We’re making Montana’s teacher shortage a lot harder than it really is

Most of my memory, which should be reserved for important facts and Bible verses, is instead junked up with a bunch of pop culture references and radio music.

One of those is another favorite scene from “The Simpsons,” where Bart is getting held back and put into a remedial class. He asks: So you’re going to push me ahead by slowing me down?

That’s a funny quip on a cartoon television show. It’s less amusing when it becomes your state’s official education policy.

But last month, the Montana Board of Public Education, which sets the standards for teacher qualifications, decided that in order to solve Montana’s well documented teacher shortage that they’d lower teacher standards, allowing more alternative paths to getting a licensure.

Thankfully, the board stopped short of also lessening the standards for school psychologists, who deal with a multitude of technical issues, and are also the critical link to identifying more troublesome, nuanced problems.

With teacher shortages nearing four digits and a big state with lots of rural schools, it’s a profound problem, one in which the Gianforte administration has tried to help solve.

But pretending like licensure is the problem is a delusion.

Montana has ranked dead last in starting teacher pay (technically, it ranked 51 because the District of Columbia was also factored in). To its credit, the Gianforte administration prioritized boosting pay.

Nobody is saying: Well, I’d sure like to teach, but darn it the paperwork is just too much for me. And if such a thing was uttered, it’s probably likely they’re not cut out for the work of, say, grading papers.

Those same teacher-less students are also the ones who will be asked to compete in a very global world where their work isn’t just competing against the people in their community and country; the world is the competition. We don’t need less education. We probably need more.

The Board of Education conflates doing something with making progress.

Part of the very real issue has nothing to do with licensure, paperwork or standards. It is simply a matter of pay: We don’t pay our teachers competitively. The answer won’t be found in the weedy and wonky policy discussions centering on licensure requirements. It’s money. Raise the teacher pay scale, and you’ll generate more interest.

Truthfully, it should be a message that Republicans should understand well: This is simply evidence of free market at work. Too much work, not enough pay, to quote a Merle Haggard song (another thing that fills my memory).

It’s also telling that the same leadership which has railed against the “woke agenda” infiltrating schools — OPI chief Elsie Arntzen’s words, not mine — can’t find people willing to work at schools.

For the past eight years, Republican leaders have nearly universally disparaged and undermined public education. They’ve portrayed teachers and librarians as adults plying children with porn and sociological theories that were once the province of graduate school. They’ve repeatedly told their communities that public schools have failed the communities. They have sued to force kids back into the classroom during a public health emergency. They’ve tried to ban certain words and concepts, setting up, in some places, criminal liability. And, they’re ginning up faux outrage by perpetuating the notion that we need a parents bill of rights, as if parents don’t already have quite a bit of control over what is happening in their children’s classrooms.

It’s not surprising that we’ve seen an exodus from the teaching profession. Instead, we should be surprised that anyone is entering it with the kind of grief and turmoil they’re likely to encounter.

This attempt to weaken or erode our public schools risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: If we lower the standards for teaching and teachers, our schools will become less academically successful. If that happens, it will continue to perpetuate the myth that our public education system is failing and should be replaced.

Instead of lowering standards, how about increasing pay?