Get your own Free Home PageGuilford County Schools are experiencing a crisis: a teacher shortage. The number of prospective teachers will not keep up with the number of resigning and retiring teachers, the state board of education says.
One possible way of improving that situation is ending the emphasis on hiring new teachers who have been through their colleges’ schools of education. Rather, the state and country should opt to hire more lateral-entry teachers -- those teachers who learn about how to teach on the job.
Another possible approach will be have teachers instruct in more than one discipline. Giving teachers a larger variety of classes may reduce teacher boredom and burnout. Giving, say, an English teacher the opportunity to teach a few classes in history might inspire man teachers to stick with the profession.
The point is that the administration needs to give students more incentives, just like students are given incentives to make better grades.
Another critical area of change is the meager pay teachers in the state currently receive. In 10 years teachers will probably be making close to double of what they do now. A beginner teacher fresh out of college makes an abysmal $21,000 a year now. In the span of one decade, the world will drastically mature in its economical zone. Thus, teachers’ pay should keep up with the ecomomic upswing.
Not only must salaries increase, more benefits must be offered too. Currently, teachers have a health insurance plan that they pay for in part, a supplement payment from the county government and a pension plan for their retirement. Many teachers would like to update their teaching credentials. However, the state and county offer little incentive for such an upgrade. The two should jointly pay tenured teachers to return to graduate school for two years to get their master’s degrees.
In Clinton’s federal education proposal that he made in January, he mentioned raising the salaries of teachers and other school personnel. He saw how badly teachers were getting paid. He knows a better environment would make teachers more eager. There are many job vacancies. In Guilford County, there are more than 20 openings at elementary, middle and secondary schools.
Guilford County Schools are not the only ones with this problem. Schools in Mississippi and South Carolina are having the same problem.
In 2009 the world will be dramatically different and major changes in managing the teaching profession come to pass by then.
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