Annika Hernandez, Riley Fletcher, and Robert Pondiscio highlight a challenge for classical education.
Unlike most 18-year-olds, Lizzie Penola arrived at Hillsdale College in the fall of 2021 with well-formed education and career objectives already set in her mind. One of seven siblings from Zionsville, Indiana, she grew up steeped in classical education through a blend of homeschooling, public school, and a learning co-op. She planned to follow in the footsteps of her mom, a former high school history teacher.
At Hillsdale, a Michigan classical education hub, she pursued a history major and classical education minor with unwavering intent. …
… In the months before graduation, most Hillsdale seniors who want to teach already know where they’ll be working in the fall. “No one is panicking,” Penola said, months before her graduation. “Almost everyone has multiple offers they’re trying to choose from, or they’ve already accepted a job.”
The throng of recruiters who flock to schools like Hillsdale, the University of Dallas, St. John’s College, and Thomas Aquinas College underscores a stark imbalance and a growing threat to the rapidly growing classical education sector: There are too many schools and too few Lizzie Penolas to go around.
As new classical schools sprout nationwide, fueling a revival of liberal arts and virtues-based education, there is no reliable pipeline of trained teachers from which to recruit. Jason Edwards, who leads the capstone seminar of Grove City College’s classical education minor, observes, “We have way more schools reach out to us for candidates than we have candidates to give them.” With too many K–12 schools clamoring for too few graduates, the sector faces a foreseeable crisis: With no formal training programs to meet the burgeoning demand—and a teacher shortage more broadly—where will classical schools find the talent needed to fuel the sector’s continued growth? And can they do so without compromising on the distinctive characteristics and quality that drive demand for classical education in the first place?