The state’s universities will face an unenviable task of fighting a looming teacher shortage, said The University of Kansas School of Education Dean Rick Ginsberg.
The lack of competitive compensation is pushing more teachers away from the craft while creating a larger problem without a surefire solution, Ginsberg said.“The numbers are so vague in this state,” Ginsberg said. “We don't know how many teachers are truly needed everywhere.”Record numbers of teachers are nearing retirement age. Long-term vacancies are rising in rural and inner-city school districts. Fewer college students are training to become teachers.According to the National Education Association, about 20 percent of new teaching hires in the U.S., often overwhelmed and underpaid, leave the classroom within two years.Ginsberg said the real shortage starts in the math and science classrooms. The average starting annual salary for a teacher in Kansas is about $29,202, while the average salary for a chemical engineer in Kansas is around $80,000.Kent McDonald, a former geologist who teaches science at Lawrence High School, said he felt money was a big factor in turning people off to teaching science.“I could make three to four times as much as I do now if I wanted to go back into, say, petroleum geology,” he said.With a weak economy, Ginsberg said it has become harder to convince the younger generation to enter the teaching field. The University of Kansas School of Education had accepted more students this past year than in recent years, but he said the situation was far from ideal.The university recently launched a program called UKanTeach, a joint venture between the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Education that allows students earning a bachelor’s degree to also earn a teaching license.Some rural Kansas school districts are offering financial help with continuing education and English-as-a-second-language certification.Although these initiatives might lure more people to earn teaching certificates, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will have sustained teaching careers.“There’s something like 75,000 licensed teachers in the state of Kansas,” Ginsberg said. “We only have around 33,000 actually teaching. That should tell you something.”Alan Gleue, physics teacher at Lawrence High School and science department chairman, said that even though they’re underpaid, many teachers have stayed out of a sense of duty.“I still have the quixotic feeling that I make a difference,” he said. “Most teachers who stay with teaching have the feeling they're contributing something to society outside of receiving a paycheck.”LAWRENCE —
