Louisiana’s Plan to Fill 2,500 Teaching Positions is Kind of Lame

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We all know that teachers are underpaid.  Not only is it an accepted way of life, it's been that way for a long time.  I'd love to tell you that this article was about a plan to finally address the many reasons that educators basically have do it for the love of teaching (cause they can't be doing it for the money).  Unfortunately, this is an article about how dire the teacher shortage in Louisiana really is and the questionable attempt to address it is.

According to a report from Business Report, the Sportsman's Paradise is currently short around 2,500 kindergarten through twelfth-grade teachers.  Unless those positions are filled, administrators will have to figure out how to spread more than 50,000 out into already over-filled classrooms for the 2022-2023 school year.

Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed spoke to the House Education Committee during a hearing this week about this crisis.  She was part of a growing number of educators and their supporters who are asking lawmakers to step up and help solve the issue.  Some lawmakers have listened, but I'm not sure about their plan.

According to a report from the La Illuminator, State Representative Francis Thompson introduced a bill that would create a scholarship and education fund to entice high school students to enter the field of education.  The strange thing is that this plan would receive no funding from the state at all.  It's almost like they came up with a plan they can't afford - and called it a day!

Officially, the first step of the plan (if approved) is for the education department to "...adopt rules around eligibility, dollar amount and implementation at a later date."

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'd feel a lot better if this plan had some teeth (by which I mean money) to back it up.  Until then, it seems more like an idea than a law.