By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
An education reform advocate says the National Education Association — by rejecting qualified teachers without an education degree — is largely responsible for a shortage of public school teachers in America.
A report from the U.S. Department of Education last year estimated that between 1 and 2.7 million new teachers will be needed by the year 2008 to replace educators who are retiring or changing careers. Meanwhile, statistics on turnover among new teachers are startling — approximately 20% of new hires leave the classroom within three years. And an even higher percentage of teachers in urban districts — almost half — exit the profession within five years.
Despite this bleak outlook, it appears the largest teachers' union in the country is reluctant to tap into an available resource to alleviate the problem. Education Secretary Rod Paige recently said the National Education Association — which claims 2.7 million members among the nation's educators — was “fighting to keep the status quo” by preventing qualified non-teachers from making their way into classrooms across the country.
Tracey Bailey, the 1993 National Teacher of the Year, is director of national projects with the Association of American Educators, which describes itself as an organization for educators who are looking for a professional alternative to the “partisan politics and controversial social agendas of teacher unions.” Bailey says the NEA is hindering many qualified teachers from entering the teaching profession.
“The NEA is resisting looking for quality teachers in other walks of life,” Bailey says, offering an example. “Retired military personnel make very, very capable teachers and oftentimes have the math and science expertise that our schools so desperately need.”
The former Florida high-school science teacher says powerful teachers' unions consistently try to manipulate the supply and demand of teachers in the classroom. “They try to control the certification and the college of education process — it's unfortunate,” he says. “And it's one reason that we see in too many colleges of education such an influence of political fads rather than strong academic requirements for teachers.”
Bailey says far too often, many state departments of education and even school districts are very restrictive in allowing non-traditional teachers to receive certification for the classroom.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
