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Every year in early May we celebrate Teacher Recognition Week as a way to recognize the tremendous work that our educators perform each day in teaching the students in their classrooms. We all can remember those special teachers who helped guide us to become the people we are today because they cared, inspired and believed in us. As Henry Adams said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” That statement is as true today as it was when he said it more than 100 years ago. Research shows that the single most significant factor in the academic success of children is the quality of classroom teaching.

Unfortunately, as a new report by the Public Policy Forum documents, having a continual supply of well trained teachers is far from a sure thing in Wisconsin. Between 2010 and 2014, an average of more than 5,000 Wisconsin teachers left the profession each year. For most of those years, fewer teachers entered the classroom than left, which resulted in a net loss of teachers at the same time that student enrollment increased slightly.