The Monterey Herald

TEACHER SHORTAGE GETS WORSE
Retiring workforce, budget cuts, tuition costs at fault
By JENNIFER COLEMAN, Associated Press
May 23, 2004

WATSONVILLE - Educators in San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties cheered when they learned that 12 new special education teachers had graduated from a new program at nearby California State University, Monterey Bay last year.

Then they realized they'd have to replace about 350 special education teachers expected to retire in the next decade.

One is Sheryl Loomis, 55, who's been a special education teacher at H.A. Hyde Elementary School in Watsonville for seven years and an aide for 13 years before that. While she loves her job, she said, she's eyeing retirement.

''I can't see myself here more than five years,'' she said in her special education classroom, one of the school's two. ''This is a pretty physical job.''

She's one of more than a third of California's 309,000 teachers whose impending retirements are building toward what researchers calls a major teacher shortage, as the gap between the supply of credentialed teachers and the demand for them will grow steadily in the next 10 years.

Although California weathered teacher shortages in the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s, the state then had the money to spend on teacher training and recruiting programs. Now it doesn't. Plus there are new challenges -- budget cuts and fee increases at the two state university systems that train teachers and a new federal law that requires higher education standards for students and improved credentials for teachers.

So, said Margaret Gaston, executive director of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, California's once-praised teacher pipeline is ''essentially dismantled,'' and there's little in the budget proposed May 13 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to create much hope.

Instead, there are caps on enrollment at California State University and University of California campuses when the state needs to reinvest in teacher training, said Gaston, whose Santa Cruz-based research organization studies the teacher work force data. As universities cut spending, teacher education programs won't be spared.

CSU Monterey Bay expects to see a drop in teacher education enrollment, but it will ''make sure we have room in special education, where there's more need for teachers,'' said Beverly Carter, coordinator of the university's single-subject credential program.

Other CSU campuses, such as those in Sonoma, Hayward and Sacramento, said they will either have lower enrollments or maintain current levels by admitting some students through extension programs.

Those programs are usually much more expensive, and students enrolled there don't count on the campuses' tally when it comes to state funding. Hayward and Sacramento made temporary deals to let the education students pay fees similar to regular tuition while taking the regular teacher education courses.

''We've gotten creative,'' said Arthurlene G. Towner, dean of CSU Hayward's education department. ''But they can't do that forever.''

All eight University of California campuses offer teacher credentials and since 1999, they've more than doubled the number of teacher candidates they produce, from 997 to 2,210 in 2003.

But California still needs 2,100 new math teachers alone next year, and the state will still be short if all of the expected 1,300 math graduates from California universities became teachers, said Hanan Eisenman, a UC spokesman.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, a former teacher, has urged lawmakers and Schwarzenegger to protect the teacher training programs as much as possible.

California's teacher work force 309,000 Number of teachers working in California in 2002-03 20,196 Number of teachers working on emergency permits 52 Percentage of core classes in 2003 taught by teachers not yet considered highly qualified 30 Percentage of teachers who will reach retirement age in the next three to seven years

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