By Chandra Madafferi, President & CEO of the Michigan Education Association

Close your eyes and imagine an elementary school teacher. The chances are good that you pictured a woman.

You can’t be blamed for that assumption, as preK-12 education is one of the least gender-diverse professions around. Men make up less than 24% of total teachers in Michigan, according to the Michigan Department of Education’s latest Educator Workforce Data Report, including just 11% of teachers in the elementary grades.

The lack of enough talented men in the classroom to serve as positive role models is contributing to lower academic success, increased challenging behaviors and worse overall outcomes for this generation of boys.

That’s why we must commit to increasing the number of men in the teacher pipeline by improving wages for all educators and through targeted recruitment efforts to encourage more males to enter the education profession.

All students, regardless of gender, benefit from having a diverse group of teachers who can help better prepare them for an interconnected world. But children can go years without having a male teacher — maybe by the time they reach middle or high school, well after those critical early years when it can have the biggest impact.

Even at the high school level, there’s a shortage of male teachers, including those who coach sports. These men can play a pivotal role in students’ lives, often helping to shape the path they take after graduation.

I saw the positive impact on my students when the varsity football or wrestling coach stopped by my classroom, just to say hello and check in with their athletes. For some students, these male educators were their primary male role models.

We need more of them.

Our state has made tremendous gains over the past eight years in increasing the number of talented people in the educator pipeline. After reaching a low point in the 2016-17 school year with only 9,500 students enrolled in teacher certification programs, we’re now back up to 17,780 enrollees, according to the state Department of Education. However, the same data shows that only 19% of current teacher prep students are male.

When boys don’t see themselves in their teachers, they don’t see teaching as a career option, even if they have the potential to be amazing educators. Those kids who do show an interest are often talked out of it by others, missing out on a career full of joy and fulfillment.

There is no quick and easy solution to this problem, but we must lay the groundwork now.

The first solution is simple: We must pay educators more so they can comfortably support a family and not have to scrape by. Michigan ranks 45th in the nation in starting teacher pay, and we’ve dropped to 22nd in overall average teacher pay, according to the National Education Association’s latest Rankings and Estimates report, released last week. It’s difficult to entice people to enter a field where they’ll earn about 73% of what their peers with similar education earn.

Second, we must increase respect for educators across the board. Teachers, education support staff, and higher education faculty are highly trained professionals, and it’s critical that policymakers at all levels listen to their voices. No man or woman wants to go into a profession where they aren’t respected.

Third, we all need to work together to actively recruit more men into the education profession, through both traditional and non-traditional pathways. That includes increasing the number of talented people entering college to become teachers, as well as encouraging more professionals to make a mid-career shift into the classroom.

Far too many men are missing out on the most rewarding career in the world, and too many kids are missing out on some potentially amazing educators. We at the Michigan Education Association are committed to fixing that, for the benefit of all of our children.