Teacher Shortage or Glut?

[Modern School]

It is often said that we are suffering a teacher shortage and that terrible pay and working conditions are only worsening it. However, due to several years of mass layoffs, combined with increasing class sizes, most districts have plenty of teachers to fill current needs.

The problem is no longer a shortage of teachers, but a shortage of teaching services. There are sufficient teachers to cover the desired number of classes, but there are far fewer course offerings and desired classes offered to students. They have far more classmates in the remaining classes, which results in less one on one attention from their teachers. Because of the increased workloads, teachers are resorting more and more to multiple choice exams, instead of open ended tests that requiring more reading and team; less inquiry-based labs and more pen and paper or computer simulations.

Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2012/05/teacher-shortage-or-glut.html

[SheilaT]

1. For the past thirty years or so I've been amazed at the number

of people I've known who acquired teaching degrees and then either never taught at all, or only taught for a short time. There is something very wrong with that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. 50% leave the profession within 5 years

Not many of us stick around long enough to earn tenure.

[knitter4democracy]

3. In my area, we're getting 800-1000 applicants per opening.

We get those numbers even in districts that used to only get 200-400. There's a glut in Michigan, and with budget cuts, it's getting worse.

[Modern School]

6. Glut or Gluttons for pain?

With the battering of education and teachers in Michigan, I'm flabbergasted you're getting so many applicants. Then again, doesn't MI have the highest rate of unemployment in the nation? Maybe teaching, even with the concessions, is one of the best options left in MI?

[knitter4democracy]

7. It's more that our universities keep putting out tons of grads.

Teachers are getting laid off but want to stay in teaching, huge numbers enter the profession still every year (and don't want to leave the state if they can avoid it), and so we have too many applying to too few jobs.

I wish we'd limit our numbers like doctors do.

[Modern School]

8. Limit our class sizes too

Doctors also make sure they are paid decently and they don't have pundits and demagogues always second guessing them and trying to make it easier to fire them.

[DirkGently]

4. It feels like part of a strategy to degrade the profession & public education.

Smash the unions. Slash the workforce. Make public education an unpopular and poorly respected profession.

Then start over, with (more) poorly paid, teachers without tenure or advocacy. Bring the whole thing down to the level of widget production, which is how Republicans conceptualize public education.

The idea is to ensure that government can provide no effective service to the public at large. The rich can always afford good schools. Why arm the middle and working class with knowledge, when they're only good for working for low wages?

And, as a bonus, they can shove nonsensical testing schemes and for-profit schools down our throats as the supposed solution.

[JPZenger]

5. No district is hiring in Pa.

I don't think a single school district is hiring teachers this year in Pa. The richer districts are shrinking by attrition, the mid-level districts are laying off a few teachers, and the poor districts are trying to keep their doors open after massive layoffs. The state reduced funding for public schools by almost one billion dollars in 2 years, not counting inflation.

Meanwhile, Pa. graduates enormous numbers of people each year with teaching degrees. It looks bleak - because so many districts have a reservoir of laid off teachers that they will need to hire back before hiring any new folks.