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U.S. classrooms will face a severe shortage of teachers within the next decade as more baby boomers retire, necessitating an urgent push to recruit young people to the profession, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday.
The new campaign, which is outlined at the Teach.gov website, aims to recruit a million new teachers over the next five years. The greatest emphasis will be on finding math, science and special education teachers, as well as men of color.
“If you look across the country today and put black males and Hispanic males together, it’s 3.5 percent of the teacher workforce,” Duncan said in an interview with Tom Brokaw as part of NBC’s Education Nation summit. “If we’re serious about having young men aspire to go to college, we have to put men in their lives.”
Education officials will be visiting high schools and colleges around the country to encourage students to consider teaching. Duncan said the dire need for good teachers, which he referred to as “the civil rights issue of our generation,” is reflected in the nation’s drop-out rate.
“We lose almost a million students from our high schools each year to the streets,” Duncan said.
Duncan said paying teachers more is a first step in giving the profession the respect it deserves. “There are so many phenomenal people who had education in their heart; it was their passion,” he said. “But they couldn’t afford to go into teaching.”
To retain and recruit quality teachers, the Department of Education will be offering a variety of incentives, including education grants, grants for those who choose to work in impoverished areas and what Duncan called “income-based repayment” -- a guarantee that after 10 years of teaching, all college debt will be forgiven.
Talking to students from several universities across the country via a live feed, Duncan said that bad economic news should not deter students from applying to be teachers.
“There are a couple thousand teacher jobs today, and in January we have another set of folks retiring,” he said.
U.S. students rank ninth globally for holding a college degree, something Duncan hopes to improve.
“Five years from now, I would love to have the best teaching workforce in the world,” he said. “Education is the answer.”
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what is the point when teachers are getting laid off and they have to take out of pocket money to maintain their classrooms. It is a darn shame that America one of the greatest nations of the world is suffering its people the way it is doing and wasting our money on stupid wars.
My sister just graduated with her bachelors in Secondary Education and History. She would like to teach history or social studies. Because of George W Bush's new policies he put into place, she cannot teach until she passes the PRAXIS. Not only that, but her university--West Chester University will not list her as "graduated" until she passes them (even though her college education is paid in full already). My sister is bright and has excellent ideas and teaching methods and had rave reviews from all of her student teaching assignments, however, she cannot get a job to teach. My sister has NEVER been a good "tester" and doesn't do well on tests. She's missed passing the Praxis by 3 points both times she's taken it, so now, she'll shell out another $80 to retake the praxis to actually get her degree which has been paid for in full already at $45,000.
If you want people to go into teaching, you have to stop attacking the teachers and blaming them exclusively for problems that also involve students, parents, administration, school boards, communities, and legislators.
When teachers are treated as the professionals they are, with salaries that reflect the education and credentials they have to obtain and maintain, then more people will consider it as a possible career. When I was going to college and told my father I wanted to be a teacher, he said "Why? You are smart enough to be a doctor or lawyer. You will never make the money you could make in another profession." We all know teachers go into teaching because they don't care about the money so much, but since people enter the teaching profession for exactly the right reasons; it's a calling, they care about children, want to make a difference, etc, I do wish society would stop the attacks on teachers and schools, and just be grateful that someone cares enough to take on such a hard job with such few rewards! At least in other professions, you can go out to lunch, maybe get a Christmas bonus, go to the restroom when you really need to, and even have a secretary. I teach 100 "clients" a day, but I don't get a secretary to help me with all the paperwork, phone calls to parents, etc. My lunch break is 25 minutes, and I am lucky if I get to the restroom at all between 8am and 3pm! Teachers work so hard, for really very little, and the lack of respect for what we do will not bring any new teachers to the profession, that is for sure!
Anyone recruiting students in college into the teaching profession should be arrested and tried for crimes against society. Has anyone been to a teacher job fair? People are practically on their knees begging to get hired. There are no teaching jobs out there. Schools are laying off or cutting positions and muscling older teachers into retirement. They are not hiring new teachers and if they are it is for specific areas. The market is glutted. Stop cranking out more teachers until the ones already on the market find work! Stop spreading misinformation in order to pretend that the nation is recovering. Its not!
So, you want people to go into teaching so that they can become society's punching bag? And the reason anyone would do that is?
When people begin taking responsibility for their children and allow teachers' to parent their children, it will be much easier to hire people into the profession.
Teachers are not miracle workers. We have families of our own that we need to care for. We cannot be a teacher 24/7!
I can just imagine Duncan's recruitment ad:
Wanted: intelligent highly motivated professionals who don't mind being vilified every day, don't care if they have a competitive salary, are willing to buy all supplies for their classrooms, don't mind working longer hours for less money while being told they don't work hard enough, aren't interested in having any kind of pension, don't mind if they are completely ignored in all educational decisions and love to give standardized tests that take all creativity out of learning. Apply to the Dept of Education's March to Mediocrity office.