot.

They do make a difference.

I have heard from students who were in my class 30 years ago, and they find me on Facebook to say, "You made a difference for me."

I'm not unusual in that.

I think teachers do change the trajectory of children's lives.

And I don't know how you put a price tag on that, but I do think that there are some things, if we can't raise teacher's salaries, I do think there are some things we can be doing to get them on a better foot.

So like a loan forgiveness program.

Julie mentioned that.

They have some fellowship programs.

Some states are doing paid internships for student teaching.

And I think Ohio's legislators are recognizing that if we're going to keep pace, we are going to have to look at ways to support educators in different ways.

- And it's interesting, because one of the things the state talks about is keeping people here in the state after they graduate.

And obviously, there are needs, obviously, for teachers in the State of Ohio.

And so it's another field that if we can retain the people after we've provided, they've earned this education, they've earned this degree to keep all of that brain power here and maximize its use for the state.

When we come back, let's talk about the seminar you had and some of the ideas that came out of that.

Some of the things that people brought, because obviously, that's looking down the road into the future on this.

So back in just a moment, we're talking about the teacher shortage, not only in the State of Ohio, but across the country.

Back in just a moment here on The Journal.

Thanks for staying with us on The Journal.

Our guests are Dean Dawn Shinew from the College of Education and Human Development at Bowling Green State University.

And Dean Julie McIntosh from the University of Findlay's College of Education.

When we left the last segment, we were talking a little about recruiting and making sure that people understand that this is a good profession.

It's a profession that yields all kinds of benefits.

What do you do when someone says, "Well, I really don't want my son or daughter to become a teacher.

I know what I was like as a student.

I wouldn't want..." I mean, that's not...

But how do you deal with that?

Because that's the key question.

People look at their children and go, "We want them to get into something that they're gonna like, that we feel they'll feel comfortable with.

They'll make a lot of money, et cetera, et cetera."

So what are the things you tell a parent who may say, "Oh, gee, my son or daughter, I don't really wanna be a teacher."

What do you say to them when they say that to you?

When they're maybe attending an orientation at your school about that?

- Well, I think the first thing is, if they're attending an orientation is that I wanna ask the student what they wanna do.

[Steve] Okay.

Because it's their passion.

[Steve] Sure.

- I mean, if you're gonna be doing this for an extended period of time, if you're looking at 20 or 30 years or even the next 10 years, is this something you wanna get up every day and do?

And what is your passion?

So I would try to focus on the student and what their passion is because you can go after the money and that's not necessarily where you're gonna be happy or where your passion lies.

- Yeah, and that's a good point because it's one thing if you enjoy what you're doing, everything else falls into place, usually.

If you don't, no matter how much money they pay you, you don't enjoy what you're doing.

And is that similar to what you would say, Dawn?

You too?

[Dawn] Yes.

The other thing that I think is teaching is always changing.

And that's one of the things I enjoyed about it.

So when I talk with prospective students about how much do they like to do different things and like new challenges?

Because every day is a new challenge.

I mean, it's one of the opportunities in teaching.

Even if you're doing the same class multiple times, each time, you can do it a little bit different, and you can find ways to make it better and connect with students in new ways.

So I think that that's one of the most attractive things about teaching that we don't always emphasize.

- Well, that's a good point 'cause every class is different.

Every year is different.

And even from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, because especially, I remember talking to junior high teachers, they would say, it's funny.

They come in as elementary students and they leave as almost like as young adults.

They come in as kids and leave as young adults.

And you see that take place at that level.

And then through the high school years.

Obviously, you guys are on top of this.

You held this event in early November, I believe November 4th, to talk about this very issue.

So what were some of the goals and ideas that you were trying to get out or work on when you got done with that, what were some of the outcomes you hoped to achieve with that?

- So the regional summits, there were five of them across the state.

We did them in each of the Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Central Ohio.

And it was a collaboration across universities, public and private, similar to Julie and I sitting here, as well as with the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio Department of Higher Education.

And really, it was intended across a week.

We did all five summits about a week to just raise awareness of the teacher shortage.

I like to say parents drive up or put their kids on a bus every day and just assume there's gonna be a qualified teacher at the front of the classroom.

And we really are at a place in some districts where that's already not true, and it may be not true in more places soon.

And so I think we needed to raise awareness and to bring different groups of people together to the conversation to talk about what we could be doing differently.

While colleges of education have been focusing on this for a while, I think we need some new perspectives on this.

We need new stakeholders.

We need other people to be paying attention to the issues.

- Now, do you bring people in from the private sector?

I mean, because you hear people say, "Well, I've done, whatever, profession for this long.

You put me in front of a class and I'll be able to teach that to them."

Well, it's not quite that simple.

They may be deep in expertise in what they do, but there is teaching it and being able to relate.

As you said, dealing with the students, being able to interact with them, that's a huge part of this.

The knowledge base, knowing your subject matter is one thing, but the rest of it, being able to interact and then impart that is a whole nother thing.

'Cause I know that people say, "Well, we should just be able to bring people in and make them teachers."

Because they've been an accountant for 30 years, they can teach math.

Well, no, it isn't quite like that.

At least not from my perspective.

- Just like you could be a medical doctor because you've been to the doctor.

- Exactly, yeah, yeah.

- No, there's training that goes along with that.

And I think from this regional meeting, we invited multiple stakeholders.

So we invited legislators, we invited business people, obviously superintendents, teachers, and higher education so that we could start this conversation.

And I think part of it is, we all need to work together on the solution.

Part of it is educator preparation programs.

What can we do to help with this issue?

And numbers are starting to come back up.

We have more students going into education in the last three years than we had.

Our largest was 2010.

It dropped.

It's starting to come back up in Ohio.

And I think that we really need to look at the working conditions because we are, the state provided some data that we shared at the regional conference, but there are many licensed teachers that are not teaching.

So that brings us back to the working conditions.

What's happening in school districts that if they don't have enough teachers, anecdotally, we had phone calls of a math teacher that quit right before school started.

And that is a tough position to fill when you have lots of time and when you have no time- [Steve] The day before classes start.

- Right.

So maybe they drop their upper level math classes, maybe they raise class sizes.

Teachers are having to cover during their prep periods other classes so then they don't have prep time.

So that all builds up, and I think that we need to work with K-12 schools to see how can we help with that and work together to make better working conditions for the teachers.

- Now, and not to divert too much, but you mentioned class size, and that's always been a controversial topic because somebody's like, "Oh, 50 kids, 20 kids doesn't make any difference."

But it does to some degree.

And you're right.

Especially now, if you're doubling up, or suddenly, a teacher doesn't have a prep period between a class because they're filling in for something else, it snowballs through the day and then through the effectiveness of the school system.

What were some of the things that came out of the solutions?

Were there new ideas, new approaches, things like that that, that people say, "Hey, what about this?

Can we try this?

Is this something that would work?"

Were there things like that that came out of the discussions?

- So some of it was looking at who we could bring into the classrooms who we aren't bringing in now.

So there were conversations around paraprofessionals who may have two-year degrees and what could it take to get them into a certification and licensure program and complete a baccalaureate degree.

There were some state grants in several places, including University of Toledo is working on that issue.

And then I think Julie mentioned earlier some loans or forgivable loans.

And many states do a model where you teach.

You get a forgivable loan and you teach in the state.

And for every year you stay, you pay back a little bit less of the loan.

And so there are some ideas like that.

And then when we talked about the quality of life issues for teachers, we did talk about class size.

I think most teachers will say that does make a difference in workload and the relationships that you can build with teachers as well as career pathways and other things that we could do to support teachers for continued professional development and growth.

There's not much time for growth if you're constantly having to fill in.

- [Steve] Yeah, you're putting out fires.

- Exactly.

- Yeah, that's the difficulty you run into is that you can't plan ahead.

You can't look at a bigger picture because you have to deal with what's right in front of you that minute, that day, that class period.

When you talk to teachers, what are some of the things that they say that they would like?

Were there any changes there that say, "Well, if you could do this, this would make my life a lot better and I would be more effective."

Were anything like that that came out of this?

- I think from teachers, I hear the prep period situation.

They need time to plan, they need time to grade, they need time to collaborate with other teachers.

I think as that time is eaten away by, as you mentioned earlier, the mental health issues that our students are dealing with, many times they wanna talk to their teachers.

And they do that out of the goodness of their heart.

They wanna help children, that's why they're in this profession.

But they give up more of their time than they don't have that time to do the other pieces of the job.

So I think protecting that time and even giving them more time to collaborate with others, because as we look at state data, as they look at data that they've developed in their courses, they need time to discuss that with other teachers and collaborate and say, "What's working in your class?

What could I do a little bit differently?"

And I think the more time we can give them, that would be a gift for them and keep those class sizes down.

- And I know that teachers too like to do interdisciplinary.

They like to incorporate.

Like the English teacher might wanna bring in something from biology because there's a story there.

You can blend those together and make it a better learning experience.

Any final thoughts on where we're headed with this?

I mean, it sounds like recruiting has gotten better.

There are more students or more people that wanna get into the field, which is good news, because obviously, there's a big gap to deal with.

But anything, the takeaway that people should have from this?

- I think it's an opportunity for us to think about, coming out of the pandemic, I think it's a mistake to just wanna go back to what we did because we know what we did worked really well for some people and not that great for others, right?

One thing we know is that I think 17% of Ohio's students are black, identify as black.

And that's 4% of the teaching force.

So we had some things that we needed to address before we started the pandemic.

This is an opportunity for us to rethink what's happening in Ohio's classrooms in really innovative ways.

- Okay, great.

- Yes, I also look at it as an opportunity.

An opportunity, again, to change that message and build that positive image around teaching and lift teachers up, because we're constantly compared to other countries.

And in other countries, teaching is a revered profession.

People aspire to be a teacher.

And I think we need to change that message, and this is an opportunity to do that.

- Okay, great.

Well, Dean Julie McIntosh, Dean Dawn Shinew, thank you so much for being here.

You can check us out at wbgu.org, and you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Good night and good luck.

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