> An even more cynical answer is that most ideologues have something to gain from the teacher-shortage narrative. Conservatives might thrill to a story about struggling school districts that have gone all “woke” on their students. Liberals would like more sympathy for public employees who share their political goals. And COVID-policy critics can point to public-school crises as evidence that the U.S. education system bungled its remote-school policy for children who faced little threat from COVID.

I very much liked this bit because explaining an issue how different people would view it is great! More of this kind of good faith empathy. But it’s also funny because they clearly can’t come up with anything for liberals. If you were gonna come up with reasons liberals want the story to be true it would be because they’re happy a large bloc of workers who are underpaid, overworked aren’t putting up with it — “look the tide is changing for labor!”