Report: U.S. faces major teacher shortage after democrat recession gutted industry

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/09/15/Report-US-faces-major-teacher-
shortage-after-recession-gutted-industry/6741473966317/

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The United States is facing its first major
teacher shortage since the 1990s, an intensive study conducted by an
education think tank based on reams of federal data and projected trends
said Thursday.

The 100-page report by the Learning Policy Institute said a major reason
for the shortage is the Great Recession, the period of time a few years
ago that saw many U.S. school districts downsize and slash curriculum as
an economic measure.

Now that school sizes and classes are returning to normal, the study's
authors say there's a looming shortfall in the size of the educator
workforce.

The report identifies four main factors behind the shortage -- increasing
student enrollment, high teacher attrition, a decline in teacher
preparation enrollments, and district efforts to return to pre-recession
pupil-teacher ratios.

"Teacher demand increased sharply after the Great Recession," the
institution said. "Projections show a large increase in 2017-18 and a
projected plateau bringing annual hires demanded to approximately 300,000
teachers a year.

"Districts are looking to reinstate classes and programs that were cut or
reduced during the Great Recession. It would require hiring an additional
145,000 teachers, on top of standard hiring needs, to reduce average
pupil-teacher ratios from the current 16-to-1 to pre-recession ratios of
15.3 to 1."

The report cites a number of reasons for an "atypically low" teacher
candidate pool but recommends changes to increase the appeal of becoming a
teacher -- perhaps most importantly, increasing notoriously low teacher
salaries.

"Create incentives that make living as a teacher more affordable,
including housing supports, childcare supports, and opportunities to teach
or mentor after retirement to more effectively recruit and retain
teachers," one recommendation states.

A graph from Thursday's report by the Learning Policy Institute, which
warned of a teacher shortage in the United States, shows the annual change
in U.S. teacher-student ratios in recent years (in black) -- particularly
in 2011 amid the Great Recession when school districts were forced to make
severe economic cutbacks. Image courtesy Learning Policy Intitute
About 8 percent of the U.S. teaching workforce leaves every year, the
report says, and is possibly the biggest factor responsible for the
shortage.

"The teaching workforce continues to be a leaky bucket, losing hundreds of
thousands of teachers each year -- the majority of them before retirement
age," the institute said. "Changing attrition would change the projected
shortages more than any other single factor."

The potential consequences of the shortage are fewer classes offered,
larger class sizes and under-prepared educators entering the industry.

The report got the attention of many political leaders and industry
experts.

"Reducing attrition [is] key to solving teacher shortages," the W. E.
Upjohn Institute for Employment Research tweeted Thursday. "More [money]
matters to recruit, but better working conditions retain [teachers]."

"I understand the teacher shortage issue, but there's also a major teacher
retention issue, especially teachers of color," Josh Starr, CEO of pro-
education group Phi Delta Kappa International, said.

The minority issue was examined by the institute in an accompanying
report, "Minority Teacher Recruitment, Employment, and Retention: 1987 to
2013."

The institute makes several recommendations to counter a substantial
teacher shortfall -- including increased compensation, improved working
conditions and developing a national teacher supply market.

"Although these proposals are associated with costs, it is likely that
they would ultimately save far more than they would cost," the report
concludes. "The savings would include the more than $8 billion now wasted
annually on replacement costs because of high teacher turnover ... not to
mention the broader social costs of dropouts, unemployment, and
incarceration.

"Preventing and solving teacher shortages so that all children receive
competent, continuous instruction in every community every year is, in a
21st century economy, essential for the success of individuals as well as
for society as a whole."


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