Head of School Superintendents Association speaks out on teacher shortage in Louisiana

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The teacher shortage in Louisiana is continuing to worsen because there are fewer education students and teacher retirements are on their way up. Michael Faulk, who heads up the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, says it’s a trend that started years ago. “If you look at the enrollments in the College of Education and teacher preparation the numbers have gone down consistently over the last five or six years,” said Faulk.

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As an example, the number of students in the LSU School of Education has plummeted by 57 percent over the past decade. Faulk doesn’t see the teacher shortage problem being remedied anytime soon in Louisiana. He says, “This is not a situation that’s going to be remedied in two or three years. You’re gonna have dire circumstances four, five, six years from now.”

Faulk says there are teachers who seem dismayed about the profession because of their lack of input into the curriculums they have to abide by. “You have curriculums that are being implemented. Teachers, you know, feel like they don’t have a say, they don’t have input, they don’t feel like they are part of the process,” said Faulk.

Data amassed by the Teacher Retirement System of Louisiana shows that school personnel retirements, including teachers, increased by 25 percent from 2020 to 2021.