https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-new-education-crisis-a-teacher-shortage/ What do you think? This is certainly the case in my area. I teach social studies - which never has vacancies - and schools are even struggling to fill those. One would think this would make it easier for beginning teachers, but that often isn’t the case. Area universities are not finding it easy to place student teachers - partly due to testing pressures and other teacher evaluation items like SLOs
Yet there are posts on this board and others about people not able to get teaching jobs. I think there may be shortages in some areas or subjects. I also think that in some schools they have applicants but turn them down for a variety of reasons depending on the district.
I think there might be a shortage in some specific subjects in some areas. I don't think there is a shortage of elementary or Social Studies teachers in most places. There is definitely not a shortage in my state -- Massachusetts.
DH’s school just started the year short two English teachers. We had ONE candidate for our math position, and only two applicants were interested in our science position. We have had several younger teachers leave teaching the last couple of years.
Definitely depends on area! My hometown - wealthy families, top public schools - hundreds of applicants for one position. Moved couple hours south (same state) - worst schools in the state - hundreds of vacancies, many filled by long term subs, very few applicants - huge shortage!
In my area, (about 5 school districts) the schools hire year round and traditionally begin the school year well over 100 teachers short.
I agree it depends on the area. Areas that don't treat/pay teachers well certainly have shortages. We have shortages in certain areas. For a generic elementary position, we get way less applicants than in previous years, but we don't have any trouble filling the positions. We used to get several hundred applicants per job and now we'll get maybe 20. So the candidate pool isn't what admin would like, but it's nothing like what I hear about in other places where they're starting the year with tons of vacancies. We had a 5th grade teacher quit 2 days before school started and I was really nervous about that position being filled, but it was!
I was going to say the same thing (I didn't realize we were in the same neck of the woods!). It seems like we're saturated.
^ Many of my new colleagues did long term sub jobs right out of college and they teach social studies and special ed. I teach middle school math which made it easier and all of my friends that graduated from my university got math jobs.
I believe that a fair number of teachers go into SPED to make sure that they get a job, but, sadly, a fair number of those are wondering how to get a Gen.Ed. job in a relatively short period of time. I know that we have seen the threads on this forum where they are considering relinquishing their SPED certification because they desperately want out of SPED. I teach SPED in my content certifications, and honestly didn't think that this would be my cup of tea. However, I have found a home in SPED, especially since it is a TOSD, which means I can only teach SPED in my content certifications, which I love. Although I have Elem. Ed. certification, that would not be where I would choose to teach SPED. My MS certs, however, ELA, SS, and Science work well for me. I should make it clear that I always saw myself as a MS teacher, and my K-12 Science certification sent me into the HS education, so it is all good. My observation has been that math and science should get you a job, ELA in MS will almost certainly get you a job, but my MS SS certification is simply to be useful to my work place, since I have the TOSD, and we have MS students. I did not have trouble finding a job, and I am grateful that my certifications are all in fields that I love.
Elementary has had many opening in area districts here the last couple of years. Math, science, and special education always have openings. Even wealthier districts have had trouble filling special education here.
In my state, you can be terminated if you are hired with certifications, let them lapse, and they want to place you in a position for which you were certified at the time of hire.
I can see why that would happen. Choosing a candidate isn't just about the immediate need, it is often about the total benefit to the district or school. By allowing a certification to lapse you just became less valuable to them. It may be that while weaker for the immediate position the hire allowed more flexibility for the district. By allowing certifications to lapse, that benefit is now gone. To me it is no different than an employee in a different profession telling the company they will not change positions because they don't want to use specific skills. IT would be a good example of that by saying they won't program in a certain language that they listed on their resume.
I would like to see information, yes I am lazy with this and don't want to research, the cost between using long term subs for positions vs subs or teachers. It may actually be a financial benefit to not hire full-time teachers. If the school isn't a "high performing" school, it may be a strategy to keep positions open both financially and for a good reason the school is not performing.
I'm not saying it is a good strategy, but I believe that is part of the problem we are seeing with districts that have "shortages". You are right that it is not in the best interest to the students, but if the district believes that the student's ability to do well is controlled by their family's income then how would bringing on a full time teachers at a greater cost really benefit the student or the bottom line. The argument about family SES means teachers are almost completely irrelevant. So, in tight financial times, why not hire based on budget because the students will not succeed either way.
"The teacher shortage emerged in the wake of the Great Recession, when school districts cut their staffing as funding dried up." "Teachers are earning almost 2 percent less than they did in 1999 and 5 percent less than their 2009 pay, according to the Department of Education. " Although pay is a contributing factor, I disagree that the shortage is only due to pay issues. We do have a shortage in my area. I often think about leaving the profession. I don't know that I will actually do it, because I enjoy actually teaching, but the bureaucracy of it really bothers me. It's unfortunate that the recession came at a similar time (right before) other changes that started to be implemented in US schools, such as Common Core and standardized testing at a federal level. It makes it harder to see the root cause of the shortage. Poor pay is one thing. Rightly or not, teachers for decades have been willing to put up with low pay because they liked what they were doing and they felt like they were making a difference. Now, teachers of grades as young as kindergarten are preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. When students don't do well on tests that aren't developmentally appropriate anyway, the teachers get blamed. There's less parental support and behaviors are worsening as consequences are being taken off the table. On top of all that, most teachers are working overtime because the jobs they are asked to do should often be the jobs of two professionals (a teacher and an aide, a teacher and an intervention specialist, or even just two separate teachers if class sizes are high). This isn't the case everywhere, I'm sure, but it does paint an ugly picture for someone making future career choices. Personally, I wish there was less focus on teacher pay and more focus on what else is causing teachers to leave the profession. There are definitely states/areas where pay needs to increase because the wages are not livable, but teachers would still feel spread thin if pay were to go up.
There are shortages in my state (Utah) in various areas and subjects. I just heard of one district that had hundreds of openings and it surprised me because the geographical area was a nice one I thought was fairly popular, but further thought explained that while the area was nice and desirable it was still somewhat out of the way. The other shortages were in the more desolate and remote areas. My musings on teacher pay and other perks that would help: I think, once upon a time, the pay was reasonably in check with what teachers did/were expected to do. Look at our expectations now. I would say we are being underpaid for expectations that most reasonable cannot do. For example, every parent wants an individualized education for their child. How often are schools getting the right training, philosophies, manpower, whatever, to make that happen? People want a complete revamping of the education system but they all want it to happen without changing the status quo.
I think that the teacher shortage impacts rural disadvantage areas more so than affluent areas or areas with a large population. Rural communities were hit extremely hard during the recession and funding was stripped from almost everything and education was one system that was affected severely. Poor funding, poor people, and state and federal policies in education does not mix. Also many rural communities work on the "good ol boy" system. When there is no funding to hire better teachers, rural school board officials will opt to putting their best friend with no educational training into a teacher position. Being that most of these areas are considered to be absolute poverty, many of the people do not have time or desire to achieve an education for a job because most are trying to make ends meet with hard labor and odd hour jobs. Outsiders do not desire to step foot in rural schools because of pay and work load My hometown is a prime example. The Elementary school is in bad shape. This year there are 70 classrooms without teachers and those classes are filled with subs from different counties. economic climate and educational attainment is horrible here because much of the population are poor hard labor factory workers or farm hands. These people are wondering about their next meal and not so much of an education. The city refuses to bring any corporate stores here like Walmart because they are in fear of Walmart and many other corporate stores taking the wealth from mom and pop stores that are controlled by 2 families in the town. It's pathetic because walmart can generate enough wealth into the town to build the failing education system. My hometown was voted the most impoverished and uneducated city in Florida. The school board wanted to start a 6 month training for those in the town that would like to become teachers but they weren't offered enough funding. The weirdest part about all of this is that we have a small community college that is also partnered with ST Leo University. The college and the university both offer programs for education but the people in the town never have time to go to classes. The school is out of teachers so bad that student teachers and subs are operating most of the classrooms. Also, ECE is rarely discussed in the teacher shortage discussion. No funding, intensive training, and a classroom over capacity are most of the reasons ECE has a shortage. ECE rarely strives in my hometown. Just as public school ed many people do not have an educational background in ECE to work in preschools. The preschools in my hometown usually go out of business by the 5th or 10th year because of no one being educated in the field, poor pay, state and federal polices, overworked. and stressed. So, before we began to talk about teacher shortages, we must first focus on the macro level of events and work our way up to state and federal polices
It is beyond poor pay! I think that people will be willing to work in education if there weren't as much federal and state policies to abide by. Most of those policies are ridiculous
I think shortages in rural areas has less to do with the schools and more to do with what happened in the communities which they serve. Long ago when people could get buy on one income and small towns had small businesses that were successful, although not extremely wealthy, people had a community where they could live and have a nice life. Rural America has changed a lot in many areas where there isn't much left of the communities. So, if you need 2 incomes to live on, it isn't going to happen in an area where jobs are few. Teacher shortages in these areas are much different than shortages in urban areas. We can't look at any one solution to a problem that is really caused by very different issues.
Not always, but I will agree that people like to talk about behavior of students being the problem for shortages because it is easier to point that finger.
EXACTLY!!!! The breakdown of the education system and student's behavior all starts with the community! Students act out for various reason. Problems at home, neighborhood, mental issues( That goes undiagnosed even when spending years in school)..etc A good example to this would be the flint water crisis. I remember watching this short film about the teachers that were questioning student's behavior when they were unaware of the lead issue. The teachers thought that maybe kids today were just hard to teach and often blamed it on them being from impoverished areas. Well, when the lead issue came to light the pieces of the puzzle started coming together. The students were full of lead and could not function! They were failed by their community and government. The kids were victim to environmental hazards. Many of the kids in my hometown has mental or behavior issues that hinders them to function in class. The town is poor so officials can not afford school social workers and specialist to help these students in class. Many of the parents speculate that the school officials use the number of students on an IEP for funding because they are unable to get funding elsewhere.
Well actually, paying teachers more would work, provided that the amount paid is high enough. They actually did an experiment on this very thing and test scores and/or achievement shot way up: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/education/05charter.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bu...ter-school-pays-teachers-125000-a-year-2012-4 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/382340/
I would like to suggest that you take all of your extra education to a state that is truly desperate for Elem. Ed. teachers if that is where you want to teach. Honestly, at one point schools tended to value male elementary teachers, but I have not seen any who have been successful below the MS level in a while. I've seen them spend a year in ES, only to be non-renewed at the end of that year. Grades 6-8, however, are very different. Should universities inform male candidates of this? Probably, but they mostly seem to believe that if you look around, you'll figure it out for yourself. I fear that if you choose to stay in NY you may end up very disillusioned. Unfortunately, you are surrounded by states that do, like NY, have a glut of applicants for elementary positions that are advertised. So instead of raging at admin, what is your plan?
I wouldn’t say always because there are instances where said students are discussed. However, I would agree that rural areas tend to be deemphasized as the majority of the student populace lives in urban settings and the suburbs.
Many rural school districts are educating the children of migrant farm workers, who have virtually no say in how or what is being taught. Many are ELL's, and there may be no ESL teachers on staff. These parents are not highly motivated to participate in school activities or procedures.
Why don’t you apply in an area at the district of your choice that has a hard-to-fill position first, just to get your foot in the door? Then, after getting tenure, see if you can find another position using your other certifications?
In my area there were plenty of jobs this year. I know that some positions were difficult to fill with getting only 2 or 3 applicants. It has to do with retirements mostly.
High stakes testing. Many teachers are unwilling to turn over instruction to student teachers when it is the cooperating teacher’s evaluation in play as influenced by test scores. Do you administer state standardized tests, future math prof?
Yes, my school is WASC-accredited and it also administers state-standardized tests. Every year, our students take the Terra Nova tests and STAR tests, in addition to PSAT, SAT, ACT, and AP tests.
