By The Editorial Board

There’s at least one teacher most people had in high school that made things feel a little easier. Think about how different everything would’ve gone if that teacher called it quits mid-year.

This is becoming an unfortunate reality due to the lack of support for instructors. The majority of Texas public school teachers have considered quitting, according to a 2022 survey poll by the Charles Butt Foundation. The number of people leaving the profession has increased to 12%, making a career change in the 2022 school year. Many point to the fact that they’re underpaid and under-supported overall.

During the current legislative session, legislators are deciding how to allocate a $32.7 billion surplus. There’s been talk from both sides of the aisle on shifting some of that money to giving teachers a raise.

There are ways to pay teachers more, even if it means spending less in other areas. It should be everyone’s priority to ensure students are in good hands. Parents want to know they are sending their kids to a trustworthy and responsible school, administration wants to assure parents that is the case and educators want to serve their students as best they can without having to fight tooth-and-nail to do it.

In addition to teachers wanting to leave their profession, the number of college students who look into entering the field of education is rapidly decreasing. In the 2019-2020 academic year, only 4% of undergraduate degrees in the U.S. awarded were in education. In terms of percentages, the U.S. is currently graduating half as many education majors as we did in the early 2000s (8%). To top it all off, the numbers are stiflingly low compared to the most popular academic year to graduate with an education degree back in 1970-71. That year, 21% of all degrees awarded were in the education.

Last year, 44% of public schools reported vacancies in teaching positions, with the majority of them resigning. Teachers across the nation are expressing their frustrations with feeling overly-responsible yet devalued in their community. Especially since the beginning of the pandemic, they’ve been asked to shoulder the burden and find their own way through the challenges COVID-19 presented.

Many organizations are built around the idea that education needs to be renovated in many ways, including the pay and support for teachers, such as the Teacher Salary Project, whose whole purpose of existence is to fight for teachers to be paid more and be more highly valued.

For playing such important roles in our society, shouldn’t we be prioritizing the support necessary for our teachers to go the extra mile for students today?

There’s no reason why Texas should be 28th in the nation in teacher salary and first in defense spending. A couple of bills have pushed to pay teachers more, one including a $15,000 raise across the board for teachers. The start of legislative action to pay teachers more is a good sign, however, the people who teach us and our children should have taken priority sooner and should be acted on quickly.

Why pay teachers barely enough to live comfortably and then make them pay for the majority of their classroom’s supplies? Even before the pandemic, 94% of teachers were spending their own money on supplies. Through all of this, their pay continues to deflate, and for nearly a decade (2010-19), teachers with over 10 years of experience saw their average base pay decrease.

The prioritization of their treatment is something we need to emphasize sooner rather than later. There is so much being asked of teachers today, too often even asking them to risk their lives for their students. The less we protect them now, the less likely there will be people willing to stick around.