Behind the Debate Over Whether Teachers Are Quitting in Droves

And One Thing the NFL and Corporate America Have in Common

I shared the book cover for my forthcoming book earlier this month. And now I’m excited to share that From Reopen to Reinvent: (Re)creating School for Every Child is available for pre-order! You can get it here from Amazon, here from Barnes & Noble, and here from Indiebound.

Why am I sharing this news now, nearly five months before the book comes out?

My hope is that this book will give educators and parents a vision for what schooling can look like and a set of tools they can use to start innovating to better serve all students as we move through and from the pandemic. There’s serious urgency for schools to start this work. Given that pre-orders help raise the visibility of books, by pre-ordering, you can raise awareness of From Reopen to Reinvent and help make a bigger positive impact on our nation’s youth.

And thank you.

Talent Pipeline Shortages, Skill-Based Learning, and Credential Earning

The rest of this newsletter revolves around talent pipelines, skills, and credentials. This isn’t just a higher education-workforce conversation.

Teacher Pipeline

There’s a big debate right now over whether there is an increased teacher exodus from K–12 schools.

On the one hand, many media stories and educators say loudly that teachers are leaving in droves, which is making it hard to manage schools. On the other hand, researchers are observing that the number of quits don’t appear much different from how it’s been in education for a while. 

On the latest episode of Class Disrupted, Diane and I dug into the numbers and nuance to help paint a deeper picture of what we think may be going on that is driving both narratives. One thing that’s undoubtedly contributing is that the pipeline of teachers is decreasing. That’s not new. From 2006 to 2019, the number of education degrees conferred fell by 22 percent. The evidence suggests that this has continued to go down since COVID. 

Check out the full episode and transcript here at The 74.

NFL Coaching and Corporate America’s Pipelines Share This in Common

The NFL of course has been in the news because former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sued the League for discriminatory hiring practices against Black coaches. Flores now has a job with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but his accusations in my mind call attention to a pipeline in the NFL that mirrors the talent pipeline of corporate America.

Nearly 60% of NFL players are Black. Thirty percent of NFL assistant coaches are Black. Fewer than 10% of college coaches are Black. At the time Flores was fired, there was only one Black NFL head coach remaining.

Corporate America’s pipeline bears some similarities. Although Black employees comprise more than 14 percent of all employees, at the managerial level they comprise 7 percent. At the senior management, vice president, and senior vice president levels, it’s just 4 to 5 percent.

Here’s the difference. As I detail in my latest article for Forbes, “What The NFL Coaching And Corporate America’s Talent Pipelines Share In Common,” multiple strategic reasons are converging, which is leading America’s largest employers, like Walmart and Macy’s, to invest in the education and upskilling of their frontline employees—and that is resulting in greater career mobility.

This suggests that tending to one’s talent pipeline goes beyond a simplistic attempted fix like the Rooney rule. It takes more strategic and intentional investment. Read the piece here.

Addressing the Skills Gap

What are the strategic reasons for companies addressing the skills gap and their talent pipelines? And what does innovation theory have to say about what savvy companies should do?

I addressed both of those topics and more for the Inside Learning Podcast by Learnovate and hosted by Aidan McCullen. You can listen to the episode here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Explaining the Credential Cluster

Mixed in with the topics of skills and talent pipelines is credentials.

I’ve written a lot about credential inflation as well as the potential for certification to create a true competency-based higher education system.

But with so much talk about these things plus badges, certificates, stackable credentials, the value of bachelor’s degrees, the hype around master’s degrees, blockchain, and more, Jeff Selingo and I wanted to take a step back and help unpack and explain this conversation on Future U.

In an all-new special episode that is part of our Higher Ed 101 series, Sean Gallagher, the author of The Future of University Credentials: New Developments at the Intersection of Higher Education and Hiring, joined us to break down everything about credentials, from their origins to definitions and trends.

I found the conversation informative, and I think you will as well. Check it out here.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.