Miami, Fla. – With the country experiencing a teacher shortage crisis as thousands leave the field due to low salaries, U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Democrat from Miami, is going to bat for the educators.

The seven-term congresswoman, chair of the Higher Education and Workforce Investment Subcommittee, is sponsoring a bill to bump up the minimum K-12 teacher salary to $60,000 and, offer other financial adjustments to deal with inflation.

The proposed American Teacher Act provides financial incentives to make the teaching industry more competitive with wages and tackle the national teacher shortage emergency.

According to Wilson, teacher shortages are among the most pressing threats to education access today, with districts across the country forced to radically adjust school offerings to respond to turnover and prolonged vacancies.

As a result, schools have shortened their weeks, canceled courses, increased student-teacher ratios, and placed underprepared or temporary substitute staff in core instructional roles.

Wilson said the adjustments disrupt learning, take a sustained toll on teacher morale, and harm student achievement.

In August, the White House issued a fact sheet renewing attention to the weak teacher pipeline and calling upon legislators to use federal, state, and local resources to strengthen teaching career pathways and ensure competitive, livable wages.

Wilson, a longtime principal for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools before she entered the political arena, has answered the call.

"Teachers deserve a raise," said Wilson. "Our nation’s teachers have been underpaid, overworked, and deprived of resources for too long. "That’s why I’m filing the American Teacher Act today, to give our nation’s teachers the raise they have earned and deserve."

Wilson said teachers are the backbone of the education system and economy nationwide and play a foundational role in the development of children, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"For seven hours a day, they help shape and inspire young minds as well as nurture students academically and socially," Wilson said. "As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, teachers continued to play a critical role in our recovery, underscoring their indispensability. I am proud to introduce the American Teacher Act, a critical first step in the fight to support a livable, competitive wage for America’s educators."

Wilson’s proposed American Teacher Act also includes a cost-ofliving adjustment to ensure that minimum teacher salary keeps pace with inflation, a maintenance-of-effort provision to ensure states and districts do not replace currently committed allocations with federal government funding, prioritize local educational agencies qualifying as low or moderate-income, invest in a national campaign to expand awareness of the value of teaching and encourage secondary and college students to consider teaching as a career, and support state efforts to ensure competitive wages for teachers.

When the 2022-2023 school year began, Miami-Dade and Broward school districts experienced a teacher shortage crisis despite an initiative by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to allow first responders and military veterans easy access to teaching certificates to fill the void.

Miami-Dade, the fourth largest school district in the nation, employs about 18,275 teachers and Broward County, the sixth largest school district in the nation, has about 14,336.

More than 10,000 teaching positions statewide are vacant.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federal of Teachers, praised Wilson for her effort to get teachers competitive salaries.

She said while teachers have never received the wages and respect commensurate with the work they do to help all children reach their promise and potential, the culture wars and stagnant wages of the last few years have made this worse.

"Recruiting and retaining a diverse teaching force has become increasingly difficult, indeed, most parents say they wouldn’t want their kids choosing teaching as a career,” said Weingarten. “Rep. Frederica Wilson’s bill, the American Teacher Act, addresses these challenges directly by providing states with federal funding to incentivize school districts to create a minimum starting salary of $60,000 for teachers.

"It also funds a national campaign highlighting the value of the teaching profession and encouraging young people to become teachers, using many of the recommendations in the AFT’s Teacher and School Staff Shortage Task Force report “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?” for recruiting the best candidates into teaching, including increasing compensation. This bill says put your money where your mouth is."

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said Wilson’s proposed bill could bring back thousands of teachers who left the field during the coronavirus pandemic which helped fuel the teacher shortage. Pringle said the low salaries weren’t worth the risk of contracting the virus.

"The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the educator staffing crisis that had been brewing for more than a decade,” said Pringle. "Fueled by insufficient teacher salaries and chronic underfunding of our public schools, our leaders need to immediately adopt solutions to the educator shortage, including treating educators with the respect and competitive compensation these dedicated professionals deserve.

"The American Teacher Act is an encouraging step forward, and NEA applauds Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for introducing legislation to enact long-term solutions to this longstanding, systemic issue.”

Ninive Calegari, co-founder of the Teacher Salary Project in South Florida, expressed similar sentiments.

“Teachers are vital to our democracy and economy because we need them to maximize all young people’s potential,” said Calegari. “We must take advantage of this moment, with the devastating learning loss and enormous and historic teacher shortages, to pay teachers what they are worth to us, to young people, and our shared future. Imagine what would happen if teaching were the sustainable and prestigious profession it deserves to be.”