There are two main things reducing quality of the schools as this goes on: 1) There’s a really bad staff shortage. The ways schools are trying to compensate wi

There are two main things reducing quality of the schools as this goes on: 1) There’s a really bad staff shortage. The ways schools are trying to compensate without significantly raising pay are making school worse. Three examples are reducing the length of the school week, cutting “specials” (art, music, languages, non-“core” classes), and replacing instruction with crappy computerized solutions (believe me, they’re mostly crappy). 2) Because there’s a shortage of teachers, it’s harder to turn down an applicant or get rid of a bad or mediocre teacher. These also aren’t disproportionately leaving—plenty of good ones are among the ones moving to other sectors, in part because they tend to have the best prospects outside of school, and it’s not like schools can really offer them more to try to keep them. So, the pool of candidates is at least not improving as it shrinks, and it’s tougher to get rid of teachers that otherwise might be let go. Further, the teacher pipeline is drying up and it’s quickly becoming a less-attractive option for students entering school. Result: average teacher quality may be expected to trend down.