I'm not listening, I just don predator.
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not listening.
Yeah, I'm not listening.
Yeah, I'm not listening.
Or should I say me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me?
No, no, I won't.
It's busted pencils fully.
Let it education talk.
Educators talking education, 2026 class is in session.
Johnny Lupinachi, Jacob chairman of the board.
Me, Tim Slecker, we're here.
Well, it's doctors, Tim and doctors, Johnny.
And the me, me, me, me, we'll get into it one of these days.
But, um, Johnny needs some vocal training.
And so I was just showing him.
Um, you know, when I used to work at a summer camp, the, the music.
Um, people, I don't want to say the music nerds because people make fun of the music.
But I'd always hear the vocal training outside my cabin.
And then he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Just all morning long.
Oh.
And so.
And they're all podcast hosts now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, it just goes to show you.
Oh, anyway, we'll, we'll get into it.
But, um, you know, it is, uh, 2026, all kinds of stuff going on.
Um, uh, in case anyone hasn't been, um, paying attention to anything.
Maduro said I didn't do it.
So, uh, there you go, Johnny.
I, you know, you got to throw a little bit of, uh, current events in there.
But yeah, Maduro said he didn't do it.
And, um, Trump said, well, too bad other countries were coming after you.
Next, um, a whole lot going on there.
I also, I think this is one of the things that we want to talk about in the future to, um, America's premise.
But, you know, one of the biggest kind of pet peeves that I've had for Johnny.
You point out it's been a long time.
But Jacob, you sent us this great article from Wisconsin public radio.
Why I did.
And again, reminder for, um, you know, listeners out there from 2013 to 2020.
Um, I think that's one of the things that I've done myself was a, um, Wisconsin, Madison, area resident, Dean of the school of education at, uh,
Edgewood College, um, and I actually was on Wisconsin public radio quite a few times.
I got to talk about this.
And in fact, talked about this issue.
Um, I think that's one of the things that I'm trying to find more Wisconsin teachers hold emergency licenses.
And in the, uh, sub title, DPI, that would be the department of public instruction issued about 4,000 emergency licenses in the
2020 23 24 school year up 20% from 2022.
And I'm going to just leave it there and see what doctors Johnny and chairman of the board, Jacob, make of this article before I launch.
Can I ask a chairman question real quick before we get into it because I am, uh, you know, we, everybody knows this.
I'm still for about nine months now.
And I've learned a lot about education, but I'm still a novice on some of these, you know, these technical matters.
Now, emergency teaching license certainly sounds like it means something to me.
But can you tell me specifically what actually is an emergency teaching license?
Do you need any sort of teaching experience to hop in and get one of these?
Is there any qualification or is it basically we got to fill these seats with people to come in here and hang out with these kids and keep them busy?
I mean, what is an emergency teaching license?
Oh, before I jump in, Johnny, take a stab at it. What do you think?
Well, yeah, Jacob, that's a good question. And Tim, I actually I'm going to defer to you.
I'll take a stab at this, but I'm going to defer to you.
Like we're going to place some, you know, volleyball and we're going to send the ball back over the net to Tim.
And just a second here, because you are really close in your research on like, you know, teacher labor.
And you know, you've called it for years, the teacher exodus, and you've championed on busted pencils.
And then other outlets of, you know, sharing your work that, you know, we don't have a teacher shortage yet.
We say there's a shortage of teachers.
We do not in this country have a shortage of highly qualified people who are licensed and certified to teach.
We just have a really bad record of retaining those highly qualified people in the profession.
And Tim, you could speak to that. You've called it the teacher exodus for years and sort of have battled a back at, you know, media's depiction of the teacher shortage.
But Jacob, your question is important because it's real and it's on the ground.
We can get into the weeds on why there's a shortage of teachers or why there isn't, as Tim calls it, the teacher exodus that's not new.
And certainly still going as we all know, it is not gotten any easier to be a teacher in 2026.
It's only been a week, right? We're just getting back into class.
But yet we know post COVID things have been harder for teachers than maybe ever arguably in the profession.
And that's coming, you know, right from the classrooms of veteran teachers of really great teachers of new teachers of principles of school leaders.
It has always been difficult to be a teacher, but it has only gotten harder and we've put more demands on our teachers than ever.
So we'll come back to that. But Jacob actually asked.
We have an emergency teacher's license and Tim said, I'll ask Johnny to answer.
I can't talk a lot about it, but in short, in short, right?
It's basically like a driver's permit, Jacob, you're allowed, you're allowed to teach because it's not, you can't just have anybody walk into our public schools anywhere in the state.
Uh, in our states, you know, in the US and teach, there's varying levels of what it's what's required to be a licensed teacher state to state.
Remember a little lesson here in class and session education is a state right.
So this is under the office of superintendents in each state.
So it's state determined, but in a sense, Jacob, you can, you get a permit, which allows for you to teach in public schools.
And it's issued typically by the state department, right?
And usually, and this is where I'm, Tim's going to get into some of the weeds here for us, but usually Jacob, there are some requirements.
There's usually some stipulations and it's usually that you need at least a bachelor's degree.
And, and sometimes you need a few formal teaching qualifications that are look a little short of the standard state licensure, right?
But usually involve some kind of enrollment or plan to be an alternative certification program, right?
Or in some special district need area, maybe for example, you were an engineer for, for years and you're going to, you know, teach math or science or computer programming in a public school that has a high need.
There's a shortage for that. They need someone to teach the class.
You have the skill, the degree area, and you have some, this is where it gets great. You have some kind of qualification.
Maybe you've led, you know, youth internship programs or something.
Ideally, you have some connection to education and a plan to become a licensed teacher. That's in best case scenarios.
Jacob, before I pass it back over to him, this is class in session, right?
The other thing to note here is that in some states, it's easier to get your teachers license than it is your drivers license.
So this is state to state.
Ideally, highly qualified teachers in a great state like Wisconsin or Minnesota, you listening in or Michigan, you're in our listener base or anywhere in our country.
It's with highly qualified teachers, right?
Have a whole degree program in accreditation that the, that those teachers go through.
So there's usually programming in place.
But this is essentially, you know, you know, like a temporary business license or, you know, a driver's permit, you can, you can be in the classroom.
You pass, you know, you clear security clearances, you know, you fingerprinted, you're, you're okay in that realm.
There's some basic HR stuff.
You have not been certified to be a licensed teacher, but you know what to do.
And apparently, at least people around you, principle, superintendents and other teachers say, this would be a great person to add to our school, have teaching our kids.
That's best case scenario.
So Jacob, that's a little bit about, that's the long version of what it means.
I have no idea what Tim's doing. He's taking his policies.
It's a grumble.
Oh, the pulse.
I'm like, is this a queue we didn't talk about?
Like we're supposed to know these hand gestures.
I'll pass it back to you, Jacob and Tim though, because Tim certainly knows firsthand about this really, really good information.
All right, Jacob, you want to add a little bit more?
I do, Tim, because what I'm hearing, I think I'm getting it.
Basically, it's a, it's a waving of some of the standard requirements for teachers.
And depending on the state, if you're in a state, let's say I'm making it up, but it's a Connecticut has really high standards.
If you get an emergency teaching license in Connecticut, it may mean you're totally qualified in Kentucky or a different state.
You're just not quite at the standard of whatever.
And it really depends on the state to tell you how good an emergency teacher could be.
Was Johnny's description correct Tim?
I know Johnny and I will study other areas.
Yeah, it's, it's, oh man, it's, it's a mess. Let me just say.
Actually, what, what this article points out is as that Johnny Lupinachi is wrong.
Easier now than ever to quote, become a teacher.
We single day since this quote shortage has been proclaimed the qualifications required.
They've actually been dumbed down, drop down.
And again, it depends on states, right?
In my old state in Ohio right now, emergency license are high school graduates.
You know, there's, there's the standard. So Johnny's absolutely right.
States all have their own individual ways of laying out who it is.
The qualifications needed and the type of whether you can work in an elementary setting, whether you can work in a, you know, in a secondary setting.
It was constant specifically.
Just to point out, be factual.
You have tier one and tier two licenses, right?
And the tier two license is, well, that's, that's actually a teaching license.
Tier one license is the, you're not a teacher, but state law requires that public schools only hire teachers.
So we're going to circumvent the law by creating another class of teachers called tier one teachers of which your qualification is that you have a bachelor's degree.
And so you can see what I'm pointing out here is that you're actually not a teacher.
You are proclaimed a teacher by, by state, you know, legislative, maneuvering back and forth.
In other words, because we have a teacher shortage.
And when it comes to reporting such things as how many quote teachers do you have working in your district.
One of the things Wisconsin has always been wonderful about is actually creating a huge smoke screen when it comes to reporting teachers because the emergency license allows you to skip forward.
And proclaim that yes, you do have teachers because the requirement, though, typically says you have to commit to getting a tier two license, then, right.
So back in the day when Tony Evers was the Department of Public Instruction, state superintendent.
A lot of this came forward and I pushed back in heavily because I kept saying this is not a solution to the shortage.
This is an end around the problem and actually diminishes and in fact hides reality and put it this way too.
Because I was involved in this state licensing and putting forwards and special education quote teachers, you could become a special education teacher by simply filling out the paperwork for a tier one license, which was a bachelor's degree and a commitment to go back to school to get your special education licensing.
And at the time, I don't see this in the article, but it was like three, three years.
And I pointed out I'm like it's unreasonable to think that any unlicensed quote emergency teacher who's in a special education classroom full time all day long is going to actually go back to school night school, typically graduate school to get there.
Special education licensing while they're also working full time at the same time as they're actually doing both of these you couldn't do it.
However, what I was always pointing out is is that this really serves, though, the weight again to pull the wool over a lot of people's eyes because when you find out and I was always taking this.
I was really trying to advocate for the profession of teachers to say that this downgrades and degrades and continues to just make more of a problem with actual fully professional licensed teachers.
But think about this, you're a family you're a parent of a special needs child in Wisconsin.
You have by law mandated that your child gets an IEP and gets a special educator right there.
That law then should be that when you don't have a qualified special educator, you don't have the personnel to actually legitimately say that you're complying with the law.
But because of this emergency licensure that's an end around the law and the reality is is that there are kids out there and families being served by most of the time really passionate individuals who really want to do the best thing by kids.
But they're not qualified. They're not special educators. They're emergency licensed people who give a damn.
That's the best way to point it out, but they're not they're not special educators. And I said, this isn't the answer to the problem at this at that time in 2018, particularly special education.
And I look at this article, special education is still the high, the most number one awarded emergency license and Wisconsin to the state.
So that that's a crime. That's a crime. I mean, I'm going to put it this way.
Tomorrow, I'm going to go and apply for my emergency airline pilot license.
The government said it's legal. Jacob, as far as you know, you're getting on my airplane. I got a license, dude.
Tim, I'm not on this plane with you under any circumstance. You understand me, Tim, I don't care how big the shortage is.
And I think, you know, I think parents, although again, in the best case scenario, which is never the reality of the parent and a family's lives, but it's to say, no, until I get a qualified license, special educator, a qualified license,
secondary English teacher until I get that, no, we're not coming. We're not coming. And the state, you have to fix this. And you don't fix it by, quote, creating emergency licenses that actually don't give any type of special properties or qualifications to
again, well meaning people who give a damn and want to help out, but the reality is, is that they're not qualified teachers and actually going all the way back to no child left behind.
Highly qualified teachers is mandated and emergency licensure that was actually an end around to be able to meet that quote highly qualified standard.
So this is a sham. It's a mess. I'm going to leave it at that and let you guys make fun of me.
Well, I'm going to make fun of you Tim. I think our, our big picture. We're in the same, you know, scope here. Like I think you hit the nail on the head. This is a bigger problem in terms of how do we retain the large number of highly qualified teachers that are out there to stay in jobs, especially in special education, which we know funding has been cut to the supports aren't in place for special educators to do the job they're trained to do.
Every teacher we've talked to that's left the profession, you know, has spoken about, you know, just not having the support they need to do good teaching.
So when you're highly trained to know what children need and that need is not being provided for by and I hate to pick on the states, but education is a state right by the states or we can open up a bigger argument for like why federal funding was so important to states as well.
You know, but I think the big picture here being we know there needs to be major change and how we support teachers teaching, which ultimately means investing in our children's futures.
But Tim, I would play, I guess it's not devil's advocate because in the end, I think we want to see the same thing, you know, better improved support and funding for good teaching to take place. That means, you know, limiting class sizes. That means, you know, making sure teachers have prep time and hours to, you know, do the grading and the different things that go into the job that isn't just being with kids for a big chunk of the day.
But in the meantime, here we are. We're in a situation where there is clearly a shortage. I hate to call it that because again, as our listeners know, both you and I know there isn't a shortage of teachers.
There's just an ability to retain them.
That's a whole other day to set. We need to blow off. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, like you said, I just want to play this advocate in the meantime. I'm a school leader. I'm a teacher in a building. We're spread extra thin.
We need people and we have some really great folks. Like you said, not just only well intentioned, but qualified in some ways, generally often with life skills. Sometimes they're military veterans. Sometimes they're, you know, experienced coaches.
Other times there, you know, coming out of industry where they've done some teaching, right, who are saying actually I see I saw this firsthand in the, you know, the labor collapse and Detroit, a lot of automotive workers who had a lot of high skill.
To offer knowledge to offer and high and high schools and in middle schools, whether they were writing, you know, whatever their jobs were, whether they were accountants, whether they were engineers of all different kinds, designers, drafts, and all kinds of different professions.
When the automotive industry collapsed in the 2000s, actually, there's probably a couple of different historical dates. We can pinpoint that on. There was a big flood of emergency teachers from that industry into education.
And, and schools benefited. They got some great teachers. And one of the things Tim, I want to play doubles advocate on possibly here, or just another view is if I'm a school leader, and I know that there's somebody I can get into my school, who is safe to be around kids and has a knowledge.
They might need some support on like, I believe, hold, hold hard to leave that you learn a lot and accredited teacher programs. Obviously I teach and one, but I wouldn't teach and one if I didn't believe that teacher training teacher education is really important.
But I also know that like in Wisconsin, these are one year emergency certification. So I'm saying as a principal, hey, I've got to get somebody who's not just a sub in this classroom, who cares about kids, who is, who passes security clearances. I know that's not the right term, right?
But for all, for all tense purposes here, who can be in my classroom, Tim keeps saying it's a pulse, but I, you know, having been in this situation, I know it's more than that.
That's worst case scenario. And I'm not a worst case scenario guy, worst case scenario, Tim saying that there's a loophole here to put anybody in your kids classrooms to me.
That's as scare tactic as, you know, the extreme left and the extreme right like to make us believe. I think there are good people. I think Jacob, you sent seven percent increase in the emergency licenses in Racine.
Yeah, there's some really good people who are great writers who are verosious readers who are good around our kids going into education. Are they as fully trained as Tim is saying they ought to be and by state law historically were required to be.
No, that's the loophole that I'm, I'm worried about Tim too is if we make this opening, which we've done and had to do, does it diminish the responsibility of the state to hold that standard firm?
Yes. And that's my issue, dude, right there is is that I'm, look, I think what you're talking about and, and you know, we've covered this, this topic about alternative licensing pathways, identifying great people.
To get them into a position to do the job. Yeah, and Johnny's got that verosious and for.
Jacob, thanks for pointing out, but, but I think that's a totally other issue about actually making a commitment to figuring out ways to get people into teaching who could be great teachers to get them the qualifications they need.
And again, when we say alternative through different ways to get their education to earn the certification through different modes, through different modalities, through different ways.
That's, that is a responsible in fact, maybe innovative way to address the reality of saying that actually the one way only to become a licensed credential teacher teacher really has been a drawback in for the longest time.
That's true, but that isn't what's happening through the quote emergency licensing. It really is this kind of an ability to say, as you pointed out to a principal who's got three open classrooms in August.
Yeah, the kids are coming and they got to put quote a responsible adult to make sure the safety of the kids is guaranteed with some qualifications, but whether there's a commitment to creating qualified educators through the emergency licensing pathway.
I don't see that. I see the optimism in programs like we saw it and we interviewed at Western Michigan University where they're taking apprentice approaches to getting school bus drivers in teacher education program so that they can keep their job and become a licensed teacher to get that credential because I don't care.
When I hire my neighbor who says, yeah, I can come over and look at your pipe at your pipes. Look, I don't know what I'm getting. I want a licensed plumber. I want a licensed airline pilot. I want a licensed doctor. I want qualified people. I want an accountant who understands what they're doing.
And to insist on that is what all American citizens should be doing to insist on a minimum qualification that you be certified in the profession or occupation that you are going to do the work and that you as a consumer, a customer, a student, a parent that you're getting what it is that you're supposed to be getting.
Because we have a shortage. And if we continue to figure out ways to solve the principles problem with three open classrooms in August, we will never solve the problem of why he has or she has three openings in August. That's, that's all I got to say.
The problem here is the operative word in this idea is that it's supposed to be an emergency teachers license in an emergency situation like Johnny brought up. I just have these three openings. There isn't time. We need to have a person do it.
Then you hire somebody with this emergency teaching license. Tim, you're telling me that you've been dealing with this problem here in Wisconsin since 2019.
And I'm seeing 16 Jacob 2016. It's 10 years Timothy. Yes. 10 years. And we're up 20% and the amount of these licenses being issued since 2022. That's three years ago.
And I said that is what would happen is is that you won't solve the teacher shortage with this. You will just increase the number of emergency licenses because it will continue to exacerbate the shortage and or exit is it will create more need for less qualified teachers by doing this.
And we're not like we're likely said, you know, in Johnny's specific situation, we're okay with the idea, you know, yeah, if there's really an emergency and it's not it, it's not a 10 year solution to the problem.
Okay, for this for this semester, maybe these things work. But once the system starts to rely on this temporary emergency measure as the new status quo as the new way that they're going to deal with this as a policy.
We're just, yeah, we'll just fix it with emergency teachers for a decade. Then it really starts to show the flaws in this tool. This tool is not for this fix a flat is great. But if you've got four tires with fix a flat that you've been driving for a decade, you need to go to a mechanic. You need to get new tires on that car.
That's a good summary of it, Jacob, because I want to just emphasize and I think Tim hit this too. It's like there are some really great people out there who are filling in here who are pinch hitting in spots where we absolutely need you and kids are lucky to have you and we appreciate you making that career change and putting in those extra hours to enroll in a program to get certified in an alternate pathway, right, especially in our rural districts. This is common. This has been around for a long time.
But Jacob, you put it really well. And that's what Tim's been showing for years is this is a floodgate that got opened and now here we are drowning in flood water.
And we need to do something differently by and large to support our teachers to make teaching an accessible career for more people because we flat out need to be able to provide kids with great teachers.
And this emergency stop gap, you know, what with well intention also has the flip side of the coin, like Tim's showing us, right. It also opens up the door for a lot of, you know, ill intention of devaluing what it means to be a teacher to not solving the bigger problems that principles and superintendents have in their districts of retaining teachers, you know, and fixing the problem.
And fixing the problem ultimately for the future of our democracy, not the hyperblize here, but that's a reality here, right.
Boston Pence is we're talking about public education is the bedrock of our nation's democracy.
So the least we could do in public education is well democracy as we know in the bigger, bigger scheme of politics right now is under pretty, is under fire in our country.
The least we could do is, you know, support it from our classrooms and our communities where we are the foundation of it, we are at the roots.
So, hey, if you're listening out there and you were curious about emergency licensing and Wisconsin or wherever you're at, Boston pencils, we appreciate you listening because Tim's template it out.
I tried to play doubles advocate and I think we landed Jacob on the right spot where well, well, intended to be a small fix, you know, to help to help get by it's become the norm and that's never good.
Well, I'm and I'm thinking right now fix a flat you're out there you heard that yeah we'll take you as a sponsor why not and now it's time for your moment of zen.
The establishment whatever rewards it gives us will also if necessary to maintain its control kill us.
Thanks for listening to busted pencils class in session and you can always grab great podcasts like this one just search busted pencils on Apple podcasts spotify and of course you can always find us on the civic media website or at busted pencils dot com.
Hey and don't forget to find us throughout the week every Monday Wednesday Friday with home rooms class in sessions and always loads of fun with Jacobs producers choice and listen up pencil busters you know you can always catch the bus to pencils broadcast at 3 p.m. Central time across all the civic media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars Tim and Johnny keep busting pencils.
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