The Untapped Potential Of Substitute Teachers

From Key and Peele to Jack Black, substitute teaching persists as the butt of a big societal running joke. But there are two big reasons we can no longer afford to treat substitute teaching as a punchline and resist innovation in this area.  The first reason is the sheer scale of the issue: at any moment in time, as many as 10% of the teachers standing in front of US classrooms are subs. The second reason is the impact it has on students.  If we consistently send people into classrooms who are unprepared and unsupported – or worse, if we can't even find people willing to take these jobs – we send a very clear message to our students that we don't value them. Ninety percent of school districts offer four hours of training or less to these educators.