Are college students going into the teaching profession?

Uhhhh….. Hmmmm….  No!  Many states are facing a sever teacher shortage.  In Los Angeles there has been a teacher shortage and enrollment in teacher programs is down 53 percent.  I bet you’ll never guess why; well let me list a couple of reasons why my teacher colleagues are frustrated.  Here are some common statements I have heard “headaches over new mandated policies, new standards, budget cuts, tenure concerns, high stakes testing, and teacher evaluations ties to testing results.  Would you want to be a teacher?  I’ve even looked into Teach for America but even they too have seen major drops in enrollment.  I haven’t even began to discuss the salary that will never pay off my school loan…  Even though I agree with many of their concerns I still enjoyed my time teaching.  For those teacher out there in the trenches, we love you!

Teacher shortage

Facts from the Washington Post:

• Ten percent of teachers who began their careers in 2007-2008 left teaching after their first year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics

• 17 percent of new teachers left their jobs in the first five years

• New teachers who are assigned mentors are more likely to continue teaching than those who are not assigned mentors.

• Teachers with higher starting salaries — above $40,000 — were more likely to continue teaching than those with lower salaries.

• Older teachers who began their careers after age 30 were more likely to leave the profession within five years than younger teachers, and men were more likely to leave than women.

• Teachers who entered the profession via an alternative certification program (such as Teach for America) were more likely to leave the profession than those who went through traditional training programs.

• Teachers who spend their first year in higher-poverty schools (where more than 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch) are slightly more likely to leave the profession than those who spend their first year in lower-poverty schools. But the data do not say how many of those teachers who began in high-poverty schools then transferred into more affluent schools within their first five years.

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