Help Wanted
2 Million Teachers
This is a five-part series about the nation’s supply of and demand for qualified teachers.
Recruitment & Retention
Burgeoning Nevada District Concentrates on 'Growing' Its Own
As part of their routine hiring practices, Clark County, Nev., school officials scour colleges across the country and use innovative technology to try to recruit enough teachers to fill classrooms in the fast-growing district.
Special Education
All Classes of Spec. Ed. Teachers in Demand Throughout Nation
The 25-year-old California teacher has a bachelor's degree in special education, two years' experience in an "inclusive" classroom, and a passion for teaching students with disabilities.
Recruitment & Retention
Prospective Teachers in Rural Areas Tune In to Satellite Classes
The rural, slow-paced lifestyle of the Eastern Shore of Virginia--a jagged peninsula set off by the Chesapeake Bay--helps distinguish the region from the more populous parts of the state.
Recruitment & Retention
Crackdowns on Emergency Licenses Begin as Teacher Shortages Loom
By this coming fall, New York has decreed, the worst-performing schools in the state won't be allowed to employ any new teachers with temporary licenses. And by September 2003, the practice will be outlawed altogether.
Teacher Preparation
Out-of-Field Teaching Is Hard To Curb
Faced with a proposal requiring that schools notify parents if a child's class was being taught by "an uncertified or inappropriately certified individual," the Texas school board reacted decisively this month. It voted 12-0 to reject the measure, which the state's teacher-certification board had hoped would call greater attention to the pervasiveness of so-called out-of-field teaching.
Teaching Profession
New Teachers Abandon Field at High Rate
For much of last year, Tammy Carsten was on the verge of becoming a statistic. Working with an emergency permit, scant education courses, and no student-teaching experience to her credit, the fledgling educator was at her wits' end soon after stepping in front of her class at Harte Elementary School in north Long Beach.
Recruitment & Retention
Technology Eases Teacher Recruitment for School Districts
The New Haven Unified School District in California was short a hard-to-find science teacher just weeks before school was to open last summer.
Recruitment & Retention
States' Uneven Teacher Supply Complicates Staffing of Schools
By now, the number has been repeated so often it's become a mantra: more than 2 million teachers. That's how many the U.S. Department of Education estimates schools will need to hire in the next decade.