What the male teacher discussion ignores
Girls, men, schools, women, parents, society also benefit when men are embraced as caring leaders
I am thrilled to see last week’s spicey discussion over the relevance of male teachers — a passion I’m incubating in my city of Richmond, Va.
The debate arose between Jessica Grose, a New York Times columnist, and Richard Reeves, a leading men-and-boys advocate who wrote Of Boys and Men. Their back-and-forth centers on whether male teachers benefit boys — and if we should care.
Both miss the bigger picture: We need more male teachers from early childhood through high school for two reasons:
1. Everyone, including men, benefit when males are embraced and supported in caretaking and leadership of young people.
2. This is because men bring unique qualities to the world — including the classroom. Equality contributes to better outcomes far beyond grades.
Background: Is the male teacher shortage real?
The debate started with the July 23 publication Grose’s op-ed, “The ‘Boy Crisis’ is Overblown.” The bulk of her argument refutes Reeves’ call for more male teachers as a strategy to address how boys are consistently underperforming girls in K-12 education. Grose — former editor of feminist publications Lenny and Jezebel — argues that boys have lagged girls academically for a century, as have male teacher rates — essentially dismissing any need for action or attention.
While noting there is little data to support gender equality in teacher staffing, she cites one study of Indiana schools that concluded that teacher gender has little impact on student grades.
In his rebuttal, “More male teachers is not just about grades,” Reeves — a former Brookings Institution fellow — thoughtfully challenges the essay, focusing on on the importance of male teachers’ contributions to boys as coaches, mentors and role models while calling out the astonishing hypocrisy of mainstream gender equality advocates like Grose:
There’s a danger of a double standard here, in which arguments for more male representation are subjected to demands for a strong empirical justification, while arguments for more female representation are accepted as self-evident.
Students should be able to see themselves in their teachers, at least some of the time. And that includes boys. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that it is even more important to have more men in teaching, than it is to have more women in construction, science or engineering.
Everyone wins with teacher gender equality
All of this is true, but these and other commentary on the topic miss the bigger picture. We need more male teachers not just for the sake of boys — but all of us.
Studies find that girls benefit from male mentorship by challenging assumptions of gender roles (both in the roles the girls themselves may one day play, and expectations of men in their lives).
A focus on in-school gender balance can only help better relations between boys and girls, which has plummeted as over-scheduled and phone-obsessed young people interact less than ever, and in more siloed groups, even as studies find that inter-gender friendships benefit social development for both boys and girls.
Parents also benefit when we have diversity of educators. Dads (who are also under-represented in schools and home life, which I unpack later) may feel more connected to a male teacher. As a mom I can say that I seek out different perspectives when faced with a parenting struggle. This is especially true now that my son and daughter are teenagers and I really have exhausted all my parenting tools.
The part of this equation that skeptics skip over is that male caregivers of children are happier and more fulfilled than men who do not play that role in a child’s life. Fathers of all types — biological, adoptive, step, divorced-and-engaged — are happier than men who are not fathers. Male teachers are more satisfied in life and find greater meaning in their work than female teachers.
A focus on male educators is really a focus on broadening the scope of how we define the worth of men — not just as breadwinners and doers of hard physical tasks. We invite men to be stewards of young people, nurturers and leaders. Like equal-parenting legislation, this is a formal way to close gender gaps by elevating the importance of men in children’s lives.
There is no shortage of un- or under-employed, educated young men. In fact, the unemployment rate for men in their 20s with college degrees and without is now the same. Study after study find that young men across the education spectrum struggle to find their identity, a community, a purpose. In discussing a Scott Galloway podcast episode about men adrift, a female friend who left elementary education teaching for corporate life pointed out: “I have never experienced a tighter community than a school. Schools need men, but men could really benefit from schools.”
How many of these young, educated guys could find a meaningful professional home in our classrooms?
More male teachers = improved U.S. education
Math:
The U.S. has a critical teacher shortage.
Strategically focus on male teachers = more teachers.
Maintain teaching hiring norms = fewer teachers.
Pulling back the lens: U.S. public education is in grave crisis. No one can agree on how to improve the downward spiral of test scores, literacy rates, post-graduation outcomes. Yet very few will even acknowledge an obvious antidote: More male teachers.
Short-term, a successful focus on male teacher recruitment and retention would stem the immediate teacher shortage. Welcoming men’s unique perspectives in the classroom and school community stands to improve the problem of poor student outcomes. Multiple studies including those by Mckinzie and Harvard find that teams that are racially and gender diverse are more productive and better at problem solving when compared with those less inclusive. A male friend is the foreman at a plastics factory suffered the grumblings from older, male linemen when he promoted a couple women to the management team. “They are great workers, sure,” he told me. “But women do things differently and have different ways of solving problems. It makes everything better.” Education can benefit from what business has known for decades.
Female teachers that I know support a push for male teachers, noting how their presence in schools curbs behavior issues and generally improves school culture.
More male teachers = gender equality
The gender equality movement has focused on righting sexist laws and closing pay and professional access for women. There is now a robust conversation about how to equalize caregiving, though it is disappointedly focused on getting husbands to do more childcare and housework at home.
This is so obvious but apparently needs to be said again and again: more men in caregiving is just more equality all around. More professional opportunities for men, more caregiving modeled for young people and adults alike, more respect for the full humanity of males leads to gender equality for all.
[I will soon write about how this conversation is classist and racist — the groups leading this cause are overwhelmingly white, educated, liberal, coastal and — consistent with that demographic — married. This group is the first to challenge efforts to equalize parenting time for unmarried parents who are disproportionately poor, Black and brown parents. They argue: Male-perpetrated violence is too grave a threat for those dads be presumed to do more caretaking. However, I have yet to hear any concern that a married dad should be scrutinized for safety when expected to do his share of daycare pick up or diaper duty. Rant over. For now.]
Solutions for increasing male teacher rates
I have been researching teacher gender inequality for a couple months and am astonished by the dearth of attention. Aside from a few small programs focused on increasing male teachers of color, this issue has not been an agenda item for any large organization in any meaningful way, as far as I have found.
Study male educators
I am also astonished by the lack of research. So, let’s start there.
First, let’s deepen the tracking of teacher gender in school, district and state data, and make this data more easily accessible.
Then, here are questions I hope academics can help us understand:
How does teacher gender impact student outcomes? Outcomes needing rigorous measures:
Grades
Test scores (standardized state tests and SAT, ACT)
Post-high school paths (college, work, trade school, NEET, parenthood)
Emotional-social outcomes, including relationship health, marriage
Student behavior, violence
Attitudes about gender. Example: Do girls who had more male teachers have more positive or negative attitudes about males? Do they have better or worse social/romantic/professional relationships with men? Etc.
What are reasons men say they do not become teachers — or quit the profession?
What are men’s experiences as teachers specific to their genders?
Do they feel supported?
Singled out to take on discipline? Coach? Move heavy objects?
Subject to unequal oversight re: sexual abuse prevention?
What are female educators’ attitudes about male teachers?
What are parents’ attitudes about teacher gender? Do parents and guardians seek out one gender over the other?
There have been a number of programs designed to recruit and retain male teachers of color throughout the country. What works and what does not?
Rebrand education
Every article, study (few as they are) and social media conversation about a lack of male teachers first cites low teacher pay overall.
While studies do find that men care more about salary than women, not everyone agrees that teacher pay is low.
Entry-level teacher pay for recent college graduates is commensurate with other professional careers — and those salaries are for 9- or 10-month contracts, typically 200 teaching days each year. Hourly rate, therefore, is extremely competitive at this level.
Putting on my marketing hat: Rebrand teaching with more clarity about actual pay, including hourly rate, health and retirement benefits, and education reimbursement.
For example, ChatGPT helped me create this for first-year, entry-level degreed positions. Again, this is annual pay, which for teachers, is 80% of the working hours of a typical employee.
In this way robust effort to attract male teachers stands to benefit teacher recruitment overall.
Face uncomfortable realities for male teachers
In casual conversations with current and former educators (male and female), as well as Reddit and Quora threads, themes emerge that can help us understand really why men are not going into teaching and/or are leaving.
One common thread that stands out is how men are wary of false allegations of sexual misconduct and frustration with double-standards of behavior and oversight. Men are told to quell their human empathy and dare not touch or hug students, while their female colleagues are free to express their humanity when interacting with a distressed kid.
13% of male teachers in a small survey of male teachers in the United States and Canada said they’d been falsely accused of inappropriate behavior with students.
A 2015 survey in the U.K. found one in five school staff victims said they were victims of false claims, which were a key reason they considered leaving the profession.
Other comments include dismay that male early childhood educators are not allowed to change diapers or take kids to the toilet. Others highlight how disproportionately male teachers are tasked with maintenance chores requiring physical strength — in other words, tokenizing the dudes.
Build scalable, evidence-based programs to increase male teacher numbers
There are a handful of programs around the country currently addressing the need for male teachers — most focus on men of color. These include:
Internships for high school boys, placing them in elementary classrooms for school credit
Fellowships for Black high school boys, paying them an hourly wage and giving them community college credits for working in a daycare
Grow-your-own programs that recruit male high school students for collegiate education programs, awarding scholarships in return for commitments to teach in their hometown schools.
Let’s study these programs, understand in a systematic way what works and put fuel on those fires.
Welcome dads into schools
If we’re serious about better outcomes for boys and girls, let’s double-down on welcoming male caregivers into our schools. This could include micro grants to PTAs that recruit male caregiver members. School districts should invest in bias training for front-desk administrators to raise awareness on how much or little they welcome male parents to campus. Simple, free programs like assigning a dad each school morning to welcome students elevates and balances the tone, and even the very personality, of the school’s atmosphere.
Dads on Duty is standout example of the impact male caregivers can have on public education. A few years ago, a group of 40 dads organized themselves in response to escalating violence at a Shreveport, La. high school. Donning branded T-shirts, the dads take turns simply walking the school halls from 7:40 a.m. until after-school hours, got to know students and teachers and lent a male presence that was otherwise lacking at the school — and in many students’ homes.
The bottom line? Violence decreased and student achievement increased.
Now a media darling, Dads on Duty stands as an example of the positive impact even informal male constituency can have in a school.
Equal parenting - male teacher connection
Why am I writing about male teacher shortages on a site focused on equal parenting for separated families?
Both these movements are rooted in the same debated truth:
Men matter.
The social science is robust, decades-old:
Children with actively involved mothers and fathers fare better than children who don’t.
Single moms fare better when their kids’ dad shares parenting responsibilities equally.
Single fathers fare better when they are actively involved in their children’s’ lives.
Equality in the teacher workforce is magic as it addresses multiple challenges simultaneously: Lack of male role models for boy and girls, sexist assumptions about caretaking and work, a national teacher shortage and a generation of men who are under-employed and culturally shut out of care work.
Who else is interested in advancing the movement to promote equal gender representation in schools?
What are you working on? Reach out and let’s share ideas.
If you don't care who gets credit, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.
This resonates. I’m a man I would have loved to work with children, but it’s just too risky. Instead, I’ve been volunteering on projects with children for 20 years now. I’m never alone with a child in a private place, and I never do personal care - I have been asked to do both, but I always refuse.
I recommend the book Men in Early Years Settings: Building a Mixed Gender Workforce (https://share.google/BxcgXNCTkFMJQ7KPS ).
The last section is so important. Saying children need more involved dads isn’t the same as saying they need less involved moms. Children need both, but there is a clear lack of positive make role models in a lot of child’s loves.