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The Race to Fill Classrooms: Teacher Shortages Across the Nation

by Policy

In Spring 2020, teachers packed up their classrooms without a clue about when they would return. Some returned many months later to in-person lessons. For others, they closed up their classrooms and, shortly thereafter, said goodbye to the teaching profession.

The onset of the pandemic forced many teachers around the world to do their job with unfamiliar tools, at a time of immense professional and personal challenge, and very few boundaries between their work and home life. Despite the difficulties, classrooms were up and running within days- if not the very next– thanks to their tenacity and dedication. Some of the pressing issues teachers faced were social-emotional in nature, such as student engagement, participation and attendance, and connecting with students. These difficulties can be cited as just some of the barriers that contributed to the spike in teacher attrition rates seen since the start of the pandemic.

There are an estimated 36,500 unfilled teaching positions nationwide currently with a combination of factors fueling the shortage. According to a survey conducted by McGraw Hill, 76% of teachers reported that COVID-19 related staffing shortages have been common. Compounded with issues of burnout– which 90% of teachers consider to be very serious because of the pandemic– and additional workload-related challenges (i.e. teachers wearing more hats than they can keep on) due to COVID related shortages, this has escalated to  more than half of teachers considering leaving the profession sooner than anticipated.

Responses to the Shortage

At the federal level, the White House announced new actions to address the teacher shortage (this fact sheet details public and private actions). On top of the changes already made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) – which ensures educators can access loan forgiveness they are eligible for – they encourage states to use federal relief funds to competitively boost teacher salaries and, through the Department of Labor, have committed to prioritizing the education sector in the next round of apprenticeship grant funding. On the private sector front, talent and job platforms – Ziprecruiter, Handshake, and Indeed – announced they would offer support by creating an online job portal for educator-specific jobs, helping college students gain access to the benefits of teaching, and facilitating virtual hiring fairs nationwide (respectively). Interestingly, in the context of these broader efforts to address workforce shortages, there’s a growing conversation about digital solutions in various industries, similar to how online casino ohne 1€ limit sites have adapted to changing regulations and market demands. In addition, national teacher unions and state organizations have partnered to offer expanded pathways to enter the field and promote professional growth. The public-private actions support the President’s call to address school teacher and staffing shortages.

The U.S. Department of Education has made a push to help combat the shortage by encouraging states to use federal relief funds to fill in gaps caused by shortages. The Department released a fact sheet that outlines a call to action to partner with states to support the recruitment and the retention of teachers. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona called on states to invest in measures that increase the number of teachers in the pipeline including establishing apprenticeship programs, creating evidence-based residency programs and competitive pay and loan forgiveness measures. Examples of how to answer this call to action are outlined by the Learning Policy Institute, a think tank focused on improving education related policies. They illuminate the flexibility states have with federal dollars and provide specific areas states can use funds to bolster strategically.

Aside from leveraging this funding, states have varied in their response – through mostly short-term solutions – to the shortage. An increasing number of districts in Missouri and Texas have switched to four day school weeks. Other measures include widening the pool of applicants that are eligible to teach in classrooms; Arizona is allowing prospective teachers to simultaneously begin training while still completing their bachelor degree,and most notably, Florida is allowing military veterans who meet a minimum criteria (set by the state) to earn five year teaching certificates. Pennsylvania has launched a comprehensive Foundation of Our Economy Strategy program to ensure there are enough educators to meet the projected demand by 2025 via expanding access to high-quality teacher preparation and professional development opportunities. New York has adjusted certification requirements to allow teachers to finish training with 50 hours of in class teaching instead of 100, and the District of Columbia, along with districts in Connecticut and North Carolina are offering signing and retention bonuses to attract teachers to their schools that need them most. States are heavily leaning on emergency stop gap measures as they quickly try to staff as many open positions as they can.

The ed tech industry is leaning in to support teachers and students as well. D2L, which offers a learning management system for K-12 school districts, released a blog on how to help support K-12 teachers. They emphasize the need to support teacher’s individual strengths and the importance of a collaborative approach to prevent overwhelming individual teachers. edWeb, a community of over 1 million educators ranging from pre-K to post-secondary who engage in professional learning, launched Jobs4Ed where employers can freely share opportunities and recruit talent from their worldwide community. The Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, released a policy agenda which outlines a detailed multipronged approach to bolster teacher recruitment from the ground up including adding competitive benefits for teacher pay and retirement.

As the 2022-2023 school year gets underway teacher shortages will likely remain a top concern for districts and parents – with 76% of parents concerned about the shortage above all else according to a survey commissioned by Lexia Learning, a  Cambium Learning Group company. Increased efforts to attract and retain teachers will continue with states using everything at their disposal to fill much needed positions across the country. With the projected shortage of teachers to reach 300,000 by 2025, a joint effort –  across the learning ecosystem– will be needed in facing what is yet to come.

B2B Media’s Premier Conference, The Business Information & Media Summit, Returns in February

by MediaPress Release

For Immediate Release
SIIA Contact: Tony Silber, tsilber@siia.net 

Washington, D.C. (September 7, 2022) – The AM&P Network today announced the 2023 return of its flagship event, the acclaimed AMPLIFY Business Information & Media Summit, which will be held on February 23-24 at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek in Orlando, Florida.

The recharged BIMS, whose heritage dates back decades, is widely viewed as the indispensable gathering for B2B media executives. The conference offers an unduplicated opportunity to reflect, renew, recalibrate and reinvigorate. It’s the ideal forum for networking with peers, making new connections, gaining new insights, and preparing to prosper in the months ahead.

“We’re delighted to be re-introducing this gold-standard event for B2B media in-person after three long years of pandemic,” said Chris Mohr, president of SIIA, the AM&P Network’s parent organization. “We have some the most sophisticated information companies in the world as members, and BIMS represents a unique opportunity for firms that are critical sources of business intelligence to come together and make an entire industry stronger.”

The conference will be held over a day and a half, with arrival on Wednesday, the 22nd, a full day of programming the next day, and a half day of programming on Friday, allowing attendees who opt to bring their families a chance to enjoy the weekend at Disney World.

“We’re mindful of the need for attendees to minimize out-of-office time,” AM&P Network Director of Programming and Content Tony Silber said. “That’s why we’ve designed the event to be valuable for both C-suite executives as well as their key operations personnel. Our general assemblies allow all attendees to learn from recognized leaders in their fields, and the breakout tracks permit specialists to take deeper dives into Executive Leadership, Revenue and Monetization, and Tech and Strategy.”

“We’ve created a program of extraordinary relevance to the senior management tier of B2B media based on our own experiences as media operators and in collaboration with a wide group of high-profile advisors,” Silber added.

In addition, the program provides a generous amount of time dedicated to direct interaction among buyers and sellers—our sponsors and attendees, noted Jen Smith, director of the Network’s Association Council. “We’ve struck the right balance between formal programming, networking, and less formal meetups and roundtables,” she said.

For more information on the conference and to register visit AMPLIFY BIMS 2023 or contact AM&P Network Director of Programming and Development Tony Silber.

About AM&P Network
SIIA’s Associations Media &Publishing Network, launched in 2021, has grown rapidly to include more than 250 members across the specialized publishing and information ecosystem, including multinational B2B publishing and information providers, specialized media publishers and association content and publishing specialists. The Network fosters collaboration, spurs innovative thinking, and builds community across this vast media landscape and produces the Jesse H. Neal Awards, a peer-reviewed program standing as the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism, the EXCEL Awards, the largest and most prestigious program recognizing excellence and leadership in association media, publishing, marketing and communications and the SIIA Impact Awards, celebrating emerging talent and diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Comments of United for Patent Reform in Response to the Administrative Conference of the United States Small Claims Patent Court Study

by Policy

United for Patent Reform (UFPR) is a broad coalition of diverse American businesses advocating for a patent system that enhances patent quality, advances meaningful innovation, and protects legitimate American businesses from abusive patent litigation. Our members are small and large — they range from Main Street retail shops, REALTORS®, hotels, grocers, convenience stores, and restaurants to national construction companies, automobile manufacturers, and technology businesses. Collectively, our members represent over 80 million U.S. employees, a figure that accounts for nearly two-thirds of private sector jobs in the United States.

The UFPR summited comments in response to the Administrative Conference of the United States small claims patent court study. Read the full letter here.

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‘It’s the Internet, That’s How It Goes Sometimes’; Tech Sits at the Core of Success

by Media

This article is written by Tony Silber, our director of programming and development

“Our migrations [to our tech stack] have taken longer than we initially thought to ensure we did them properly,” Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel said this month. “It’s the internet, that’s how it goes sometimes, no matter how hard you try. What matters is that you try.”

If truer words than this quote—“It’s the internet, that’s how it goes sometimes”—exist, then I’m at a loss right now as to what they might be, particularly when it comes to the importance of technology as the essential center of modern media businesses.

That was a quote from Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel, in an email to company staff earlier this month, as the company reported revenue growth in the second quarter of 2022 to $489.5 million, despite a decline in ad spending in several categories.

Broken down, digital revenue totaled $235 million and print revenue $260 million, MediaPost reported, which reflects Meredith’s print-magazine portfolio’s integration into the company. There also was an operating loss of $27.5 million for the quarter, which ended June 30.

But there was something more in Dotdash Meredith’s narrative that struck me. The Meredith part of the magazine business has struggled in migrating to Dotdash’s tech stack. And that underscores the centrality of the tech stack in today’s media. It used to be the business revolved around the print magazine. Or, alternatively, it revolved around reader engagement. But reader engagement is dependent on technology.

Dotdash Meredith is best known for its legacy Meredith magazine titles, acquired last year. Those venerable titles include Better Homes & Gardens, People and Entertainment Weekly. From the start, Vogel’s strategy was to build robust digital hubs for those brands and making them more profitable by placing them on new, faster-loading websites, charging more for fewer ads, and layering in other digital-centric strategies.

Consequently, Dotdash Meredith hired more employees and invested in the new websites. The company hoped to have moved all of the Meredith publications to new websites by now. Instead, according to the Des Moines Register, it has transitioned about three quarters of the sites and doesn’t expect to launch the rest until the end of September.

The print editions of the magazines reported a $19 million loss in operating income, the Register also reported. However, that still better beat the prior quarter, when they reported a $38.3 million loss. Also interesting was this quote from Vogel in 2020: “Guys, let’s take a look at this thing,” he said, when asked about acquiring Meredith. “It’s obviously heavy in print. But, if you look very closely, this is a digital business masquerading as a print business.”

This month he’s saying this: “Print is (fire emoji) — after making very hard decisions, followed by real investment, our titles are now growing again after years of decline.”

Lessons: Tech is the core of media success. And all business initiatives will take twice as long as anticipated, and cost twice as much.