Georgia's Teacher Pipeline

In 2007, Georgia employed 115,049 teachers, according to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission (PSC), and the state is projected to need roughly 130,000 teachers by 2012. Georgia continues to depend on recruiting teachers from out-of-state, as other Southern states do, though this number has declined, to 28.5% in 2007, compared to 46% in 2003. Also, 22.5% of new teachers in Georgia in 2007 were prepared through alternative routes. Most of these teachers, however, had contact with a traditional college or university department or program at some point in their certification process, which raises the question of how alternative these routes really are.

The University System of Georgia (USG) has set a goal of meeting 80% of the state's need for new teachers by the year 2020, a sizeable increase over the status quo of 25.7%, or 48.2% if "alternate routes" are included. In the fall of 2007, two reports were released on teachers in Georgia. The USG published its "2007Report on the Preparation of New Teachers by University System of Georgia Institutions," which details the production and employment of new teachers around the state. The PSC released its "2007 Georgia Teacher Survey," which asked current teachers to respond to questions about several critical topics related to their careers.

Preparation of New Teachers

In 2007, USG institutions prepared 3,822 new teachers. This represents an increase of nearly 44% over 2002, when USG institutions produced 2,660 new teachers. Since 2002, USG has produced 20,106 new teachers, and the majority of these teachers were hired by Georgia's public school systems. According to the report, "Of the new teachers prepared by USG institutions in 2005, 77% were employed in Georgia's public schools at the beginning of the 2005-06 school year...New 2005 USG-prepared teachers were hired in 170 (94.4%) of Georgia's 180 public school systems in 2006." The map to the right shows where new USG-prepared teachers were hired in 2006. While some number of USG graduates likely leave the state for employment or are not hired immediately out of college, these numbers raise another question: why are roughly 20% of USG's graduating teacher candidates not employed in Georgia public schools the fall after they graduate?

Furthermore, in 2007, two-thirds of USG-prepared teachers were trained in elementary, middle grades, or special education. By contrast, only 3.4% were trained in mathematics, 2.5% were trained in science, and 2.1% were trained in foreign language instruction. Should such numbers raise stakeholder concern about the teacher pipeline in these critical areas?

PSC Teacher Survey

During the 2006-2007 school year, the Professional Standards Commission (PSC) conducted a survey of public school teachers across the state. 121 school systems participated in this voluntary survey, which includes responses from more than 21,000 (or 18% of) current teachers. 55.5% of respondents had 10 or more years of teaching experience, and 55.3% of respondents were age 41 or older. The survey consisted of questions on a variety of topics: preparation, mentoring, personal and professional aspects of teaching, compensation, classroom and instructional aspects, resources needed to do the job well, state and local leadership, quality and availability of professional learning, and external factors (e.g., state testing) and the community.

74.33% of survey respondents were traditionally certified teachers, and 25.67% were prepared through an alternative route. Both groups of teachers reported similar levels of job preparedness upon entering the field. 87.6% of those with alternative preparation felt "well prepared for their first several years of teaching," compared to 87.9 % of those who were traditionally certified, though USG's report says non-USG-prepared teachers do not stay in the teaching profession as long as USG-prepared teachers.

Compensation:

Regarding satisfaction with salary, benefits, and professional growth opportunities, the majority of respondents ranked various survey components as "okay"-not "one of the worst" or "one of the best."

Classroom and Instructional Aspects of Teaching:

However, satisfaction seems to be greater with actual job responsibilities of teaching (rather than compensation); many respondents ranked various aspects of the classroom and instruction as "good" or "one of the best."

Finally, 65% of respondents indicated they were satisfied with a) education as a career, and b) the school in which they taught. 12.8% thought they would leave the classroom for administrative or service jobs, or would leave the profession completely (as shown in the chart below).

Conclusion

What lessons can be taken from these reports? The PSC survey's respondents included mostly teachers over 40 years old who had more than 10 years of experience. It suggests that teachers are relatively (though not overwhelmingly) satisfied with their compensation and are more satisfied by other aspects of their jobs. Another analysis by the PSC shows that Georgia retains over 66% of its new teachers from all sources after 5 years. Still, questions remain: is it enough that two-thirds of teachers intend to stay at their schools, or not? What steps will PSC, USG and other organizations need to take to ensure that Georgia is able to find and employ 130,000 teachers in 2012, as projections suggest? If teachers who have left the profession were surveyed, how would their responses compare with those in the PSC survey? Finally, teacher production, job satisfaction and all other input measures aside, there is the question of performance outcomes: how well are USG's teachers succeeding in producing student achievement gains among their public school students? While there is a growing consensus that good teaching matters a great deal in improving student performance, a consensus does not yet exist on how to make good teaching (or teachers) more prevalent. GOSA will analyze the impact of various performance-based compensation programs for teachers around the country in a subsequent bulletin.

For more information on GOSA's monthly bulletins, please visit http://www.gaosa.org or send an email to GOSA@gov.state.ga.us.