| | |  | BY MYAH WARD | | 
A sign is displayed at the entrance of the headquarters for Chicago Public Schools. | Scott Olson/Getty Images | NO MORE TEACHERS — The crisis in American schools since the pandemic began is an education crisis, but it’s also a labor shortage. A superintendent in Boston taught a fourth-grade class this week because of staffing issues. Some Ohio school districts have cut degree requirements for substitute teachers and increased their pay. Schools are desperate for nurses. Bus drivers are so hard to find that the Departments of Transportation and Education announced this week that states can waive a part of the commercial driver’s license requirement to address the shortage. Michigan schools need more cafeteria workers. This is the latest facet of the Great Resignation. Workers in low-paying industries like hospitality, and high-stress industries like health care, have moved on to other jobs. Many education jobs fall into both categories on the pay and stress scales. But in education, at least, these challenges precede the pandemic, said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union, in an interview with Nightly. Low pay and resources for teachers — and low wages and limited career pathways for other school workers — have driven them to quit in droves, she said. Pringle’s NEA has been tracking the teacher shortage for years. A 2016 survey showed just 4.2 percent of college freshmen planned to major in education, the lowest point in 45 years. And that was before Covid. Layer in pandemic burnout, fear of the virus, mental health challenges, and new teaching models like remote and hybrid learning, and many educators decided to leave the field, Pringle said. Even so, there was a sense of optimism in schools and among teachers this fall, Jane McAlevey, a senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, told Nightly. Of the school districts she works with as a union organizer, primarily large, urban districts, many teachers hoped for a better school year, with vaccines and funding from the Biden administration meant to improve Covid safety in schools. But when employees showed up this August, especially in the nation’s poorest districts, their buildings lacked essential pandemic tools such as expanded testing programs, HEPA filters, working windows to help with ventilation and functioning water faucets, McAlevey said. “I remember getting on a phone call with the head of the San Francisco teachers union … and they had the highest resignations in the history of recorded resignations by week two of school,” McAlevey said, adding that these resignations mirror what’s happening in health care, another mission-driven and female-dominated field.
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Assistant Principal Melissa Helman talks with Principal Alice Hom at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 in New York City. | Michael Loccisano/Getty Images | The network of substitute teachers that schools have relied on for years has also frayed, another issue that predates Covid. Amanda von Moos, managing director of Substantial Classrooms, a substitute teacher advocacy group, said the system has not changed in 100 years. “It’s the original gig economy model,” von Moos said, “characterized by high autonomy and flexibility to decide when and where to work, little to no training or support, a high decree of professional isolation and no guarantee of income or professional growth. It’s chief strength has been keeping costs low.” Teachers unions across the country have called for a more cautious approach to bringing children back into classrooms, drawing criticism from parents and pundits on both the right and the left. McAlevey countered that educators agree that in-person learning is a better model. But, she noted, epidemiologists have criticized a vaccine-only approach for reopening society, and that extends to schools, where more testing and mitigation measures are needed, in her view. Teaching is a tough job. And as classrooms across the country are learning, it’s not true that somebody has to do it. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard.
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| | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | — Arbery killers get life in prison; no parole for father, son: Ahmaud Arbery’s family asked a judge to show no lenience in sentencing three white men convicted of murder for chasing the running Black man in pickup trucks , cutting off his escape and fatally blasting him with a shotgun. During the sentencing hearing, Arbery’s sister recalled her brother’s humor, describing him as a positive thinker with a big personality. She told the judge her brother had dark skin “that glistened in the sunlight,” thick, curly hair and an athletic build, factors that made him a target to the men who pursued him. — DeSantis defends allowing stockpiled Covid tests to expire: Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his administration’s decision to allow up to 1 million Covid-19 rapid test kits to expire , as he is facing increasing criticism from Democrats over his handling of the Omicron surge. Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie admitted during a Thursday press conference that the tests expired, and DeSantis sought today to explain why the state didn’t distribute them. DeSantis has argued that the stockpile resulted from a lack of demand in the later part of 2021 and blamed President Joe Biden’s administration for not granting extensions to keep the tests eligible — something it did in September for three months. — Appeals court weighs revived challenge to Texas’ abortion ban: A three-judge panel gave a chilly reception to a request from Texas abortion clinics to send a challenge to the state’s controversial abortion ban back to a lower court that previously ruled to block the law. Instead, the panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated that it’s likely to side with the state’s request to let the Texas Supreme Court rule on the ban’s constitutionality — a move that could prolong its enforcement for months — and even suggested holding off a decision about who should hear the challenge until the fate of Roe v. Wade is decided later this year. — Treasury to send $1B in rental aid to high-demand states, cities: The Treasury Department is shifting more than $1.1 billion in pandemic rental assistance to states and cities that spent the first round of aid quickly , clawing back aid that went unused. California, New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia will each receive tens of millions of dollars pulled from governments with low disbursement rates. Numerous cities, towns and tribes will also receive additional money as Treasury reallocates unspent funds from the first $25 billion of the $46.5 billion rental relief program authorized by Congress to keep people housed during Covid-19. — Meadows urges Supreme Court to quickly decide Trump’s Jan. 6 lawsuit: Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, facing a potential criminal charge for defying a Jan. 6 select committee subpoena, is pleading with the Supreme Court to expedite its consideration of a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump — a decision he notes could get him, and other former Trump aides, off the hook. In a 34-page brief today, Meadows said he and other Trump aides subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee are caught between a former president — who claims he can still assert executive privilege — and Biden, who has rejected Trump’s assertions and ordered the release of key documents to congressional investigators. — Court dismisses groping complaint against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo: An Albany criminal court agreed today to drop a misdemeanor complaint of forcible touching against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The complaint, arising from allegations that Cuomo groped a former staffer, has been the only charge brought against the former governor after a year in which he faced a long list of accusations on a variety of subjects and resigned last August over the sexual harassment complaints.
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| | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | 
A Ukrainian soldier puts on his boots in a building on the front line in Marinka, Ukraine. | Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images | BE PREPARED — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said today that Western powers were bracing for the possibility that high-stakes talks with Russia could break down , and that the alliance was reinforcing military capabilities along its eastern flank as well as readying potentially crippling economic sanctions should Moscow attack Ukraine, David M. Herszenhorn and Jacopo Barigazzi write. Stoltenberg’s remarks, following a videoconference of NATO foreign affairs ministers, delivered a pointed warning to the Kremlin ahead of a week of diplomatic talks — in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna — that were set off by a major Russian military mobilization on the Ukrainian border, and by threats from President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials of an invasion should the United States and NATO allies not accede to a long list of security demands. “NATO will engage in dialogue with Russia in good faith and on substance,” Stoltenberg said in his opening remarks at a news conference. “But we must also be prepared for the possibility that diplomacy will fail.” Stoltenberg, the alliance’s top civilian leader, was cryptic when pressed for details, but insisted NATO would be ready to match any threat.
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| | | COMEDY SIZES UP JAN. 6 A YEAR LATER — The commemorations in Washington on Thursday remembering the Jan. 6 insurrection may have taken on somber tones, but as Matt Wuerker shows us in the latest Weekend Wrap , political satire and cartoons still found ways to grapple with the events of the day, and what they mean for our democracy.
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