N.C. schools face shortage

State universities are working to produce as many qualified middle school teachers as possible, but school systems are finding that it just isn’t enough.

While the programs are at or near capacity, several schools in the Triangle started off the school year short-staffed.

As a result, classes are overcrowded, and principals are hiring lateral-entry teachers without an education degree or teachers who are certified in other grade levels.

“Principals look for as many certified teachers as they can, but only 200 to 300 middle school- certified teachers graduate every year from universities,” said John Harrison, executive director of the N.C. Middle School Association.

Suzanne Gulledge, professor and project director at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education, said the largest areas of need are math, science and special education.

There is a 12-percent turnover rate in N.C. public schools for all grade levels, said Mike Cash, a computer consultant for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Between teachers leaving the school systems and the increasing demand, about 2,000 new teachers are needed annually, he said.

Cash, who is in charge of the N.C. Report Card on Public Schools, said most newly hired teachers are recent graduates of in-state and out-of-state colleges.

And he said the number of experienced teachers from other states has decreased because of state requirements, including a state competency exam.

“The older teachers won’t do it,’” Cash said. “They leave (the profession) or go into the private sector.”

Even experienced teachers within the state are leaving.

Candy Beal, the coordinator of the undergraduate Middle Grades Language Arts and Social Studies teacher education program at N.C. State University, said she has seen the average exit time drop from seven years to two.

She said her department is full of students whom she considers to be very capable and intelligent.

“They’ll be great teachers, but I don’t know how long we can keep them in there,” she said.

Beal said students in middle schools have become less motivated and disciplined. She said teachers used to primarily have problems with at-risk kids, but now everyone is prone to bad behavior.

She also attributes the trend of teachers leaving the field earlier in their careers to large classes and the extra duties teachers are expected to perform.

Harrison said he thinks teachers are not fully prepared in college for the realities of teaching, which includes many out-of-the-classroom tasks, and leave the profession because it is not what they expected.

But principals often hesitate to hire lateral-entry teachers to help fill the positions because of the requirements imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001, Beal said. Lateral-entry teachers now have three years to get their teaching license.

Gulledge said UNC-CH has altered its program to accommodate the lateral-entry and license-only students.

“They have an expertise in a content field, but haven’t learned how to teach in a middle school,” she said. “You have to be a teacher of a subject and a teacher of young people of impressionable age.”

Beal’s department does not have a program for those potential teachers because of a lack of resources.

And experts say teachers need to have grade-specific expertise, especially with middle school students who are in a transitional period.

“It is critically important to teach in-field as much as possible,” Harrison said. “The biggest problem is at the middle school level where (curricula) are content-specific for the first time.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.