This is the canary in the coal mine.
Several big states have
seen alarming drops in enrollment at teacher training programs. The
numbers are grim among some of the nation's largest producers of new
teachers: In California, enrollment is down 53 percent over the past
five years. It's down sharply in New York and Texas as well.
In North Carolina, enrollment is down nearly 20 percent in three years.
"The
erosion is steady. That's a steady downward line on a graph. And
there's no sign that it's being turned around," says Bill McDiarmid, the
dean of the University of North Carolina School of Education.
Why have the numbers fallen so far, so fast?
McDiarmid
points to the strengthening U.S. economy and the erosion of teaching's
image as a stable career. There's a growing sense, he says, that K-12
teachers simply have less control over their professional lives in an
increasingly bitter, politicized environment.
The list of
potential headaches for new teachers is long, starting with the ongoing,
ideological fisticuffs over the Common Core State Standards,
high-stakes testing and efforts to link test results to teacher
evaluations. Throw in the erosion of tenure protections and a variety of
recession-induced budget cuts, and you've got the makings of a crisis.
The
job also has a PR problem, McDiarmid says, with teachers too often
turned into scapegoats by politicians, policymakers, foundations and the
media.
"It tears me up sometimes to see the way in which
people talk about teachers because they are giving blood, sweat and
tears for their students every day in this country. There is a sense now
that, 'If I went into this job and it doesn't pay a lot and it's a lot
of hard work, it may be that I'd lose it.' And students are hearing
this. And it deters them from entering the profession."
While
few dispute the shortage itself, Benjamin Riley, head of the group Deans
for Impact, a new consortium of 18 reform-minded deans of colleges of
education, thinks it's not yet clear why potential teachers are turning
away.
"The honest answer is: We don't know. There is nothing
that has been done rigorously, in a way that's empirically defensible
saying, 'We know this is why the number has dropped,' " Riley says.
Isabel Gray is a senior art history major at Millsaps College
in Mississippi. She is passionate about exploring a career in K-12
teaching. But, as graduation nears, she's also having second thoughts
about a profession that, she feels, is obsessed with testing and
standards.
"You want to find the right balance between being a
really good teacher and still meeting those standards and not just
teaching toward the test, really retaining that material and not just
being taught, you know, testing strategies. And it's hard to find that
balance. And there's just so much that's changing" in education, she
says.
The teacher employment picture is, of
course, local and regional. One part of a state may have too many
elementary teachers, while another may have too few. And the gaps vary
by specialty — with many places facing serious shortages in areas
including science, math and special education.
Riley worries there may be a national mismatch that few are looking at deeply.
"The
question, and one that needs to be empirically investigated, is 'Are we
overproducing certain kinds of teachers school districts aren't looking
for and under-producing certain types of teachers that schools and
other types of employers are desperately looking for?' "
There are, of course, alternative teacher certification programs across the U.S. including Teach for America. But TFA, too, has seen large drops in enrollment over the past two years.
One possible path out of this crisis is to pay teachers more.
But, across the country, proposals to boost pay or give teachers merit pay have stalled or been scrapped altogether.
An analysis just out from Georgetown's Edunomics Lab
argues that boosting class size for great teachers would save money
that could then be funneled into bonuses for those educators taking on a
larger load. The savings would come largely from a reduction in the
overall teaching force, angering teachers unions and their allies.
Riley
says his group, Deans for Impact, is all for giving teachers a raise —
if it's tied to better training that leads to higher graduation rates
and other improved student outcomes.
"If we could really take
control of the profession and increase the rigor such that teachers are
effective from Day 1, I think that will prove to the public at large
that this is an investment worth making, and one worth increasing."
In spite of all the noise and politics, surveys show that public school teachers still believe it's an incredibly satisfying job helping children learn.