The Detroit Free Press has an article about the teacher shortage, and how it's affecting schools.

Anyone with brains could have seen this coming a long time ago.  To quote myself from a 2011 blogpost:

The Daily Show has been doing a great job recently satirizing the right wing hostility towards public school teachers. Highly recommended viewing (see here, here, here, and here.)

Nor, by the way, is the right-wing attack on teachers anything new. See this "This Modern World" cartoon from back in 1997.

It's worth remembering at this point the high turn over rate of teachers (Washington Post Article here), especially first year teachers.

Anecdotally, I can't begin to tell you about the number of disillusioned former teachers I have talked to over the years. As an education major in college myself, I know several former classmates who taught for one year, and then decided the level of stress involved in teaching at the public schools just wasn't worth it, and then quickly switched over to easier and better paid jobs.

As an English teacher in Japan, I also encountered several former public school teachers who had decided teaching in public schools in America wasn't worth the stress, and decided to escape by becoming English teachers abroad instead.

I also know several people who started out as Education majors, and then were warned that the stresses of the job were rapidly beginning to outweigh the rewards. I could probably write a book about all the things former teachers have told me over the years.

Now, with public school teachers becoming villainized and their pay attacked, I can't imagine anyone with any talent that would be remotely attracted to this job. So remember this the next time you hear a pundit complaining yet again about how American education is falling behind, or how talented people never seem to want to go into teaching.