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The Washington Post
Teacher shortages
affecting every state as 2017-18 school year begins
By Valerie Strauss
The 2017-18 school year has started in many places across the country,
and federal data shows that every state is dealing with shortages of
teachers in key subject areas. Some are having trouble finding
substitute teachers, too.
The annual nationwide listing of areas with teacher shortages, compiled
by the U.S. Education Department, shows many districts struggling to
fill positions in subjects such as math, the traditional sciences,
foreign language and special education, but also in reading and English
language arts, history, art, music, elementary education, middle school
education, career and technical education, health, and computer
science. That is not an exhaustive list.
Teacher shortages are nothing new — most states have reported some
since data started being kept more than 25 years ago — but the problem
has grown more acute in recent years as the profession has been hit
with low morale over low pay, unfair evaluation methods, assaults on
due-process rights, high-stakes testing requirements, insufficient
resources and other issues.
According to a 2016 report by the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute,
teacher education enrollment dropped from 691,000 to 451,000, a 35
percent reduction, between 2009 and 2014, the latest year for which
there is data. And there are high levels of attrition, with nearly 8
percent of the teaching workforce leaving every year, the majority
before retirement age.
In California, for example, only three subjects had teaching shortages
in the 1990-91 and 1991-92 school years: bilingual education (K-12),
life science (grades 7-12) and physical science (grades 7-12). For
2016-17 and the new school year, statewide shortages were reported in
English, drama, humanities, history, social science, math, computer
education, physical education, health, dance, science, special
education and self-contained class.
In Virginia, these subjects had teaching shortages in 1990-91 and
1991-92: early childhood education, earth and space science (grades
9-12), high school foreign languages, and special education. For
2015-16 and the new school year, these subjects have reported
shortages: career and technical education, elementary education,
secondary English, foreign languages in all grades, health and physical
education in all grades, high school, math (grades 6-12, including
Algebra 1), middle school education, and special education.
States have employed different strategies to try to fill the gaps, some
more drastic than others. In Oklahoma, Utah and Arizona, teachers can
be hired without formal training. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) signed a
new law a few months ago allowing people who have never been trained as
teachers to go into schools and teach, as long as they have a
bachelor’s degree or five years of experience in fields “relevant” to
the subject.
[In Arizona, teachers can now be hired with absolutely no training in
how to teach]
In Arizona’s Vail Unified School District near Tucson, Education Week
reported, parents are being hired as teachers to help stem a years-long
shortage. It said 17 of 24 noncertified new teachers in grades K-8 are
parents, and more than a dozen parents teach in high schools, too. It
quoted Superintendent Calvin Baker as saying, “I think that a number of
them were motivated by the need to stand in the gap, so to speak.”
Finding substitutes is taxing some districts, too. For example, NBC4 in
Washington found that schools in the region are suffering an “acute
shortage of substitute teachers,” with full-time teachers “sacrificing
planning periods, grading sessions and staff meetings to cover vacant
classes of colleagues.” Administrators are pitching in, too, the report
said.
Freddie Cross, senior statistician at the Education Department, said in
an email that teacher shortage data has been collected since 1990-91 —
but it is still collected by paper and pencil and sent through the
mail, making comparisons difficult. Cross said he is having all of the
information compiled into a database so states can enter it
electronically, analyses can be conducted, trends can be spotted, and
terminology can be standardized. The work on this should be completed
this fall.
The Learning Policy Institute report found five key factors that
influence whether a teacher decides to enter, remain in or leave the
profession: salaries and other compensation; preparation and costs to
entry; hiring and personnel management; induction and support for new
teachers; and working conditions, including school leadership,
professional collaboration and shared decision-making, accountability
systems, and resources for teaching and learning.
Look at a map and see how these play out in every state, or check full
shortage list for every state, at The Washington Post
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