Teacher Shortage In The United States

Reading chapter six of America’s Teachers: An Introduction to Education (Newman, 2006) reminded me of the Barenaked Ladies song It’s All Been Done (Page, 1998). As I read the conflicting sides of each argument regarding education as far back of the Civil War, I kept thinking how none of this sounded new. It’s all been done before, and we are still debating many of the same issues. Newman (2006) put it another way, “Despite promoters’ claims to the contrary, few educational wheels are brand new. Most have been reinvented. Sold to the public as innovations, they are more like retreaded and recycled tires” (p.180). The purpose of education, the way in which education is managed by state and federal governments, and whom we educate (and how) will always be, in my opinion, a hot debate.

In the year of 2011, there were 3.2 million teachers who were employed at public schools throughout the nation, which served close to 50 million children in grades kindergarten through twelfth (Feistritzer, 2011). Currently, to be employed as a teacher in the United States, one must obtain a Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited college or university, and be certificated in the state that one wishes to be employed. The certification serves as a teaching credential, which is needed for teachers in all states.

Every year the state of California faces a crisis in the name of budget cuts. As a result, the state is producing less and less qualified teachers, by laying off great teachers, just before the tenor mark. So they can hire less qualified teachers and pay them less in the name of saving money. Grades K-12 relies heavily on state aids. Since the beginning of the school year California as made widespread cuts to the education system; which means that there is less money allocated per student. This means less money for books, and new computers, but more money for our district offices. The big picture, the educational system in California is failing our students. Given these points, among all of the chaos that the state of California has put on the educational system; all hope is not lost there are

* Teacher Qualifications: By the end of the 2005-06 school year, every teacher in core content areas working in a public school had to be "highly qualified" in each subject he or she taught. Under the law, "highly qualified" generally meant that a teacher was certified and demonstrably proficient in his or her subject matter. Beginning with the 2002-03 school year, all new teachers hired with federal Title I money had to be "highly qualified." By the end of the 2005-06 school year, all school paraprofessionals hired with Title I money must have completed

“In this case, the experts and practitioners have suggested changes to our certification requirements that will help support teacher candidates and ensure students are taught by high-quality teachers while helping to address the national teacher shortage at the same time. New York’s teaching certification requirements remain some of the most rigorous in the country, requiring the vast majority of teaching candidates to pass three assessments before earning certification.”

Through research for this paper in addition to tracking the changes in credentialing requirements of educators, I hope to discover if California has been able to keep up with the ever changing educational needs of our population; or if the state has had to play catch-up at some points in time. Are we alone in the challenges we

Many emergency licenses have been granted to people across the state to fill positions in need, especially in rural areas. There has also been a movement to hire “community experts” in place of skilled, qualified teachers who possess at minimum a four year degree in the areas of teaching and learning. This book offers many arguments against ways in which North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction and Education Standards and Practices Board is proposing adjustments to aid this crisis. It has been quoted by a board member on the Teacher Shortage Task Force that “someone is better than no one” in the classroom. Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan would argue that North Dakota could have a greater return on Professional Capital making greater investments in education by finding strategies to retain its current teachers and perhaps offering incentives to potential prospects entering the field. Political leaders must demonstrate a greater respect for teachers, instead of settling on a solution where teachers are left feeling as though their leaders and the public are comfortable filling their positions with unqualified community

School districts should have mentors that continue to support new and intermediate teachers. Educators are the people who are responsible for so many facets of a child’s success, and generally spend more time with them than parents Monday- Friday. Standards should be set at a national level, set high so that our children at no longer graduating from High school with subpar knowledge as compared to our global society. Our children and our teachers deserve a restructuring of the educational system that will support effective teachers and weed out non- effective ones. Lowering our academic outcomes to appease standardized testing that is required is not producing well rounded, well spoken, critical thinking graduates, our kids are not ready for higher learning or real life scenarios because the emphasis of a quality education has fallen waist side. Once, we were the nation to whom others compared their systems to, as of today this is no longer the case. We are no longer the baseline of measurement as we have fallen below the global

The success of the education system in California continues to be dependent on the willingness to meet the changing needs of its population. In order for the state government to insure that educators are up to the challenge, the factors influencing California teacher credentialing must be known. Due to evolving student needs since the

Teacher licensure has little impact on teaching quality because it sets too low a bar for entry into teaching (Koonce, 2016, pg. 216), and the licensing policy have been slacked just to make sure that there is a teacher

Public education in the United States is under constant criticism as a system that is failing the children of the country. One major factor that plays into the ineffectiveness of the U.S. public education system is the lack of consistency with teachers. Public education teachers tend to have a substantial turnover rate. According to Cochran-Smith et al. (2011), “The attrition of beginning teachers was a problem in the United States, in part because of his initially stunning finding that as many as 46% of new teachers left the profession within 5 years” (Cochran-Smith et al. 19). This volume of teachers leaving the field is dramatic and is especially damaging in science, technology, engineering,

The purpose of the literary review, was to explore the causes of abnormally high teacher attrition within the majority of America’s urban schools. The articles reviewed focus on challenges of staffing teachers within an urban school, the challenges of teaching within an urban school, as well as qualities a teacher must possess in order to succeed when teaching within an urban school. Also, one question was asked of two teachers of ten or more years experience within a North Tulsa urban school, as well as two assistant principals. What one quality must a teacher possess, in order to be considered a “ High Quality” teacher within an urban school. Hence, a study of essential urban teacher qualities that may enhance the benefit of

Each of the fields has shown a decline in interest. “The belief that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education initiatives have the potential to stimulate both regional and national economies has prompted policy makers and funding agencies to revisit how STEM teachers are recruited, prepared, and retained” (Schultz). Each of the fields has shown a decline in interest. This has led to a fewer teachers in the STEM field and higher demand for teachers in middle and secondary schools. “This model of induction support that allows exemplary retiring teachers to work with new teachers is not out of reach of K–12 school districts and university partners. Unfortunately, neither universities nor schools want to claim ownership of the time-consuming and expensive features of induction programs, such as compensation of mentor teachers and the cost of ongoing professional development” (Schuster). There is a lack of resources, mentoring, lower pay, and higher stress levels that add to teachers not staying in the system. Teachers improving their education and looking for jobs that are related to what they are teaching and moving on. Is it really worth being a teacher in the STEM field knowing what the teacher may have to face? The individual has to make that decision and weigh the pluses and minuses

If the Florida Legislature is truly interested in helping attract and retain high qualified teachers in Florida it can start by removing the decade long targeting and attacks on public education. It can reverse the multitude of overreaching classroom mandates. Eliminate tying teachers’ salaries, bonus and steps to students’ scores.

Children will only learn to the level in which they are taught. The need for a strong, well-qualified teaching force is a necessity and should be standardized nationwide. As a result of there being no set national teaching standard or certification requirement, it is completely left up to the individual state to decide or to interpret their own definition of “highly qualified teachers”, if in fact they want to change or upgrade their requirements. In Hanushek (2010), he “states have commonly defined “quality” in such a way that requirements create no additional burden on either existing teachers or new entrants”. This blatantly shows that states are meeting the bare minimum requirements