Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Remind Me Again, Why Does Arizona Have a Teacher Shortage?

Posted By on Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 6:17 PM

A research paper from the Learning Policy Institute concludes that there's a nationwide shortage of teachers, and the number of students in teacher education programs has dropped dramatically over the past five years, meaning the shortage is likely to continue.

A recent report from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association says Arizona is currently about 2000 teachers short (I haven't been able to locate the report online, so I don't know the details).

The Learning Policy Institute study gave each state a "teacher attractiveness rating." Arizona ranked dead last.

Now there's another study from WalletHub, 2016’s Best & Worst States for Teachers. In this one, Arizona climbs all the way to 49th, ahead of West Virginia and Hawaii. Here are the Arizona rankings by category. Annual salaries: Number 47. Projected teachers per student by the year 2022: Number 50. Pupil-teacher ratio: Number 49. Lowest spending per student: Number 50. School systems ranking: Number 48.

Put them all together, they spell SHORTAGE. (S is for the Sorry school funding. H is for Horrendous teacher pay . . .)

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