Douglas A. Smith - Böcker

This book focuses on the topic of the multiple-stakeholders that comprise the education community across the P-20 continuum. In various ways and forms, the authors of the chapters found within this book promote the importance of engaging with the diverse array of stakeholders in order to truly improve education in an increasingly interconnected world. The book itself is divided into two major arcs, the first of which covers community relations and stakeholder engagement in P-12 schools, while the second addresses those same issues in higher education. When one considers the activities that take place within education institutions, there is a realization that they are influenced and driven by much more than just the educators and administrators who occupy the schools. In the editors’ own work, (e.g., see Tran & Bon, 2016), the importance of the inclusion of the viewpoints and inputs of multiple-stakeholders in school decisions when appropriate has been consistently argued, given that the school is considered by many to be a social and communal environment. To address these issues, in this text, this book is lucky to have a collection of peer-reviewed writing that explore various aspects of how multiple-stakeholder input can be used to improve school decisions.

This book focuses on the topic of the multiple-stakeholders that comprise the education community across the P-20 continuum. In various ways and forms, the authors of the chapters found within this book promote the importance of engaging with the diverse array of stakeholders in order to truly improve education in an increasingly interconnected world. The book itself is divided into two major arcs, the first of which covers community relations and stakeholder engagement in P-12 schools, while the second addresses those same issues in higher education. When one considers the activities that take place within education institutions, there is a realization that they are influenced and driven by much more than just the educators and administrators who occupy the schools. In the editors’ own work, (e.g., see Tran & Bon, 2016), the importance of the inclusion of the viewpoints and inputs of multiple-stakeholders in school decisions when appropriate has been consistently argued, given that the school is considered by many to be a social and communal environment. To address these issues, in this text, this book is lucky to have a collection of peer-reviewed writing that explore various aspects of how multiple-stakeholder input can be used to improve school decisions.

Teacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red, convened at the state capital in downtown Columbia, SC (Bowers, 2019b). This statewide teacher walkout was assembled to call for the improvement of teachers' working conditions and the learning conditions of their students. The gathering was the largest display of teacher activism in the history of South Carolina and reflected a trend in a larger wave of teacher walkouts that have rippled across the nation over the last five years. The crowd comprised teachers from across South Carolina, who walked out of their classrooms for the gathering, as well as numerous students, parents, university faculty, and other community members that rallied with teachers in solidarity.Undergirding this walkout and others that took hold across the country is a perennial and pervasive pattern of unfavorable teacher working conditions that have contributed to what some are calling a teacher shortage “crisis” (Chuck, 2019). We have focused our work specifically on the illustrative case of South Carolina, given the extreme teacher staffing challenges the state is facing. Across numerous metrics, the South Carolina teacher shortage has reached critical levels, influenced by teacher recruitment and retention challenges. For instance, the number of teacher education program completers has declined annually, dropping from 2,060 in 2014-15 to 1,642 in the 2018-19 school year. Meanwhile, the number of teachers leaving the teaching field has increased from 4,108.1 to 5,341.3 across that same period (CERRA, 2019). These trends are likely to continue as COVID-19 has put additional pressure on the already fragile teacher labor market.Some of the hardest-to-staff districts are often located in communities with the highest diversity and poverty. To prosper and progress, reformers and public stakeholders must have a vested interest in maintaining full classrooms and strengthening the teaching workforce. An important element of progress towards tackling these longstanding challenges is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem. While teacher shortages are occurring nationwide (Garcia & Weiss, 2019), how they manifest regionally is directly influenced by its localized historical context and the evolution of the teaching profession's reputation within a state. Thus, the impetus of this book is to use South Carolina as an illustrative example to discuss the context and evolution that has shaped the status of the teaching profession that has led to a boiling point of mass teacher shortages and the rise of historic teacher walkouts.