Teacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher
quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified
by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et
al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina.
Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000
people, dressed in red, convened at the state capital in downtown
Columbia, SC (Bowers, 2019b). This statewide teacher walkout was
assembled to call for the improvement of teachers' working
conditions and the learning conditions of their students. The
gathering was the largest display of teacher activism in the
history of South Carolina and reflected a trend in a larger wave of
teacher walkouts that have rippled across the nation over the last
five years. The crowd comprised teachers from across South
Carolina, who walked out of their classrooms for the gathering, as
well as numerous students, parents, university faculty, and other
community members that rallied with teachers in solidarity.
Undergirding this walkout and others that took hold across the
country is a perennial and pervasive pattern of unfavorable teacher
working conditions that have contributed to what some are calling a
teacher shortage "crisis" (Chuck, 2019). We have focused our work
specifically on the illustrative case of South Carolina, given the
extreme teacher staffing challenges the state is facing. Across
numerous metrics, the South Carolina teacher shortage has reached
critical levels, influenced by teacher recruitment and retention
challenges. For instance, the number of teacher education program
completers has declined annually, dropping from 2,060 in 2014-15 to
1,642 in the 2018-19 school year. Meanwhile, the number of teachers
leaving the teaching field has increased from 4,108.1 to 5,341.3
across that same period (CERRA, 2019). These trends are likely to
continue as COVID-19 has put additional pressure on the already
fragile teacher labor market. Some of the hardest-to-staff
districts are often located in communities with the highest
diversity and poverty. To prosper and progress, reformers and
public stakeholders must have a vested interest in maintaining full
classrooms and strengthening the teaching workforce. An important
element of progress towards tackling these longstanding challenges
is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. While
teacher shortages are occurring nationwide (Garcia & Weiss,
2019), how they manifest regionally is directly influenced by its
localized historical context and the evolution of the teaching
profession's reputation within a state. Thus, the impetus of this
book is to use South Carolina as an illustrative example to discuss
the context and evolution that has shaped the status of the
teaching profession that has led to a boiling point of mass teacher
shortages and the rise of historic teacher walkouts.
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