There is currently a vast teacher shortage in this country, and one can easily see why. First and foremost, teaching is a tough job, and a high percentage of those who enter the profession eventually leave it to pursue other career opportunities. In her Why Great Teachers Quit: And How We Might Stop the Exodus, Katy Farber explored in depth the key reasons why teachers have left the field. Based on interviews with 70 public school teachers, those reasons were (1) the negative impact of standardized testing, (2) bad working conditions, (3) expanding expectations by school districts, (4) too much bureaucracy, (5) lack of respect and insufficient compensation, (6) difficult parents, (7) difficult administrators, and (8) difficult school boards.

Other studies have found that money, or rather the lack of it, is a big factor in why school districts are having major challenges in both the recruitment and retention of K-12 teachers; there is simply more money to be made in other, easier jobs. Not helping matters is that teachers lack the social status of other professionals,........

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