It was less than 10 years ago that the United States was projecting teacher shortages in the areas of math, science and English as a Second Language (ESL). Speed it up to 2009 and now find teacher shortages in almost all areas of the curriculum.
For example, for the academic year 2008-09 North Dakota defined 20 teacher shortage areas, yes 20: (1) Agriculture education (2) art (3) business and office technology/business education (4) career clusters (5) computer education (6) driver and traffic safety education (7) English as a second language (8) English language arts/English as a second language (9) family and consumer sciences (10) health careers (11) information technology (12) languages/Native American languages (13) marketing education (14) mathematics (15) music (16) science (17) social studies (18) special education programming (19) technology education - industrial arts and (20) trade and industrial education. South Dakota and Vermont as well list 13 teacher shortage areas in varied academic disciplines.
The question is why are states continuing to expand their list of academic shortage areas. The answer is quite simple; fewer students see themselves as career educators. The reality is that those considering teaching as a profession and career face the following issues: 1) high cost of college education, 2) licensure requirements, 3) higher starting salaries in other occupations, 4) classroom management challenges related to least restrictive rules, and 5) a myriad of other issues facing education.
The hard facts are these, teachers are asked to be prepared to handle quite a large number of education and non-education related issues. Teachers attend 4-year universities, walk away with loans, and maintain licensures to be called professionals. The only thing that isn’t professional is the pay.
Still, some research indicates teacher turnover can be attributed to reasons other than money: 1) lack of planning time, 2) heavy workload, 3) problematic student behavior, and 4) lack of influence over school policy. However, in my opinion, teachers salaries are not adequate: 1) to retain people in positions, 2) to attract new people to the profession, 3) to pay back loans and debt from college, 4) for the amount of dedication required of a good teacher, and 5) to supplant the abuse from students, parents and the school boards who continue to underpay.
States must wise up to the fact that teaching is a profession and it deserves equal pay and consideration to other professionals with like education. Sorry to say, Federal and State Loan forgiveness programs are not enough. Without legislatures providing more funding and school boards increasing salaries, we will continue to see a revolving door; even worse, a door that isn’t even being opened at all. What can be done to reduce teacher shortage areas? Is it all about the money?
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No, it is definitely not all about the money, but as they say, "It couldn't hurt." I recently had a check-up at the clinic and my doctor and I started discussing what might happen with the health care bill. He made the comment that insurance and pharmaceutical companies have all the perks. And then he said, "After all, you don't doctors and teachers retiring with huge portfolios." I almost had to laugh to be included with a doctor in terms of finances.
ReplyDeleteI have always believed that the reason that teachers get paid so little is because it is primarily a women's profession. I think another factor is that people really don't understand what we do. They imagine that we follow the book, give the assignments and tests, and then go on. And of course, we only work 9 months out of the year, so we have to have our salaries adjusted accordingly.
No, it is all about the money, but I think that if we were paid better, the accountability of a teacher's performance would go up. That would be o.k. with me, if I could retire with a portfolio like my doctor's