Oakland Tribune

State sounds teacher alarm
Old news resurfaces — California needs more, better instructors

By Jill Tucker, STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Hello? Is anyone listening?

The state doesn't have enough teachers and it's going to need even more as the aging population retires.

On top of that, the state's 20,000 underprepared teachers are clustered in the schools with the worst test scores.

These are not new problems.

A report released today sounds the alarm yet again that the state needs more teachers and better teachers in struggling schools.

Yet the annual study, by The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, adds new perspective this year to an old problem.

Interns — those still earning credentials — are the fastest growing group of non-traditional teachers and 85 percent of them are assigned to schools with at least 60 percent minority populations.

"The least prepared, least experienced teachers are assigned to schools serving primarily African-American and Latino children, many of them from poor families," said Margaret Gaston, director of the Santa Cruz-based center.

In addition, sixth-graders in the lowest-achieving schools have a 3 in 10 chance of having more than one intern or emergency credentialed teacher.

By comparison, those in high-achieving schools have a 1 in 50 chance.

"We absolutely have to do something about the maldistribution problem," Gaston said.

By way of good news, the state has fewer underprepared teachers overall — down to 20,000 last year from 42,000 in 2000-2001.

But that trend is likely to reverse in the next couple of years, according to the report.

The state will need to fill 100,000 teacher positions — one-third of the workforce — in the next 10 years as baby boomers retire.

There aren't enough teachers in the pipeline, and state efforts to recruit, train and retain teachers have fallen off course, Gaston said.

The report recommends policymakers reinstate programs providing monetary and non-monetary incentives for teachers to enter the profession and teach in high-need schools.

It also calls on the state to remove financial disincentives for retired teachers and administrators willing to work in schools that need them.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said the report "shines a spotlight on a critical problem," one requiring better recruitment of talented individuals and training for those already in the classroom.

"Part of the solution also must be improving teacher pay, so that we can attract talented people to consider becoming a teacher and those who go into the teaching profession can afford to live in the communities that they work," said O'Connell.

While the teacher shortage and maldistribution is not a new problem for the state, Gaston said she is optimistic this year — that perhaps the special-election fiasco has generated a political will not seen before.

And that maybe this year someone is listening.

"I am more hopeful this time than I have been in a very long time," Gaston said. "I really do believe the message is getting across."

Contact Jill Tucker at jtucker@angnewspapers.com.

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