Educator Loss in STEM Area Called Issue: Overall Shortage Disputed

This article reports that two University of Pennsylvania researchers are questioning a basic tenet of national efforts to enhance U.S. economic competitiveness: the idea that colleges and universities are producing too few mathematics and science teachers to meet the demand in the nation's classrooms. Richard M. Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the university, and David Perda, Ingersoll's research partner, calculate that colleges and universities are producing 2 1/2 times more math and science teachers than schools require to replace those who are retiring. They say that once analysts factor in the "reserve pool" of teachers--in other words, those who left teaching and are returning to the field, or students who earned education degrees but never taught--the supply is sufficient to replace all the math and science teachers leaving their jobs, for whatever reason, in a given year. The findings are important because they suggest that national efforts aimed at expanding the pipeline of new math and science teachers are misdirected. If policymakers really want to ensure that those subjects are being taught by skilled teachers, they ought to focus on retaining the much larger pool of science and math teachers who are already in schools.