Teachers make up one of the largest portions of the U.S. workforce, but the more than 200,000 men and women graduating from teaching programs this year face a shortage of jobs, stagnant salaries, increasing focus on standardized testing and growing aversion to tenure.
Statistics show 40 percent leave the field within five years.
Many school districts receive thousands of applications for just a small number of positions. The one advantage of being new to the workforce may be that districts can pay new teachers significantly lower salaries than veterans.
“We are fresh out of school, we are first-year, and they don’t have to pay us as much,” said one graduate at Montclair State University.
Despite the challenges, most new teachers suffer few illusions about the difficulties facing those in their field. For many, their reasons for wanting to teach outweigh salary and hiring prospects.
“Their main driver is to feel that they can make a difference,” said Richard Ingersoll of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, who surveys college seniors about what they want out of their future careers.
Yet the high number of teachers who change careers after five years often encounter other factors they not anticipated. Ingersoll said negative experiences with school administrations and student behavior wears educators down, and schools in low-income areas with have the worst turnover rates.
Despite the fact that minorities now make up more than half of students, efforts to diversify teaching have only increased the number of minority teachers by 4 percent over the last two decades. Eighty percent of U.S. teachers remain white and three-quarters are female.
Warm up questions
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Why does someone become a teacher?
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What are the challenges of teaching?
Critical thinking questions
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Despite the challenges for new teachers, why do you think so many people continue to enter the field?
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What are the drawbacks of having fewer veteran teachers in schools?
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What can be done to increase the number of people that stick with teaching? What about minority teachers?
