Teaching Gets An 'A'

By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 9/16/2008

More people would consider becoming teachers than you’d expect: a whopping 42 percent of college-educated Americans aged 24-60 say they’d join the profession if they changed careers, says a new study from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Teaching as a Second Career says these potential teachers are more likely than others to have a postgraduate degree, have attended selective colleges, and report having higher-than-average grades than other college graduates.

“Career changers could help address persistent teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools—given the right compensation and the right preparation," says Arthur Levine, Woodrow’s president. “While a number of programs have been created in the past 20 years to tap career changers as teachers, the nation needs to open teaching to a broader talent pool, and to recruit, prepare, and support those career changers more effectively."

There are an anticipated 1.5 million teaching vacancies over the next decade, says the survey, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. and based on interviews with 2,292 college-educated adults.

In fact, more people would consider teaching as a second career if starting salaries were raised to $50,000 and if career changers could receive quality training and support, the study adds.

Three in 10 of those surveyed who aren’t interested in teaching say that although the profession does have appeal, low pay kept them from even considering it. Even among those who are interested in teaching, low pay was still their biggest concern about the field, and only 36 percent say a salary below $50,000 is acceptable to them.

More than two in five (43 percent) of potential teachers say the most important step to encourage them to become a teacher is ensuring that salaries are adequate and competitive with other professions.

“Raising starting pay is the single most important step states and districts could take to increase the attractiveness of teaching for career changers," says Woodrow Wilson senior fellow David Haselkorn. “But money alone isn’t the answer. Potential teachers also want better working conditions and quality preparation programs that offer classroom experience, deeper content and pedagogical knowledge, and ongoing support once they enter teaching."