America’s Future Workforce Is Being
Built in High School. We’re Driving Away the People Who Build It
Every
entrepreneur I’ve ever backed has said they wouldn’t be where they are were it
not for a teacher who challenged them or refused to give up on them.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING
PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN
Oct 26,
2026
We talk a lot about investing in the future, but we
consistently refuse to invest in the people actually building that very
challenging future for and with our children: teachers. Teachers are underpaid,
under-resourced, overworked, and chronically unappreciated, even as we expect
them to be educators, social workers, mentors, referees, mandated reporters,
first responders and crisis managers all at once. It’s a critical task and a
thankless job at the same time. But if we don’t start trying to make things
better, even the most selfless, dedicated and passionate teachers won’t be
around much longer and the pipeline for new prospects looks increasingly dire.
Our high schools across the country are really the front lines of the battle.
High school is, in many
ways, the last institutional checkpoint before adulthood and the place where
the final boundaries, guardrails and remnants of discipline still somewhat
exist. It’s often overcrowded, messy, hormonal, chaotic, and inconsistent. We know
that the students’ brains are, at best, only partially formed and–in terms of
consequential judgment–they’ve got at least another decade to go to get real.
But high school is also
where an enormous amount of identity, aspiration, and possibility gets
initially formed and developed. It’s fluid and malleable, and, in truth, strong
teachers at this point probably have a greater influence on what’s being formed
and how so many of these kids will turn out than their parents do–even if
they’re fortunate enough to have two parents at home. Of course, in so many
communities, active, angry, and judgmental parents are simply another dimension
of the problems that teachers must deal with along with daily lectures on how
they’re doing everything wrong.
Being in those
classrooms, at that time, with those kids, is still one of the highest-impact
and least understood jobs in the country. Every entrepreneur I’ve ever backed,
every engineer I’ve ever hired, every leader I’ve ever watched succeed or fail
will tell you in an instant that they wouldn’t be where they are if they hadn’t
interacted with some teacher, somewhere, who they believe saw them, pushed
them, challenged them, and/or refused to give up on them. That’s the power,
impact and leverage that teachers carry, whether we choose to value it or not.
If we’re serious about
supporting and preparing our kids, engaging rather than enraging our
communities, and maintaining some semblance of global competitiveness, we have
to start by valuing the people in the classroom and paying them with something
more than lip service. CEOs complain that they can’t find people who can write
a coherent email, show up on time, or handle basic conflict without melting
down. Those aren’t college skills; they’re high school skills. You’re feeling,
in your recruiting pipeline, exactly what’s happening in those buildings. If
you hollow out high school teaching, you don’t just damage kids; you damage
your future workforce.
In Chicago, as one sad
example, where we have an incompetent mayor who’s a former employee and a
feckless pawn of the Chicago Teachers Union, we pay our super-scrutinized
teachers less than they’re worth, force them to pay dues and embed them in a
corrupt system dominated by an overpaid and crooked set of hyper-political
bureaucrats, and then act surprised when burnout rises and talent leaves the
profession.
While the aggregate
school expenditures paid by the city’s taxpayers continue to grow
exponentially, the necessary and appropriate funds never seem to reach the
classrooms or benefit the students or even the teachers. We have run down
buildings built to accommodate up to 1,000 students which presently serve less
than 50 kids a year and yet have do-nothing staff that outnumber the actual
kids who do attend these decrepit and dirty shells of what they once were.
But the problems that
are even more distressing and damaging to the whole enterprise relate to a
relatively new set of existential threats, risks and concerns that nearly every
teacher now has regardless of whether they’re teaching at an inner-city school
or in some affluent suburban academy. Teachers have always been easy targets
and whipping boys for sloppy and indifferent administrators, lazy, negligent
and blame-shifting parents, and ignorant politicians.
But they never expected
that entering their workplaces on a daily basis would entail risking their
careers and even their lives in so many new and frightening ways. Imagine an
environment where you’re running active shooter drills right alongside fire drills
and you’ll begin to get the picture. And honestly, if we as a society don’t
start addressing these situations, it’s going to be difficult to even recruit
anyone qualified who has other options.
Teachers today face a
growing list of concerns ranging from mass shootings on school grounds from
maniacs, daily in-school physical violence from students and parents, untreated
mental health issues, false accusations from unstable and aggrieved students
regarding all manner of sexual matters, theft and destruction of their personal
property, and attacks on their homes and family. Weaponized and angry social
media sparks and inflames division, feuds, fights and property destruction
among the students that often spill over and involves the teachers and staff as
well.
They’re always in a
defensive posture–blame first and then investigate–against any and all
accusations, allegations, fake videos and postings, etc. and they absolutely
know that their own peers, administrators, principals and school boards will
happily throw their careers away and turn them over to the hordes of angry
parents in order to save their own skins. And because districts are terrified
of lawsuits and bad press, it doesn’t matter that the teacher has been in the
room, day after day, doing the work. In the face of enough noise, experience
and context take a back seat to damage control.
We used to assume that
teachers were professionals doing their best with limited resources to manage
and control 20-30 adolescents in a safe environment with 100 percent
accountability and modest authority. Now the system assumes that they’re one
complaint away from misconduct. We’ve steadily stripped teachers of authority
while increasing their accountability as we hold them responsible for
everything that happens in the room but give them fewer and fewer tools which
they’re allowed to use to maintain order. Any attempt at discipline is a
potential grievance, a board complaint, or a viral clip stripped of all
context.
A very vocal and toxic
minority of parents have also become a larger and more pressing problem—enabled
again by social media–they have long ago abandoned any real interest in their
own children’s well-being or education and instead are excited to exercise
their power to try to control, edit, and eliminate any activities, content or
other materials in the schools that they have been told (rarely any firsthand
information here) are offensive to someone or something. The cultural wars
fomented and amplified by Trump and his education secretary have now come to
rest in every classroom. Books are dangerous, lesson plans are inappropriate,
grades, of course, are unfair and prejudiced, rules and discipline are too
rigid and outmoded, and, best of all, their children have been dissed by nasty
and uncaring teachers.
Curricula are being
micromanaged by people who haven’t set foot in a classroom in decades. Words,
topics, and entire subject areas are turning radioactive overnight. Teachers
are now expected to somehow intuit what they’re allowed to say; what they’re required
to say; and what they’re supposed to pretend not to know about matters of
public health and other similar community issues. They face a constantly
shifting rulebook, conflicting directives from every direction, and the
permanent risk that a single misinterpreted sentence could end their career.
So why would anyone want
to do it? The answer is brutally simple: because, despite everything, it still
matters more than almost anything else you can do with your working life and
some of our best people do it because they believe the work matters more than
the abuse. They remember the adults who changed their own lives, and they’re
stubborn enough to try to be that person for someone else.
But we can’t keep
running this system on guilt, nostalgia, and the goodwill of exhausted
professionals. Banking our future on the stubbornness and self-sacrifice of a
shrinking group of idealists is not a strategy. Loving kids and believing in
education shouldn’t require you to accept physical danger, constant disrespect,
and the permanent possibility of public humiliation as part of the package.
The better question is:
“How long do we think we can keep treating teachers this way before no one will
want to teach?” If we don’t start fixing things, we’re going to find out–the
hard way–what a society looks like when the best people decide the classroom
just isn’t worth the risk anymore.
What can you do? Pay
attention to who you’re electing to school boards and city offices, because
those people are designing and determining your talent pipeline. Put your time
and money into real partnerships with specific schools–mentoring, internships,
teacher externships in companies–instead of another corporate PR campaign about
“supporting education.” And finally find the folks and organizations like Pete Kadens at Hope Chicago that are already making a real impact and difference in
the lives of thousands of students and get behind them.