Since the state eliminated the lateral entry program for teachers, we have been busy filling the void for teachers.  North Carolina is turning out to be one of our best states.  We have had over 1,500 potential teachers apply to the NC Teachers of Tomorrow program, we have had over 300 start the program and we know that over 40 have already been hired.  Since we just started last fall, this is a phenomenal beginning.

We see articles on the teacher shortage all the time (right now Kentucky has a ton). But it is great to actually help districts solve their shortage in time for back to school.

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So it is has never been a better time to be a Texas Teacher! If you were thinking about becoming a teacher, now is really the time.

Still confused about getting into the teaching profession? One of our most popular blog posts is Should I be a Teacher – we provide 24 reasons why teaching is a great profession.

And the Texas legislature added reason number 25 – because they are willing to a pay raise more to teachers starting net year.

We will have the details of the the legislation next week – so more to come!

The post Texas Teacher Pay Raise Passes! appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

“The share of schools that were trying to fill a vacancy but couldn’t tripled from the 2011–2012 to 2015–2016 school years (increasing from 3.1 to 9.4 percent), and in the same period the share of schools that found it very difficult to fill a vacancy nearly doubled (from 19.7 to 36.2 percent).”

We see it every day with our school district partners across the United States – there are just too many teaching vacancies. And why are there so many teacher openings – well 13.8% leave the classroom every year and we don’t have the supply to replace those teachers.

“These difficulties are also shaped by a dwindling pool of applicants to fill vacancies. From the 2008–2009 to 2015–2016 school years, there was a 15.4 percent drop in the number of education degrees awarded and a 27.4 percent drop in the number of people who completed a teacher preparation program.”

We need teachers. And we need great teachers and we need them for this fall.  I hope that you read this and see it for what it is – an opportunity for a great person like you to inspire the next generation of learners.

We need you now!

The post U. S. School Struggle to Hire Teachers appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the 0.83% departure rate per month is the highest on record since this started being tracked in 2001.

This tends to happen in teaching.  In 2009 when the economy was first started coming out of a very deep recession, the rate of teachers leaving was 0.48%.  People go into education when the economy is bad and stay there.

But this is more than just the economy at full employment – this is also about millenials and gen x/y – they switch jobs and careers more often than baby boomers who tended to stay in one job.

According to Gallup, 21% of millennials say they’ve changed jobs within the past year, which is more than three times the number of non-millennials who report the same. Millennials also show less willingness to stay in their current jobs. Half of millennials — compared with 60% of non-millennials — strongly agree that they plan to be working at their company one year from now.

So – teachers a leaving because this generation is not as connected as previous generations and with a great economy and low unemployment, teachers are leaving at greater rates.

That means – there are great teaching jobs out there right now and we need more programs that help people get into the classroom quickly and efficiently.

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Since the recession, state and local governments have cut school budgets contributing to the shortage.  There are still 116,000 fewer public education jobs then there was before the recession in 2007. 

The consequences that the employment gap are causing in America’s schools are:

1. Larger class sizes
2. Fewer teacher aides
3. Fewer extracurricular activities
4. Poor working conditions
5. Subpar wages

What is not addressed is that all 5 of the reasons above are why people are not going into teaching as a first career straight out of college.

The teacher shortage is getting worse – and students are the ones who suffer.

WANT TO HEAR MORE – Dave Saba is speaking on Teacher Shortages at the American Association of School Personnel Administrators annual conference conference at 3:00 PM on Wednesday October 10, 2018 in Minnesota – Teacher Shortages  -where are we and what can we do?

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The Shortage is increasing! 

[i]

Why are there so many open positions?

• Florida students graduating with an education degree has fallen by nearly 5,000 since 2006.[ii]
• In 2008, there were 9,012 education program completers, by 2015 it was down to 5,612 – a 38% drop
• In 2014, 2,477 teachers came from out of state and in just one year that more than doubled to 5,124 teachers from out of state – but Florida cannot depend on other states for its teacher[iii]
• Public school enrollment has grown from 2.6 million in 2008 to 2.8 million in 2015 [iv]

Can alternative certification help?

• Texas does not have a shortage and more than 50% of its teachers come from– and those teachers have a 70% 5 year retention rate. As education majors dropped, alternative certification increased to cover that drop
• Florida only gets 32% of its teachers from alternative certification – and that percentage has stayed constant. As education majors dropped, so did the numbers completing alternative certification.
• Florida Teachers of Tomorrow has had over 2,400 applicants in the program but only 160 have been admitted – this is due to the length of time it takes to get an SOE, people lose interest, as well as the confusing array of options that result in people not completing a given route.

 Why?

• Delays from FLDOE – it is taking up to 6 months for a person to get their Statement of Eligibility (SOE) to teach – we see this first hand with Florida Teachers of Tomorrow
• Alternative certification teachers don’t complete a program – 35% of Temp Certificate teachers in Florida do not move on to a professional certificate. We lose way too many teachers through the alternative route. [v]
• General Knowledge Test – alternative certification teachers demonstrate general knowledge while enrolled in their program. Over 1,040 teacher are out of a job after failing state tests in spite of effective evaluations.[vi] But those enrolled in an EPI had a 31% greater pass rate than those not enrolled. [vii]

Bottom line: current certification rule makes it easy to get into teaching but 35% will leave teaching because they don’t finish a program.  We have to stop the outflow of teachers.

[i] Florida’s teacher shortage is ‘real and its going to get worse’, State Board of Ed member worries, Gradebook, Tampa Bay Times August 18, 2018

[ii] Florida School districts wrestle with teacher shortage, Orlando Sentinel, February 10, 2017

[iii] U.S. Department of Education Title II Reports for 2015-2016,

[iv] Datacenter Kidscount, Florida state student enrollment

[v] Teacher Recruitment and Retention Presentation to the State Board of Education, August 2016

[vi] At least 1,040 FL teachers out of jobs after failing state test, despite ‘effective’ evaluations, ABC Action News Tampa Bay, August 1, 2018

[vii] Florida State Board of Education powerpoint presentation from Bureau of Postsecondary Assessment, March 2, 2016

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• NASDTEC – National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification
• ECS -Education Commission of the States
• CCSSO – Council of Chief State School Officers
• NCSL -National Council of State Legislators
• ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council

These are especially interesting times in education and I hope to engage in lengthy discussions on:

• How the teacher shortage continues to impact schools and students
• How the Supreme Court ruling on Janus has a significant impact on teacher unions – $50M budget cuts and the possible loss of over 300,000 members announced already
• The Gates Foundation very expensive foray into Teacher evaluation research “finds scant evidence that those changes accomplished what they were meant to: improve teacher quality or boost student learning.”
• The lack of diversity in teaching
• Teacher testing  – is it working?

Unfortunately – most of these topics are not discussed as I scan the agendas – so I guess we will just have to keep pushing since teaching does have the greatest impact on student success.

However I am very encouraged to be a part of the CCSSO working group on diversity in teaching with a very distinguished and focused group.  And I will continue to push on the teacher shortage at every event with a laser focus on the teacher licensing issues that impact shortages and diversity!

If you are at any of these conferences, hit me up on twitter and let’s solve the worlds education problems over a beverage or two!

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We just got started with Arizona Teachers of Tomorrow last week and are proud to be part of the solution. We don’t have any hard data but in just two weeks we have been asked by numerous districts and charter school groups to fill open positions for next year.

So, like many things in education, we “know” there are open Arizona teaching jobs right now that need a great teachers.  We just have no data to back it up.

We do know our great HR reps in the school districts -the sharpest ones – are already getting in touch with us to hire our teachers for Arizona schools

The post Arizona Teaching Jobs appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

• During the 2015-16 school year, there was a national shortage of about 60,000 teachers
• Across the country, half of all schools, and 90 percent of high-poverty schools, have experienced a teacher shortage
• If current trends persist, the group estimates that annual shortfall could grow to 112,000 teachers by 2018
• The need for more educators continuing to grow well into the 2020s.

The shortages are being driven by both an increase in demand and a decrease in supply – teacher attrition rates are high and teacher-preparation program enrollments have fallen 35 percent nationwide in the last five years. Career changers are the perfect answer to this problem and our programs are the most efficient and effective way for career changers to get into the classroom.

Please click below to find your classroom!

• Texas Teachers
• Florida Teachers
• Michigan Teachers
• Nevada Teachers
• Arizona Teachers

If you want to teach in the high needs areas like special education, bi-lingual, science and math or hard to staff schools – you will be in high demand. There is no better time to get into teaching with the one program that truly helps you get there.

The post Your Teaching Career Starts Now appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

The first stat blew us away – now we know that California has had a 70% drop in ed school students in the last 5 years but according to this article, “California has 8,245 positions available, compared to 5,868 on the same day last year, according to an EDJOIN report provided by the San Joaquin County Office of Education.” That’s a crisis.

This article quotes a report says there will be shortage of black and Hispanic teachers until 2060 which is funny because our teachers are 46% non-white and could speed that up.

Utah is short 900 teachers and creating larger class sizes – and we are launching Utah Teachers of Tomorrow to meet that need now!

Harrison County West Virginia has a serious math teacher shortage

Oklahoma is having trouble finding teachers – 6-7 more students per class with 500 teacher vacancies.

Peoria IL starts with a shortage of 68 teachers and 13 long term subs

Idaho Governor Otter talks about solutions to their teacher shortage

Rowan County in North Carolina is still short 70-80 teachers

Wisconsin expands teacher license options to cope with teacher shortages with enrollment in teacher prep programs falling 28% in the last 5 years.

Virginia has open teaching positions with Chesterfield County has 28 openings, Henrico has 36, Petersburg has 34 and Hanover has five and Richmond is short 76 teachers!

It takes me longer and longer to put together this list each day of who is still hiring teachers – not surprising since school is starting – but it is pretty bad.

The post Schools Still Hiring Teachers appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

As soon as the job fair started, you could see teachers and HR reps going into the interview rooms so that decisions could be made.  It really is incredible to watch.

Note that since 2014, we have certified 852 math teachers, 897 science teachers, 604 bilingual Spanish teachers and 1796 special education teachers!!

That’s how you solve the teacher shortage.

The post Teacher Job Fair appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.

We are heading out to Reno next week to meet with their team to look at the current open teaching positions – they have 200 right now – and see how we can help.

It’s what we do.

The post Open Nevada Teaching Jobs appeared first on Teachers of Tomorrow.