Sally Butzin: The unintended consequences of feminism clear in today’s teacher shortage

I am a feminist. I came of age in the wave of Betty Friedans’ The Feminine Mystique and the availability of birth control pills. Female college students like me began to realize we had more choices than being a teacher, secretary, nurse, or mother.

Most of my sorority sisters were education majors. I was a rebel and the first female economics major at my small liberal arts college. Although I was an avid golfer, there was no women’s golf team. In fact, we had no intercollegiate sports for women.

Upon graduation, I entered the business world in Chicago as a price estimator for a large printing company. True to form, I was the first woman in the large office of about 30 men. After a few months, I learned I was being paid far less than all the men, although we were doing the same job. My supervisor explained that was because they were raising families and I was not. Really?

My life took a turn when I met my future husband and we moved to St. Louis where he attended graduate school and theological seminary. I left the business world looking to find something more fulfilling. Working at a YMCA camp one summer, I learned I had a natural talent with children. I decided to become a teacher. And my career took off in a whole new direction.

Now looking back some 50 years later, I am troubled by the dismantling of public education. Much of that is the result of a dearth of highly effective teachers, compounded by a massive teacher shortage. Unlike my experience, the career path for girls is wide open - doctor, lawyer, engineer, entrepreneur, professional athlete, and so on.

This makes me happy for all the young women like my own two daughters who have successful careers in business. Like my daughters, the bright, smart, and talented young women today are shunning teaching. Why settle for low salaries, stressful working conditions, and disrespect?

There is a crisis in education. Our future is at stake. Many classrooms today are being “covered” by untrained and unqualified teachers, especially as the cohort of experienced teachers retire or quit in disgust. Until teaching becomes a profession on equal footing with other professions, our children will fall further behind. How can America thrive without knowledgeable and capable graduates?

Teachers make the difference whether they be in public schools, charter schools, or private voucher schools. School choice doesn’t work if the choice is bad to worse. Lawmakers say it’s a lack of money. No, it’s a lack of priorities.

The pre-feminist days with a vast pool of talented women eager to teach is long gone. We need leaders that will make education a top priority. Vote!

Sally Butzin graduated from DePauw University in 1967. She received a PhD in Elementary Education from Florida State University in 1984.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Why talented young women today are shunning careers in the classroom