Recruiters Struggle to Fill Demand : Teacher Glut Over

When Susan Knight decided to become a teacher, some people thought she was crazy.

Her friends were “intellectual snobs about teaching” who said she would spend all her classroom time “disciplining people.” Professors were no more encouraging, warning that she wouldn’t make any money.

But Knight, a student teacher at Pasadena High School, ignored the disparaging comments, and it’s good news for public schools that she did.

When she earns her master’s degree this June, Knight will enter a pool of new teachers who will have little trouble finding jobs. After a decade-long glut, teachers are once again in short supply, and educators say the problem will grow worse before it gets better.

According to a recent Rand study, by 1988 there will be enough new teachers to satisfy only 80% of the country’s demand. State education officials say that California will be hard-pressed to find the 110,000 new teachers they predict will be needed over the next decade and foresee shortages in several fields, particularly in math, science and bilingual education.

The short-term picture is not much brighter. The giant Los Angeles Unified School District needs 2,500 teachers by September, primarily to fill vacancies in its southeastern and south-central regions. Hundreds of vacancies exist in other parts of Los Angeles County, in particular the East San Gabriel Valley, Inglewood and such Southeast districts as Whittier and Long Beach.

Even districts that are not

in trouble yet say it’s only a matter of time before the shortage hits them. “It won’t catch us by surprise,” said Deputy Supt. Richard Bartholome of the Bonita Unified School District, where 100 of the 400 teachers are at or near retirement age.

Consequently, many districts are intensively recruiting teachers for the first time in years--and they are not having an easy time doing so.

The predominantly Latino Bassett School District has been subscribing to a Sacramento-based computer matching service to find 15 to 20 bilingual and special education teachers, said Fay Mason, assistant to the superintendent. Bilingual instructors are a critical need, she said, because 60% of Bassett’s 10,000 students speak limited or no English. To cope with the shortage, the district has been hiring teachers lacking full certification on an emergency basis while they complete their training.

The 11,000-student Azusa Unified School District is searching for 30 new teachers by September, particularly in the areas of bilingual education, special education, math, science and English. “Compared to Los Angeles, that is a drop in the bucket,” said Assistant Supt. Robert Kahle. “But L.A.’s needs affect all of us. They have recruiters out all the time, and they have a large budget--which means they may get there first.”

Although the state Legislature has provided the funds to increase starting salaries in most districts to at least $18,000 a year, some districts are still handicapped by unattractively low pay. With a beginning salary of $15,760, teachers in the Compton Unified School District, for instance, are among the lowest paid in the county.

“It’s really difficult for me to recruit,” said district personnel director Joseph Simmons, whose recruiters have traveled as far as Washington state to spread the word about Compton. “The only thing we can do is appeal to the (recruits) about the need. We tell them the inner-city schools need good people. You try to appeal to their humanitarian side.”

To find teachers, recruiters are making the rounds of college campuses up and down the state, armed with newly written brochures extolling the virtues of their districts. Some are searching in other states and even in other countries.

The Long Beach Unified School District, for instance, sent a team to Vancouver, Canada, in April and interviewed more than 100 candidates there. According to district spokesman Richard Van Der Laan, Long Beach will gain 1,500 new students in September, primarily because of a growing minority population, and needs to hire at least 50 teachers for next year.

Some districts are offering special inducements to attract recruits. For instance, most districts give transferring teachers a maximum of five years credit for previous experience, forcing teachers with more experience to take a salary cut if they want to be hired. Now the Los Angeles Unified School District is offering full credit for previous experience, recruitment director Michael Acosta said. The Whittier Union High School District is doing the same.

“It is a big plus,” said Bill Lawson, president of the Whittier School Employees Assn. “It gives a teacher a chance to come to this district without being penalized.”

For the most part, math, science, English and bilingual teachers are in the greatest demand. According to national surveys, those specialized teachers are scarce throughout the country, making competition among school districts keen.

“We’re all after the same people,” Acosta said.

Ronald Matejcek, personnel director for the Covina Valley Unified School District, said he is thinking about retraining teachers to fill needs for math and science instructors. His proposal would provide district funds to pay for the additional classes the teachers would have to take to earn the specialized credentials. The Covina district needs to hire 20 new teachers by the fall.

In Azusa, Assistant Supt. Kahle said he also tries to stay close to home in his recruitment efforts. Three years ago, for instance, he recruited a school maintenance man who had completed three years of college to be an auto shop teacher. The maintenance man later earned his teaching credential. “If I recruited out of state, it’s risky how long (a new teacher) would stay in Azusa,” he said.

Although Azusa schools enjoy a good reputation, the district lacks the advantages that more affluent and more scenic communities have in recruiting and retaining good teachers. “If I recruit in-house,” Kahle added, “there’s a better chance they’ll stay.”

The reasons for the teacher shortage are complex. But a major factor is that, after a decade of declining enrollments, the elementary school rolls are beginning to swell again with the offspring of the baby-boom generation. “Many districts are seeing increased enrollments,” said Tim McClure of the California School Boards Assn.

Number Has Declined

However, the number of teachers graduating from schools of education has declined precipitously over the last several years. According to a joint study of the Los Angeles County superintendent of schools and California State University, teacher training programs in California and the nation are producing 50% fewer teachers now than in 1971.

Educators say the decline was partly a response to the teacher surpluses that characterized the 1970s. However, studies show that the profession lost many potential teachers to more lucrative occupations. In particular, academically talented women stopped flocking to teaching in the numbers they once did because of widening opportunities in other fields.

“For years the only careers open to women were teaching and nursing. Now the sky is really the limit,” said Denise Holt, consultant to the 174,000-member California Teachers Assn. “How can we compete with a $40,000-a-year advertising job?” she asked.

1,200 Are Graduating

A check of education schools at seven major private and public colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area shows that approximately 1,200 new teachers are graduating this year--not nearly enough to satisfy local needs. Although most of those schools are reporting increased enrollment in teacher-training programs for the first time in three years, observers say it will be some time before supply equals demand.

At the same time, retirements are beginning to take a toll. Many teachers who were hired after World War II--during the last shortage--are now reaching retirement age. In the Whittier Union High School District, for instance, retirements account for 20 of the 40 vacancies that have to be filled next fall. In the Covina Valley Unified School District, a third of the teaching staff is 55 or older. The teacher shortage “will really hit us in the next few years,” said personnel director Matejcek.

Basic Skills Test

Finally--ironically--the education reform movement of the last few years also is contributing to the shortfall. The state Legislature now requires all teacher candidates to pass a basic skills test. In 1983, the first year the test was administered, more than one-third failed; last year, about one-quarter failed.

“I shouldn’t call it a problem (but) we do have CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test),” said Joseph Steele, personnel director for the Inglewood Unified School District. “Everyone I have talked to says it is important to keep those standards high, not dilute them. But it is cutting in” to the teacher supply, he said.

Last year Steele had to hire 120 teachers, including probationary teachers and long-term substitutes. With 70 vacancies to fill this year, he began recruiting intensively in April, visiting six campuses in a four-week period. So far, his recruiting has netted about 25 teachers.

Inglewood has much in common with other districts grappling with the shortage. For instance, though Steele could not provide exact figures, more teachers in Inglewood are retiring, while the enrollment is beginning to climb.

In addition, like many of the districts that are scrambling to hire new teachers, Inglewood has a predominantly minority enrollment; it is is 66% black, 30% Latino, 3% Anglo and 1% Asian. That poses special challenges in the classroom, Steele said, and requires careful screening of candidates to be sure they have a “sensitivity to multicultural backgrounds.”

Also, recruiting is expensive, and a small district such as Inglewood is hard-pressed to compete against larger districts with bigger budgets. Steele said he could use five times the $4,000 the school board allocated for recruitment this year. “When you compete against larger districts with more personnel, you’re going to be at a disadvantage,” he said.

Emphasizes the Positive

But in interviews with prospective teachers, Steele emphasizes the positive.

“Greetings from sunny Southern California,” he said to one applicant at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, which drew recruiters from 53 school districts to a two-day recruitment fair in May.

Steele said he makes a point of telling potential recruits that Inglewood is “close to the beach, close to the airport and close to the big city,” which he said was a recruiting plus for the inner-city district.

He said that Inglewood’s competitive $18,719 beginning salary and stable conditions at the middle-management level of school principals are strong selling points, too.

In San Luis Obispo, he tried to give Inglewood an edge over the other school districts by including a Cal Poly alumnus on its recruiting team. About 250 teacher candidates are graduating from Cal Poly this June, and most of them want to stay in the area because of the pastoral scenery and the mild central coast climate, according to associate placement director Shel Burrell. Persuading them to leave San Luis Obispo for Inglewood could be tough. But “If they know someone from Cal Poly went there and is happy,” Burrell said, “it helps.”

So Morningside High School teacher Meryl Brown, the Cal Poly alum, was ready with a reply when one prospective teacher asked what it was like to go from “a place like Cal Poly to the inner city.” “We used to call this place ‘Slow City,’ ” Brown said, smiling. Teaching in Inglewood “has been a good opportunity for me,” she added.

Inglewood was still interviewing candidates long after most of the other recruiters had gone home. When it was over, Steele said he probably would offer contracts to three of the applicants. Although that doesn’t seem like much of a haul, the recruiter pronounced the trip successful.

“It provided me with the opportunity to establish a liaison with the university and meet some of our future teachers on the spot,” he said.

“We’re not going to fall all over ourselves offering contracts,” he added. “We want to make sure they want to come with us. We want to make sure it’s a successful marriage--or at least a successful honeymoon.”

District recruiters like Steele seem as worried about hanging on to teachers once they are hired as they are about finding enough of them. And, according to teacher union representatives, that is a healthy concern. Teacher dropouts are another factor in the shortage, and many new teachers tend to leave the profession within the first four years on the job, said Whittier’s Lawson.