Teachers who are licensed, interested and available are all used up. Increasing that salary may be an incentive for people to go into the profession, but those who are currently licensed and available and looking for positions, they all have jobs. In fact, in my region, some districts are stealing teachers from other districts nearby by perhaps paying them a little bit more. Also, districts down south — south of Interstate 80 — that are hurting for finding teachers to fill are also the ones that are paying less.
And so this is going to be a financial hardship the first couple of years. LG: Lawmakers also passed a series of other measures , including removing the requirement that teachers must pass a basic skills test to be licensed. What result did that have? I was told by the Illinois State Board of Education that there were people who had applied that had not passed a test of basic skills.
And so instantly, people became eligible. That's a great thing. The problem is that a year ago, there were close to 1, unfilled positions. So, it's a dent, and it's a helpful dent. But eliminating a test of basic skills also took away an opportunity for paraprofessionals to become licensed. And the only way that can be fixed is a legislative fix, so that's going to take us up to November. I do think it was a good move.
I wish that we had the foresight to realize it would have a negative impact on people applying to be paraprofessionals. LG: How does eliminating that test prevent someone from becoming a paraprofessional, and how can someone become a paraprofessional now?
MK: For instance, somebody comes out of high school and wants to be a teacher's aide. Without any college at all, they could pass one of the three tests of basic skills and have been licensed as a paraprofessional.
Now, that's gone, at least until November, because we're going to have to fix it legislatively. And the regional offices are working with the State Board of Education to create a bill to hopefully fix this by November. In , there were just under 5,, thus sending fewer teachers into the workforce. Research has shown that it matters where programs are located. Whalen noted that a majority of teacher candidates choose to teach near where they went to school or where they are from originally.
In Illinois, nearly one in five districts is more than 30 miles from a teacher training program, hampering their ability to recruit student teachers and build pipelines to future educators. Traditional training programs are particularly sparse in southeast Illinois, Whalen said. Alternative non-traditional certification programs are mostly located in Cook County. But even those have seen a decrease, dropping from 12 to six programs from to The decline is due in part to state disinvestment in that time period, Whalen said.
The shortage is most acute in special education, followed by elementary education, bilingual education, and science, math and technology STEM.
Linda Perales teaches reading and math special education to kindergarten, first and second graders — many of whom also require English and Spanish language instruction — at Corkery Elementary School in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago. The number of students in her classroom has fluctuated throughout the years, but reached a peak of 17 students.
The number of graduates from each specialty program likewise plummeted. The numbers have started to inch back up. But the increase has not caught up to previous supply levels, and the need meanwhile has increased. The share of English learner students has risen, too.
Perales said she believes fewer people are entering teaching because the profession is undervalued. For Kira Baker-Doyle, an associate professor and director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Literacy, the slowdown in students entering teaching is exacerbated by a wave of older teachers retiring. Education experts have braced themselves for a national shortage for 30 years, she said, anticipating when baby boomer career teachers would retire and leave a multitude of unfilled positions.
Across the country, turnover rates are highest among new teachers with less than three years experience. With fewer teachers, the increased workload lands in the laps of the remaining teachers who then may be more likely to quit due to stress, said Catherine Main, an associate professor at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Main said her students report difficulty with having a succession of teacher assistants while they complete student teaching rotations in the classroom. Steans, of Advance Illinois, said policymakers need to focus on why. Research has shown that teacher diversity affects many learning conditions and outcomes for students, including test scores, graduation rates, attendance and suspension rates.
At the start of the academic year, Fox Business reported that Illinois school districts had more than 4, unfilled jobs , with over 1, of those jobs being teaching positions. With an increase to the minimum salary, schools expect new, qualified teachers to apply for these positions. A bachelor's degree and an Illinois Professional Educator License may no longer cut it as more schools opt for teachers with advanced degrees.
It will empower you to further excel in doing what matters most--inspiring the next generation. Whether you're a current educator looking to expand your repertoire or an aspiring teacher who'd like to earn a salary while pursuing your teaching license, Saint Xavier University SXU has you covered. Through this MAT program, you can work toward completing your MAT degree from the comfort of your home while the curriculum prepares you for your Illinois Professional Educator License PEL with an endorsement to teach students grades Graduates of the program can increase their effectiveness in the classroom through greater competence in content and methodologies and various instructional strategies.
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