Study Finds No Teacher Shortage
by Tamara Henry, USA Today
October 7, 1999

 WASHINGTON - The supply of new teachers may exceed demand, says a study out Wednesday that challenges the notion of a shortfall of 2.2 million teachers over the next decade.

     The Center for Education Information (CEI) says a survey of 1,354 higher-education institutions found that the USA's colleges and universities produce more than 200,000 teachers each year.

     Tens of thousands of other classroom vacancies are filled by former teachers returning to the profession, by teachers moving from district to district, and by those moving from private schools to public schools.

     "The bottom line is, the nation is overproducing teachers," CEI President C. Emily Feistritzer says.  "The number completing (teacher preparation programs)

exceeds vacancies by a large margin every year." U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman Melinda Kitchell Malicoho, however, says the estimated need for 2.2 million new teachers is based mainly on projected enrollment increases in the next few years and on an expected wave of teachers retiring.

"The bottom line is, the nation is over-producing teachers.  The number completing (teacher Preparation programs) exceeds vacancies by a large margin every year."

C. Emily Feistritzer, President, Center for  Education Information.

She says that about 22% of those trained as teachers leave the profession during their first three years and that there has been an ongoing shortage of teachers for science, math, special education, bilingual education and foreign language.

      Reversing the trends of the 1970s and 1980s the 1990s have seen a sharp rise in the number of people who are studying to be teachers, the study shows.  In the past 15 years:

   Teacher graduates jumped 49% - from 134,870 in 1983 to 200,545 in 1998.

   Institutions preparing teachers increased 5% - from

1,287 in 1984 to 1,354 in 1999.

  Nearly three in 10 people studying to be teachers began doing so after they received at least a bachelor's

degree.  In 1984, only 3% entered teaching that way.

  Feistritzer says the study focused mainly on the supply of teachers and did not concentrate on the quality of their training.  But she says new teachers have higher grade-point averages than in previous years, take more substantive courses, and get more training in subject matter and clinical

experience.

     "The demand for teachers out-stripping supply is pretty much confined to large inner cities and outlying rural areas.  There is evidence that people studying to be teachers don't want to teach in those two areas of the country.  That is where a lot of the supply-and-demand problems lie," she says.

    "I think we might start being more creative about how we match up the people that are available for teaching with the jobs."

     Feistritzer also says that states should consider making teaching licenses mobile and casting a wider net to recruit across state lines.

  Return to News Articles page