The Philadelphia School District tried to fill 2,000 empty teaching spots last summer. "They were hiring people off the streets, practically. There were lots of people teaching outside their area of certification," said Chris Hopey of Penn's Graduate School of Education. Hopey is the Associate Director of GSE's National Center on Adult Literacy. The issue of teacher shortages in public schools has hit urban districts nationwide, culminating in widespread concern. And while some say the panic is a fad exaggerated by media attention, others see it as a serious and complex phenomenon. "There's a lot of discussion of teacher shortages in the media and in the policy realm," said GSE Professor Richard Ingersoll, an expert on teacher shortages. "We have this increase in student enrollment, and we have this increase in retirement," Ingersoll said, adding that some people fear "these two figures are going to collide." "There are a lot of things wrong with this picture, this sort of conventional wisdom," Ingersoll continued. "The problem is not new and it hasn't gotten worse." Driving Teachers Out The problem that schools are addressing is probably the result of a number of factors, education experts say. Graduate School of Education Dean Susan Fuhrman said that a hot job market leads potential teachers to look elsewhere for more lucrative opportunities that require less training. Graduate school enrollments have declined across the board in the last four years, Fuhrman said. In particular, women who have traditionally worked in the classroom are finding other professions open to them and are willing to take advantage of these opportunities. "Education has always been a feminized field," Hopey said. "Women today are much more career oriented." And Ingersoll said that current teachers are being driven out of schools by issues with salary, student discipline, a lack of voice in the administration and a lack of support. But according to Hopey, the shortage lies not in a lack of qualified teachers, but in the inability to attract trained individuals to public schools -- especially in urban areas. "Not enough people go into urban schools," Hopey said. "Number one, it doesn't pay as well. Number two, it's a more difficult place to teach." Hopey said that starting salaries in Philadelphia were around $26,000, as compared with $40,000 in the suburbs. Class sizes average 35 in Philadelphia, but only 18 outside city limits. Hopey said that though all Penn education students are trained at University City schools, Penn graduates still do not want to eventually work in urban schools. Rob Olson, a student at GSE who student-teaches at University City High School, said he has not yet decided whether he will return to Philadelphia to teach. "The kids are fantastic and the staff is also great," Olson said. "The cons are the city-wide administration. They sometimes make it difficult to achieve what should be mutual goals." And many are frustrated by assignments to teach classes in fields for which they are not qualified. "There's a lot of out-of-field teaching out there, and one of the things that drives it is high turnover," Ingersoll said. "The principals scramble to fill these jobs each year and have to put square pegs in round holes. It tends to frustrate teachers and drive them out."
Shortages Hit Philly
And Philadelphia is having an especially hard time attracting teachers to its schools. "In Philadelphia we have some special factors," Philadelphia Education Fund Executive Director Nancy McGinley. "We're surrounded by a ring of suburban districts. Some suburban school districts provide tuition reimbursement [for teachers' graduate studies], and Philadelphia doesn't have that." Some prospective applicants are deterred by the city's demand that the district's teachers live in the city. "[The residency requirement] is something that needs to be looked at by City Council," McGinley said. There can be political repercussions from any attempt to lift this regulation -- other municipal employees, like the police and firemen, are bound by the same rules. McGinley said there are between 600 and 800 openings each year in Philadelphia. She suspects that the negative media stories about the school system and teacher contract negotiations have helped frighten away potential applicants. "Applications to teach in the city are really down this year," McGinley said. "Basically, we only have one-third of the applicants that we had a year ago." For Philadelphia, at least, the situation does not seem to be improving, despite the $4,500 signing bonus the district offers to new recruits. Another 1,000 teachers are currently of retirement age, according to Marj Adler, the executive director of human resources for the district. As it stands now, there are at least 600 teachers in the district who are not fully certified.
Quick fixes?
Many programs have been developed to respond to the crunch in Philadelphia and other cities. "Career Switcher" programs bring middle-aged workers into the classroom. Programs like Teach for America place recent college graduates into urban schools as teaching fellows. These programs are based on provisional certification, which expires after five years unless the teacher pursues a full degree. Penn has implemented its own emergency certification program in which "Literacy Interns" take classes at GSE and are matched up as interns with teachers in the Philadelphia School District. Additionally, some politicians are pushing for legislation that will forgive student loans for teachers who take jobs in needy urban districts. But Ingersoll warns against quick fixes, and says that programs that rush students into provisional certification or lure teachers with signing bonuses are only "band-aids." He advocates better working conditions, which would stabilize the field. "Data tell us that within five years, 39 percent of new teachers are gone from the occupation," Ingersoll said. "It's not that there's this lack of able bodies. The problem isn't shortages, the problem is turnover. "Teaching is a sort of revolving door occupation. We need to keep the good people we already have," he added. Suggestions for improving the quality of teachers seem to center around the demand to improve the quality of working conditions. Fuhrman said that some have suggested an increase in salary, and a concurrent increase in the length of the school year, up to 11 months instead of nine. "Any strategy that lowers standards is not going to work in the long term," Ingersoll said. "Improve the job and make it more like a profession. [Presently] it doesn't have the pay and it doesn't have the status that other professions have."
