There actually is a wolf

In many ways I feel like the boy who cried teacher shortage. We talk about the impending doom of massive teacher retirements, yet every year our resourceful HR departments manage to get just enough teachers to stave off disaster.

And with the many teacher layoffs announced around the country in the last few months, people are wondering if this shortage stuff is all just a way for us to weasel our program into more states. Ultimately, the lesson from the fable may be learned the hard way for many states and districts. When the wolf actually comes, no one will believe us.

Oklahoma will not be one of those states. When I first met with Oklahoma leaders they knew the numbers. If retirements are greater than graduates, they were going to be in trouble especially in math and science teacher recruitment. As this article points out, they saw over 1,000 retirements last year when they normally see around 800. Compounding that problem is that admissions at Oklahoma teacher ed programs FELL 24%.

Next month, ABCTE will head to Oklahoma to begin recruiting for our alternative certification program and by next year we will have some new teachers to reduce the impact of those increasing retirements.

As for states that don’t have real alternative certification programs – WOOOOOLF....seriously!!!!