The crippling teacher shortage that state officials predicted a few years ago has not materialized, as more educators are staying in their jobs and more students enter the profession, according to state data released Wednesday.
About 93 percent of Illinois teachers returned to their schools in 2003, reversing a troubling trend that saw them fleeing the classroom at unprecedented rates between 1996 and 2001.
During the last few years, as the economy has made early retirement and other alternatives less attractive, departures have slowed.
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Meanwhile, the number of students who completed teacher training programs in Illinois colleges jumped 18 percent between 2000 and 2002, after declining the previous year. And the number of graduates who obtained teaching licenses grew 9 percent in 2002-2003, after dropping the year before.
Though there are still chronic shortages in disciplines such as bilingual and special education, state officials are predicting a surplus of teaching candidates in fields such as English, gym and social science.
In perhaps the single most important snapshot of teacher supply, school districts reported significantly fewer classroom vacancies as school began.
Two years ago, schools opened the year with 2,458 unfilled positions. Last year, that number dropped to 1,630, three-quarters of them in Chicago.
“It looks like we will have enough teachers to–for the most part–fill the needs in coming years,” said data analyst Jim Sweeney, who compiled the information. “But there are subject area and geographic concerns. … Some districts can find more than enough teachers, while other districts can’t.”
The “big unknown,” Sweeney said, is the economy. “If the economy improves and districts find themselves with more money, they might want to start shrinking class sizes,” he said. “That could cause problems.”
The data released Wednesday come from the Educator Supply and Demand report, issued by the Illinois State Board of Education annually since 2000.
In the mid-1990s and early 2000, educators and politicians across Illinois sounded alarm bells over a pending teacher shortage crisis. The number of students majoring in education was on the decline. Veteran teachers were retiring at a record pace and younger teachers were fleeing.
Now local school officials agree that they are not having as much difficulty filling regular classroom positions but say special education and bilingual teachers are in short supply.
Ed Rafferty, superintendent of Schaumburg Community Consolidated School District 54, said his district hired 90 teachers this summer to fill classroom vacancies. But one week before school starts, he is still trying to find two speech and language pathologists to work with special education students.
“I am crossing my fingers and praying,” Rafferty said. “We are begging people to come out of retirement, praying for a late hire, turning over every stone. The only other choices are to increase the caseload on our other people or contract out for private services. Neither of those options has much appeal.”
At Community Consolidated School District 15 in Palatine, administrators said they had thousands of applications for some openings. Still, they had a tough time finding qualified bilingual and special education teachers.
“We had to really work hard to find those quality teachers,” said Robert Tenczar, spokesman for the district.
Chicago Public Schools officials have hired about 1,700 teachers so far, but are still looking for several hundred more. Bilingual, special education, math, science and reading teachers are in short supply.
Nancy Slavin, the director of recruitment for Chicago schools, said the hiring woes have nothing to do with people not wanting to work in Chicago.
“The universities don’t produce enough in those [subject] areas,” Slavin said. “We are not just hiring anybody that comes down the street with an endorsement. We’re trying to look for quality teachers as well to fill our need.”
State officials predict that elementary school enrollments will grow modestly over the next four years but will start declining in 2007.
High school enrollments are expected to increase 7 percent by 2007.
The end result, state education officials predict, is a greater demand for high school teachers in math and science, where some districts already are experiencing shortages.
The report estimates that Illinois districts will need almost 40,000 regular and 9,000 special education teachers through 2007, with the greatest needs in special education, math, science and foreign languages. They predict districts will need to hire 3,300 administrators.