Let's get the word out: Teaching is a noble profession

Education, said child advocate Marian Wright Edelman, is about improving the lives of others and leaving your community and world better than you found it.

As a sixth-grade teacher for more than 20 years, there’s nothing more humbling than to think that I had a role in improving the lives of young people.  I am proud that, along with my dedicated colleagues, we worked together to make our suburban Rochester community a better place.  Maybe someday one of our former students will cure cancer or lead a technological advance that today we cannot even imagine.  

Too many young people, unfortunately, don’t see teaching as an attractive career option.  It’s one reason that New York faces a looming teacher shortage — and why lawmakers and policymakers must act quickly to help avert a crisis.

About one-third of the state’s 210,000 classroom teachers are at — or approaching — retirement age.  The SUNY chancellor predicted in 2017 our state would need 180,000 new teachers in the next decade just to make up for retirements and resignations.  Yet, despite this growing demand for educators, enrollment in state college and university teacher preparation programs has fallen by nearly 50 percent since 2009.   Teacher attrition — trained educators leaving the profession — remains a vexing problem across the state, especially in large urban districts.

While New York is not yet in full-blown crisis mode, many districts are already experiencing shortages, especially in bilingual education; special education; math and science; and career and technical education.  For now, the shortage seems to be hitting rural districts most acutely, with some beginning this school year with critical teaching positions unfilled.

New York State United Teachers is committed to advancing solutions.  We recently launched a new initiative — “Take a Look at Teaching” — to attract more talented and dedicated young people and even adults into the profession.  Part of the challenge, too, is building a more diverse teaching force.  All students benefit when their teachers look more like the world around them.

At NYSUT, we are hard at work trying to convince policymakers to remove roadblocks and enact policy changes that will support a more vibrant, attractive — and diverse — profession.

How can New York restore luster to the teaching profession?

First, teachers want more respect and autonomy.

While the angry rhetoric about teachers has largely subsided, many students — and their parents — remember when teachers were treated like public enemy No. 1.  New York won’t succeed in inspiring more young people to choose teaching as a personally rewarding career until all our elected leaders show the profession the respect it deserves.

It’s more than lip service that teachers want. Teachers also want the autonomy and independence granted to other professionals.  Teachers know what works and, perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t work in the classroom.  If New York is to make teaching a more attractive career choice, it has to end the tyranny of standardized testing, fix its disastrous evaluation system and — to put it bluntly — stay out of our way and let us teach.

New York State must also do more to keep the great teachers it already has.  Quality mentoring programs and professional learning are proven ways of supporting new teachers.  A greater investment in these programs would help stem the exodus of highly qualified young people, who grow frustrated with a lack of support and leave.  New York can also remove unnecessarily burdensome hurdles to achieving certification — while maintaining high standards — and, at the same time, recognize the heavy student debt burden faced by young people.  Loan forgiveness for those who begin teaching in hard-to-staff areas is an idea worthy of serious discussion.

Through these and other steps, New York’s leaders can help avert this looming crisis and join our statewide union in delivering a very important message:  Teaching is a noble profession.  Come and join us.   

Jolene DiBrango, a former middle school teacher in Pittsford, is executive vice president of New York State United Teachers.