Education

Data Solutions

May 01, 2004 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

School recruiters and prospective teachers know that the nation’s much ballyhooed “teacher shortage” is highly relative: Some schools desperately need qualified teachers (especially in select subjects), while others seem to have mile-long waiting lists.

So how can teachers be guided to the schools that really need them? That’s the million-dollar question.

One innovative stab at a solution comes from the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Cruz, Calif. As part of a regional teacher-development project, the CFTL has launched a new data-driven initiative to break down teacher need in the Monterey Bay area.

Working with the Monterey Bay Educational Consortium and some 65 local education agencies, the CFTL will collect and analyze current-year data on the area’s teacher workforce. Then, in cooperation with nearby community colleges and universities, it will use the results to help align the region’s preparation, placement, and support systems with schools’ needs.

In a series of research reports issued over the past several years, the CFTL has decried apparent inequities in the distribution of qualified teachers in California, finding that many schools serving poor and minority children are forced to rely on large numbers of non-credentialed educators.

While the overall demand for teachers in California schools has eased somewhat recently, the CFTL has found, high-needs schools will likely continue to face shortages of qualified teachers, in part due to an expected wave of retirements. The demand is particularly high in subjects like math, science, and special education.

The Monterey Bay region presents a “virtual mirror of the teaching workforce challenge facing California,” the CFTL said in a release. About 14 percent of the teachers in the area did not have teaching credentials in the 2002-2003 school year. Most of those were working in low-performing schools serving poor and minority students.

The hope is that nuanced data on schools’ and educators’ needs, along with greater coordination, will help stakeholders in the region zero in on the problem.

“Having accurate local data about our teaching workforce will help us to understand the challenges confronting our schools and drive the development of regional strategies to strengthen our teaching workforce,” said Diane Siri, superintendent of the Santa Cruz County schools, in the CFTL’s release.

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: January 17, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education In Their Own Words The Stories That Stuck With Us, 2023 Edition
Our newsroom selected five stories as among the highlights of our work. Here's why.
4 min read
102523 IMSE Reading BS
Adria Malcolm for Education Week
Education Opinion The 10 Most-Read Opinions of 2023
Here are Education Week’s most-read Opinion blog posts and essays of 2023.
2 min read
Collage of lead images for various opinion stories.
F. Sheehan for Education Week / Getty
Education Letter to the Editor EdWeek's Most-Read Letters of 2023
Read the most-read Letters to the Editor of the past year.
1 min read
Illustration of a line of diverse hands holding up speech bubbles in front of a subtle textured newspaper background
iStock/Getty