The Great American Teacher Shortage
This assignment was created by students at The City College of New York for the Freshman Inquiry Writing Seminar, Web Discourse. Students are researching a social issue in one of four large topics: Urban Life, Public Health, Immigration, and Education. This will result in a final research paper that explores both how the conversations surrounding the issue are enacted and how a CCNY student may enter that conversation in a meaningful way.
For my research project I am greatly interested in the fear of a teacher shortage that is currently looming over the educational system in the United States. This worry can be easily seen at the college level through all the federal incentives being offered to those who consider teaching - with everything from grants to volunteer educational work that leads to certification. This subject greatly interests me because I am thinking about becoming a teacher if my original goal for a major does not work out. A shortage would also limit competition, giving valuable advantages in the job market while also doing something to better serve our communities; however, if this concern does not bear fruit the surge of new teachers will put further stress on the system and many educators will be out of work.
In order to write the paper I will have to examine the issue from various angles: including political, social, governmental, and cultural viewpoints. Organizations such as Teach for America or the federal programs offering grants to potential teachers will also play a role. Among my big questions is whether or not this is just a scare - it happened in 1999 as well - or a genuine true shortage, and if it is what subjects are undermanned. What is the government doing beyond offering grants and funding social programs? I am also curious from my last article regarding the situation in California as to whether this is only in certain states or school districts, or is indeed national, and how such layoffs would affect the need in surrounding states and communities.
I will also be examining the effectiveness of the current legislation and looking for better ways for the government to respond to this situation that I feel could be made based on my research. I plan to interview with various educators as to their opinions on the subject with questions regarding class sizes, workloads, and time constraints, as well as the economy and the implications of the budget on these situations. I also hope to get a chance to speak with someone from financial aid who knows more about the teaching grants.
I feel one of my hardest problems will be finding proper evidence and presenting a good solid argument, especially with the current bear market. This not only discourages schools from hiring, but also has triggered layoffs due to budget concerns, as well as the differences between school systems in each individual state. To overcome this I will have to examine school systems on a state by state basis, and establish specific states to be used as comparisons in consideration of the various situations. However, this will require lots of work and will not guarantee a fair comparison because again it will not be any one factor that truly amounts to the shortage.
Comments
Your topic is a good one, mainly because it really is a major issue. I know about the problem, but I don't know about exactly how bad it has gotten in the US. It seems you are going to try to analyze that in depth as your focus in the essay. I think that would be a bit too ambitious for a simple introductory writing class essay.
You don't seem to have a specific argument about your topic yet, but that would come up after you do some research on the topic first.
I guess that would be the only major problem I see - you wrote about too much to analyze, and I wouldn't see the point of spending so much time on individual states. You could try a different macro-view instead, like maybe a focus on how the US currently has a shortage of good math and science teachers, or that the average age of teachers is getting too high and people are starting to retire, or something like that. If you focus on specific issues in your essay, that will be much easier to accomplish than just looking through data for a while.
Its a good topic and you seem to be on the right track though. Sounds like a fun topic for you.
Posted by: Charley Ho, Stanford University | October 26, 2009 09:43 AM
Hey Bret--
As someone who is very interested in sociology, this topic is very interesting. If this turns out to be a real crisis, and not just a scare as you mention, this paper could be extremely relevant.
Having said that I have to agree with Charley in that your strategy for tackling this topic seems a bit bold. I think you need to address one viewpoint instead of all four. Or focus on some sort of possible cause of this crisis. I don't know if this had anything to do with the current shortage, but something like the No Child Left Behind Plan could have had a hand in it. That's just an example, but anything that narrows down your topic would be good. If you don't narrow your topic down you will be almost for sure overwhelmed or your paper will be far too general.
You have some great ideas for getting sources, especially the interviews and going to actual teachers for their opinions on ideal teaching situations. I also think you should include a possible solution part of the paper regardless of what you narrow your topic down to.
Hope these comments help, good luck with the rest of the paper!
Matt Kandath
Posted by: Matt Kandath | October 28, 2009 02:40 AM
Hi Bret,
Your topic sounds really interesting, and it caught my attention because I'm interested in education issues as well. I don't know much about the education system here in the US because I'm an international student, but here are just some thoughts I had that I hope would help you in your research.
First of all, the scope of your research could be focused on one particular factor or a small set of them which you feel is the most important in causing the shortage of teachers, or that would be crucial in improving the teacher shortage in America. You're already looking more into government legislation, so trying to decide on something more specific would help you a lot in doing your research. I'm not sure how different education policies are between states, but if there is a large variation then you might want to focus on specific states as well (hopefully with a reason as to how you chose them.)
For your sources, perhaps you could interview or survey junior or senior college students who are considering teaching as a likely profession and collect their views on the piece of legislation that you are investigating. I think you should include this because those who are already educators have in a sense "made it through."
In terms of background research, you should look at academic papers on education, particularly research done on the optimum teacher:student ratio, since this is probably what you are most interested in, rather than the absolute number of teachers.
I hope my comments have helped...good luck on that paper! Hopefully you'll find out something really useful too.
Posted by: Kee Wui Huang | October 28, 2009 11:08 PM