Patrick Kelly, director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, warned in an opinion piece in the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier about the state’s teacher shortage. Teacher salaries are low, and legislators are obsessed with the idea of telling teachers what they may and may not teach. Meanwhile the state has a budget surplus, and Governor Henry McMaster will use it to lower taxes, not to raise abominably low teacher salaries or to feed the children in South Carolina who go hungry every day (about 15% of the children in the coastal counties of the state). Of course, I take issue with the headline: there’s no point trying to teach in a state that requires teachers to teach lies.
Kelly writes:
With the 2022 session of the S.C. General Assembly now more than a quarter complete, legislators have committed a significant amount of time and energy to bills that could have sweeping implications for what is taught in South Carolina classrooms as well as the very definition of what constitutes a public education.
Some of these debates address real, pressing challenges in our schools, while others are fueled by the desire of policymakers to respond to the very vocal concerns of select constituencies. However, in spite of all the time and energy dedicated to education, not enough has been accomplished to address the single problem that threatens to make all other education policy efforts moot: the state’s increasing teacher shortage.
The shortage of teachers in South Carolina has been growing steadily for years. In 2019, I wrote about how “the house is on fire” in schools due to the growing number of vacant teaching positions across the state. That year, schools had opened with 621 vacancies. This year, that number ballooned to 1,063 positions, a 71% increase. What looked like a house fire then has grown into a five-alarm inferno.
The timing of this shortage could not be worse for children. Right now, our students are facing unprecedented challenges, including increased incidents of school violence, depression and suicidal thoughts. At the same time, students are attempting to navigate the academic fallout of lost instructional time stemming from shifts to virtual learning, quarantines and student illness…
Education research universally agrees that the No. 1 in-school influence on student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Given this fact, it is imperative to address the more than 1,000 classrooms that do not have access to any teacher at a time when students need more support than ever.
To date, though, there has been little done this legislative session to take the steps necessary to enhance educator recruitment and retention. One notable and important exception has been the advancement of a bill introduced by Sen. Stephen Goldfinch to guarantee 30 minutes of daily, unencumbered planning time for elementary and special education teachers, two groups that often go through an entire school day without a moment even to go to the restroom.
Other recently introduced bills hold promise, such as one introduced by Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter to address student debt for teachers and one from Senate Republican Leader Shane Massey to provide enhanced lottery scholarships to education majors.
But these bills have yet to receive committee review, a significant problem in the rapidly advancing second year of this General Assembly. As both the legislative calendar and our teacher supply dwindle, we need action now on these bills as well as other measures that could enhance education retention — steps such as reducing class sizes, providing enhanced mentoring support for new teachers and creating meaningful career pathways to keep our best teachers in the classroom.
The Legislature should also follow the lead of S.C. Education Superintendent Molly Spearman, who called on budget writers to do “as much as (they) can” to increase teacher salaries, including raising minimum starting pay to $40,000…
As our state continues to debate what is — or is not — taught in our classrooms, we should never lose sight of the indisputable fact that nothing is taught in a classroom without a teacher. A failure to put out this growing fire in our schools will deprive an ever-increasing number of students of access to the great teacher who can spark interests and abilities into their full potential.
Patrick Kelly is director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association and has taught in S.C. schools since 2005.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good Paper. However, there are lobbyists working the Legislature all day, every day in an attempt to get their clients as much available money as possible, so changing the course of a ‘ship of State’ is very difficult. [Think, “steering a battleship with a canoe paddle”]
nicely said
Quote: “…including raising minimum starting pay to $40,000…” end quote. Good grief, the starting pay is less than $40K? Do they think it’s 1984? Oh wait,…..
Ha! Good one!
However, NJ had some of the highest teacher salaries in the country, but also some of the highest expenses. $40k might not be all that bad, as long as the steps continue steeply upward.
In my experience, good teachers are far more interested in small classes and respect for the curriculum they develop and supervise than they are about making other than a modest, middle-class income. If they wanted to make money, they would have bolted to the corporate life at the start (I’m an Astronomy-Physics person, so I had that choice, but wasn’t interested in killing people).
NYPD starting salary: $42,500
NYPD salary after five years: $85,292.
At the risk of being thought of as a hopeless romantic, might I suggest that no amount of money spent is going to change the teacher shortage. Teachers really do not care about money that much. They generally crave two things: intellectual independence and a feeling of success.
Salaries need to provide comfort. But the other two things will bring good people back to the profession
what most legislators and all tech gurus cannot grasp…
Bravo, Roy! Spoken like a real teacher.
I’m ‘retired’, but feel as if my life is complete because I stuck to my principles (not principals). In the end, once you did what you could do to enhance the future, you are left with a certain satisfaction. It’s like raising a child.
“because I stuck to my principles (not principals).”
Not many do.
I don’t call those principals adminimals for nothing. Almost every single one has sold their soul in implementing the standards and testing malpractice regime that harms all students and truncates the teaching and learning process.
I am going to make stick to principles, not principals my personal motto. Love it! When I encounter a principal who cares about her teachers instead of meaningless data, I’ll find another motto.
I think we could find similar factual stories in most if not every RED state. Too bad no one is documenting all the horrors of what it is like in a fascist, autocratic style, traitor Trumpish trashy RED controlled state.
Come to the Show Me State to find out!
Blue states disregard public schools and teachers with just as much fervor as do red states, just with charters and testing instead of vouchers and testing. Same thing, really. We are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are a collection of united by the animus and avarice of corporatism states of America.
Trump’s a New Yorker.
Trump WAS a New Yorker. He is now a Floridian. Taxes are lower.
I wish people would stop saying that pay isn’t really that important to teachers. It is to me and most of my colleagues. Sure, we want to make a difference in our students’ lives, but we didn’t expect to lead a life of financial insecurity. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. Here, a modest 1,600 SF house with a so-so, mostly concrete backyard in a traditionally blue collar neighborhood goes for an asking price of $522,000. Everybody knows that you’d better bid 20K- 30K above asking price. A teacher here will NEVER, EVER be able to afford a house. Pay matters!!! If you want to show someone that their job is important, you pay them appropriately. You’d can’t live independently in Nashville as a teacher. You must have roommates, a partner, or a spouse. This is just wrong. I care about my students, but I care about myself too.
Susan, you are so right. Signing up to be a teacher should not consign you to a life of penury. Teachers should be paid as professionals.