Administrators wanting to know who is hiring teachers away from their classrooms can look no further than the FBI. That’s right, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Over the last year, several FBI field offices have posted job openings on LinkedIn for a special agent with an education and teaching background.
In Kansas City, the FBI is offering former teachers $78,000 a year. “Teachers possess the qualities that the FBI wants in a special agent,” Special Agent Karen Smilgis, an FBI recruiter, told KMBC. “Communication, interpersonal skills, problem-solving, organization, empathy, compassion, perseverance, and hard work.”
This follows one of the narratives around K12 staff shortages in which burned-out teachers are bolting the profession for more satisfying and lucrative jobs in the private sector. But research in one state may reveal an arguably more concerning outcome.
In Arkansas, the overwhelming majority of teachers who left education at the end of the 2020-21 school year did not immediately secure new jobs. “The fact that 80% of exiters did not immediately find employment outside of public education suggests they may have left due to factors like job dissatisfaction and working conditions rather than better job opportunities and higher pay,” researchers at the University of Arkansas’ Office for Education Policy concluded. “Improving these other job conditions may encourage some Exiters to return and reduce future turnover.”
The small number of teachers who found new positions quickly went to work in education services, healthcare and retail, the study found.
Aside from the FBI, where are teachers ending up?
Some teachers are landing in alternative arenas of education, such as small group “micro-schools” and online programs that gained popularity during the pandemic, according to The74. The website profiled a New Hampshire teacher who left public school to run a micro-school from home with the Prenda network of tuition-free, small-group instructional programs. And many parents intend to keep their children in these types of learning programs even with all schools reopened for in-person instruction, according to a report by Tyton Partners, the educational consultants.
More from DA: 400 principals descend on Congress this week in pursuit of funding
Teachers are also finding new careers in classroom-adjacent industries such as edtech, curriculum development and publishing, and online and in-person tutoring, the blog We Are Teachers noted in its list of companies that have been eager to hire former educators. Curriculum Associations, Discovery Education, Encyclopaedia Britannica, HMH, Khan Academy and Newsela and Scholastic are among the heavyweights hiring former teachers, as are the Girl Scouts, educational toymaker Learning Resources and The New Teacher Project.
Edtech companies want teachers because they are familiar with the target market and understand some of the challenges educators face when adopting new platforms, particularly when it comes to instructional design, according to Forbes. Other companies see teachers as natural fits for training and development teams because educators have skills in delivering content, giving positive feedback and breaking down complex concepts, Forbes added.
I quit my teaching job and now make more bartending for 15 less hours week. Also I get blamed for way way less and get told thank you way way more. No lesson plans or grading papers.
Remember this when people ask about the teacher shortage.
— Abby Norman (@abbynormansays) July 17, 2021
Other former teachers are finding new careers further afield from the classroom. Insider tells the story of Abby Norman, a woman who quit teaching after 11 years for a less stressful and higher-paying job as a bartender in Georgia. Norman told the website that teachers need more than the signing and retention bonuses school leaders are offering to keep classrooms filled.
“The extra money is nice, but it’s really more about being respected as a professional,” Norman told Insider. “I’m respected as a professional who is an expert at her job as a bartender. Teachers are not respected as professionals who are experts at their jobs.”
