The Illinois Education Association would like to thank the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents for its work the past seven years on the Educator Shortage survey. We are not surprised by the IARSS’s findings that 91 percent of those school administrators surveyed said there were teacher shortages in their district or that there were more than 4,000 vacancies in Illinois schools this year.

The IEA has been doing the State of Education in Illinois survey for six years. It is the only consistent assessment of Illinoisans’ opinions on public education. What we have seen time and again is that people value having high-quality public schools more than lowering taxes, balancing the state budget or reforming health care.

Digging deeper, more than 75% of adults in Illinois think school is harder today than it was when they were students. That may be why, by a 6-to-1 margin, Illinoisans think that public educators are underpaid and funding for our public schools should increase. 

They also understand there is a shortage of both teachers and school support staff and they are worried about these shortages. You can read more about this at www.ieastateofeducation.org.

We all know that good teachers and quality support staff benefit students. That is why the IEA is working toward attracting more people to the profession in the following ways:

The IARSS survey showed 21% of those surveyed said the cost of teacher prep programs kept them from becoming teachers. That’s why IEA has introduced House Bill 4652 and Senate Bill 3215, which would pay student teachers a set amount per semester. Many professional internships are paid, but not teaching. Those who are support staff, working in schools and taking classes at the same time to earn a teaching degree, often cannot afford to take a semester off without pay to student teach.

The IEA also helps support Educators Rising Illinois. This program is the first step to building and growing an educator pipeline through school districts’ Grow Your Own plans. It helps recruit and prepare educators and support staff, and it provides a curriculum for districts to prep current students with an interest in teaching to become educators. 

The IARSS survey also noted that 69% of administrators said that the state modifying the teacher pension tiered system would “moderately or greatly increase their recruitment and/or retention.” We feel the same. That is why the IEA has introduced the “Undo Tier Two” campaign, which would modify aspects of the second tier of the state’s pensions systems to allow employees to retire at age 60, instead of 67, among other items. It is Senate Bill 2024.

And, the IEA helped create and administer the Illinois Virtual Instructional Coach and Building Mentor Program to support new educators in the very vulnerable first years of their careers by giving them access to a library of resources and pairing them with building mentors and/or virtual coaches to help them succeed. 

We know all of these, and especially all these items combined, can help make the profession of education more attractive to those entering the workforce and those currently in the workforce. There is nothing more rewarding than working with students and seeing them succeed, but we can’t depend solely on that to attract people to the profession of education.

Teachers have degrees — often multiple and advanced degrees — and are expected to know much more than just their content area. They are trained in social and emotional learning, first aid, conflict resolution, etc. They should be treated like the professionals they are, and the IEA is helping to see this through.

Al Llorens is president of the Illinois Education Association.