Over the past few weeks, headlines have abounded about a national teacher shortage. Rebecca Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, claims the country is short nearly 300,000 teachers and support staff. Gallup pollsters report that four in 10 teachers say they're "always" or "very often" burned out. Because of this, outlets like Fortune declare, "the teacher shortage is about to intensify."
Many argue that low teacher pay is a big part of the problem. Striking teachers in Seattle just delayed the start of the school year by a full week, demanding laptops for teaching assistants, higher teacher-to-student ratios in special ed and multilingual classes, and (of course) higher pay, purportedly to keep up with inflation. But the idea that teachers are poorly paid predates both the pandemic and the recent inflation surge:
