Association Fuels Debate on Shortage of Teachers

A worsening nationwide shortage of fully certified classroom teachers was predicted Saturday by the nation’s largest teachers organization.

But the prediction appeared to fuel more debate over what constitutes a teacher shortage and who is a qualified teacher.

Based on a survey of the 128 largest school districts, the National Education Assn., which concludes its annual convention in Los Angeles today, said the nation faces an “appalling” shortage of qualified classroom instructors. The survey, conducted in May by Commercial Analysts of New York, forecast 35,000 teaching vacancies in the coming school year, primarily in bilingual education, special education, science and mathematics.

“The problem this year is just a little more severe than last year,” when the association found 32,000 vacancies, NEA Vice President Keith Geiger said during a news conference to release the survey.

Gloomy predictions of a massive teacher shortage have played a key role in shaping the national debate over raising standards and salaries in the teaching profession. Teacher leaders, including NEA President Mary Futrell, have argued that a shortage of qualified teachers has caused school districts to lower their standards. For instance, many districts, including Los Angeles, have turned to an emergency credentialing procedure that enables them to hire people who lack formal teacher training. Other districts rely extensively on substitutes to staff classrooms, or assign teachers to teach subjects outside of their specialty field, the NEA says.

NEA Findings Contradicted

A private education analyst, Emily Feistritzer, released a separate study last week that contradicted the NEA finding, however. Feistritzer, whose research is cited by U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett in refuting teacher shortage arguments, said there is an abundant supply--perhaps even a glut--of teachers nationally.

The difference of opinion seems to hinge on how one defines a qualified teacher.

According to the 1.8-million-member NEA, a qualified teacher is a person who has earned a teaching certificate by completing student teaching and the required college course work in teaching methodology and, furthermore, who is teaching the subject that he or she was trained to teach.

But Feistritzer, who runs the National Center for Education Information, a private research firm in Washington, said a qualified teacher may also include a person who has entered the profession through an “alternate route,” such as a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts instead of education. Feistritzer said she was an uncertified teacher during the eight years she taught high school science and mathematics in Kentucky during the 1960s, but that she won several awards for outstanding teaching.

“We may be locking out the very best people by that arbitrary definition” that a teacher must be fully certified in order to teach, Feistritzer said in a telephone interview Saturday from Kentucky, where she was visiting.

The NEA’s Geiger, however, strongly disputed that view. “Emily Feistritzer defines a teacher as a warm body in the front of the classroom. . . . We do not support (alternative certification). We believe a teacher must go through the pedagogy and student teaching.”

In Washington, Education Secretary Bennett said Saturday that he supports alternate certification and believes that it would help increase the pool of qualified applicants. Jane Glickman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education who was monitoring the NEA conference, said the secretary believes the teacher shortage may be appearing in some disciplines and in some parts of the country but is “not a significant national problem.”

NEA Survey

As evidence that a shortage exists, the NEA said its survey found that 48% of the districts polled plan to rely on temporary or substitute teachers to staff classrooms; 41% plan to hire teachers on an emergency basis, and 39% plan to assign teachers to classes outside their field. More than half of the districts indicated that they planned to make some classes larger or, conversely, eliminate courses, if they could not hire enough teachers.

NEA officials could not say how many of the 32,000 vacancies found last year remained unfilled after the school year began. Ron Henderson, an NEA official who was responsible for overseeing the research, said it was possible that nearly all of the vacancies were eventually filled but, he stressed, probably not with fully qualified teachers. The organization intends to poll the districts again in October or November to find out exactly how many of the 35,000 openings projected this year were filled by instructors who met all the requirements.

Feistritzer conducted her survey of 93 school districts, including 16 of the nation’s largest districts, in June, and found more teachers looking for work than openings.

San Diego school district officials told Feistritzer’s surveyors that they were receiving 42 applications for each of 550 openings. The Jefferson County, Colo., school district reported that it had 10 job seekers for every vacancy, or 5,000 applications for 500 teacher openings.

Called a Shortage

The researcher said that many districts did not receive as many applications as they would have liked to see and called this situation a shortage.

The ratio reported by the Los Angeles school district was much lower than that reported by other districts. According to Feistritzer’s study, Los Angeles was receiving 3.7 applications for every opening, based on a projection of 2,500 vacancies.

According to Bill Rivera, a spokesman for the Los Angeles school district, the district needs 2,200 new teachers this fall--somewhat fewer than the 2,600 it needed last year. About 1,000 teachers already have been signed, and district officials expect to meet their hiring goal by the fall, he added.

He acknowledged, however, that half of the new teachers who will be hired this year will not be fully qualified--about the same proportion as last year. “There is a shortage of completely qualified teachers,” he said.

Potential Teachers

Feistritzer said the NEA has failed to take into account a large existing pool of potential teachers. She concluded from an analysis of U.S. Department of Education figures that 636,000 people who obtained teaching certificates between 1970 and 1983 were not employed as teachers.

In addition, she said that a substantial number of former teachers, who may have left the profession for a variety of reasons, are returning to teaching, but she said no figures were available to indicate the size of this reserve pool.