The Wall Street Journal gets into reporting on Teacher Shortages due to a decrease in educator preparation enrollment but calls it “lowering the bar” when it is actually improving the pipeline. Is it lowering the bar if you have someone who went through some training teaching instead of a long term substitute teaching a class?
The main point of the article is the 45% drop in enrollment in university based educator preparation programs. Since the graph above shows a slight increase in K-12 student enrollment AND we know there is an increase in retirements, it is not surprising that all 50 states report some teacher shortages.
It is why we have worked so hard at getting in new states like Florida, Nevada, South Carolina, Indiana and Michigan and we continue to increase our reach in Texas. School districts need teachers and it is getting much more difficult to find people who want to teach.
There is no single solution to finding more teachers – but removing hoops that just make it difficult without a clear demonstration of quality, would be a great start. With the drop in educator preparation enrollment –
