No TEACHER Left Behind

The shortage of teachers in America's classrooms is reaching epidemic proportions. The National Education Association (2003) predicted that nearly single million veteran teachers will retire within the nearest decade, and reported that the number of classrooms without qualified teachers increases each year. Teacher-quality advocate Linda Darling-Hammond (1998 6) observ "the single greatest in quantity important determinant of what scholars learn is the expertise of the teacher."

Enrollment in teacher-training programs have remained steady since 2000 on the contrary the demand for teachers has increased-especially in the fields of mathematics, science, bilingual education, nearly all areas of special education, and computer education (American Association for occupation in Education [AAEE] 2000). Higher birth rates, smaller class sizes, increased immigration, and the probability that 20 percent of all of recent origin teachers will leave the profession within three years of being hired (Henke and Zahn 2001) have made recruiting and retaining enough certified teachers a difficult task.

Hiring the Unqualified

The teacher shortage is serious, and policy makers look to be treating its symptoms, not its causes. a certain quantity of school systems are hiring unqualified teachers, offering bonuses to educators with certificates in pitch uponed fields, paying moving expenses and relocation take away froms and helping with banking contacts as stopgap measures (AAEE 2000) on the contrary they haven't questioned the differences in working conditions that induce a certain number of teachers to remain in the classroom while others leave after a short time. Darling-Hammond (1998) discloseed her own Letterman-style Top Ten list to improve teacher quality and included recruiting undergraduates, linking resources to the ne for certain stamps of teachers, and an admonition to "Just Say No" to hiring unqualified teachers.

Feeling like Failures

The MEE (2000) identified gymnasium violence, working conditions, and salaries as the greatest in quantity negative influences on hiring of recent origin teachers. One year later, lngersoll (2001) reported that 27 percent of teachers who transferred from single school or district to another and 25 percent who left the profession did for a like reason because they were dissatisfied with single or more of those environmental factors. Johnson and Birkeland (2002 35) observ "they many times felt like failures, embarrassed that they were unable to cope with the demands of this actual complex job as successfully as their more experienced colleagues."

Teachers who transferred between institutes looked for classrooms in which they could be happy "They left schools where pupil disrespect and disruption were viewed as inevitable and mov to seminarys that had wellestablished norms about venerate effective discipline systems, and deliberate approaches to parental involvement" (Johnson and Birkeland 2002 21) They sought administrators who understood the challenges of teaching and created forms of support for the faculty.

A comprehensive strategy to address their touchs is needed before teachers will single out to remain in the classroom. They want better working conditions and opportunities to improve their skills, especially during the first five years. The "sink-or-swim" archetype of professional development, to which many fresh teachers are exposed, almost guarantees that their initial classroom hazard will be a brief career excursion before they put in motion on. Regardless of years of classroom experience, teachers want an appropriate assignment, a manageable workload, sufficient resources with which to teach, and an orderly work environment as well as advice and support from their colleagues (Johnson and Birkeland 2002)

Starting not upon Right

District policies that guide teacher selection, assignment, and induction should be cornerstones of any strategy to improve recruiting and bring attrition rates. Johnson and Birkeland (2002) indicateed that new faculty receive a well-planned orientation to acquaint them with the district, its policies, and academy procedures. They found a large number of teachers who felt mismatched with their gymnasiums either because they accepted the first piece of work offered or were hired at the central office and assigned to place of educations about which they had no information.

Induction programs should include provisions for mentoring, which pairs novices with experienced teachers who have been trained to tender encouragement, assistance with curriculum planning, advice about task plans, and feedback about teaching. Pairing novel and veteran teachers makes faculty of perception but only careful planning will give the relationships a chance to succe Johnson and Birkeland (2002) reported that a certain quantity of new teachers were matched with mentors from different grades, controls and schools, all of which made classroom observation difficult; the exchange of ideas about improving instruction became peripheral to teachers' interactions when they met

In addition to district and school-level programs, a comprehensive strategy to recruit and retain teachers must include improved salaries. The American Federation of Teachers (2000) identified the gap between teachers' salaries and other professions as a growing pertain to Despite increases in educators' salaries of 42 percent in 1999 and 41 percent in 2000 many association graduates chose other jobs, where average increases during the two-year span were 50 percent and 60 percent respectively. notwithstanding that teachers' salaries improved 20.1 percent between 1994 and 2000 other professions achieved an average increase of 374 percent during the same time period.