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CNN Saturday Morning News
U.S. Strives to Acquire More Teachers
Aired September 01, 2001 - 08:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: What job is it that offers a signing bonus, financial aid, pays moving costs and gets you good mortgage rates? Teaching, believe it or not. And that's because school districts are desperate for teachers.
Mildred Hudson, CEO of Recruiting New Teachers, has her finger on the pulse of the nationwide dilemma. She joins us from New York this morning.
Good morning to you, Mildred. Thank you very much for being with us.
MILDRED HUDSON, RECRUITING NEW TEACHERS: Good morning. Thank you.
SAVIDGE: You know, I was reading that a survey by "Education Week" showed that 20 percent of new teachers leave within three years. Why is that?
HUDSON: They leave for a variety of reasons. One is that they have other options. Another is that they're not trained well and they're dissatisfied with the teaching profession. Actually, it's even more. It's 20 to 50 percent of teachers leave within the first five years.
SAVIDGE: That is a staggering figure to hear.
HUDSON: Yes, it is. It says something not only about recruiting, but retaining teachers. And America has not done a very good job of that.
SAVIDGE: So what is the answer, perhaps? Is it more training? Is it more education for teachers? How do we keep them?
HUDSON: We keep them through a variety of ways. Let me give you one example. We now know how to recruit teachers. We know what the models are, how you recruit from particular pools and we know how to support teachers. We haven't done a good job at that. This country has raised standards for the teaching profession and yet it has not provided the accompanying support services, if you will.
We have not encouraged prospective teachers to go into specific areas of shortages. We desperately need teachers in special ed, for example, or in math and science. And we have too many teachers in social studies.
So we have not let the public know where the shortages are and we have not supported that field, those fields in particular.
SAVIDGE: Isn't it really money, though? Isn't that the long and short of it, that we really on teachers to do so much for children and yet in many cases they seem so grossly underpaid compared to, say, athletes and other people that we look at. They shape our lives from the very beginning days.
HUDSON: Well, that's one of the problems. It's not the only problem. We certainly need to do a better job of paying teachers the salaries they deserve. But also we need to treat them better once we've trained them. We need to keep them in classrooms. We need to provide them with professional support services. We need to raise esteem for this profession.
So it's, that's one area. But it's not all. And let me give you another example. We need to, for example, help teachers to pay back their student loans. We need to help teachers to feel good about their professions. And so it's not just one area that we are talking about. Money helps.
SAVIDGE: Certainly it does.
HUDSON: But it's not the real, the only problem.
SAVIDGE: I can think of, it was a teacher that got me to where I am today, so I mean I owe a great deal to teachers. But when we talk about the shortage, is it straight across-the-board in the United States or are some areas hit harder than others, and if so, where?
HUDSON: Well, when we talk about shortages we are really talking about urban communities, rural communities and high poverty communities mainly. Very often up to 60 percent of the teachers in these communities are not fully qualified for their positions. Once they become qualified, they move on to suburban communities. And so -- many of them do. Not all.
But, so we are talking about shortages in these communities and shortages in various disciplines such as math and science.
SAVIDGE: Is there something the federal government could do or should be doing?
HUDSON: It can do a lot. It can provide various kinds of support services for incoming teachers. It can provide scholarships and other support services. It can provide monies to help states keep those teachers that we've already trained. It can help to raise esteem for this profession.
So, yes, there is a real, there are many roles that the federal government could play.
SAVIDGE: All right, Mildred Hudson, CEO of Recruiting New Teachers, thank you very much for being with us this morning. HUDSON: Thank you.
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