Re: 2 million teachers in 2007!

["Daniel L. MacIsaac" <Dan.MacIsaac@NAU.EDU>]

> I like to make these contacts WITHOUT the school of education.  How do you
> think these teachers got this way in the first place?  Like Lois said, most
> teachers are pretty enthusiastic about such opportunities.  Once one teacher is
> bitten, the disease usually spreads.
>
> Sam
Sam:

- look for a nearby school that you could fit into your busy schedule 1-2X
month, weekly if possible for 1-2 hrs.

- visit that principal.  Describe your background and interests, express
that you are willing to make a committment to visit classrooms and help
on a regular basis.  Ask that your name be mentioned at the next (usually
weekly) teacher's meeting or put in the teacher's announcements
together with your phone number.  Start with ONE teacher, hopefully the
one that shows most initiative by contacting you first.

- I am willing to help suggest resources that my wife and I have found
valuable for doing this over the last 3 years in our daughter's schools.

And thank you in advance from this parent,

Dan M

PS: a few other quotes regarding teacher shortages excised from one of my
brochures recruiting science teachers:

BEGIN QUOTES REGARDING TEACHER DEMAND

Shortages of qualified teachers have already reached critical proportions
in our high-poverty communities; in many fields such as science,
mathematics, bilingual education, and special education; in states
experiencing the greatest population increases (for example, California,
Nevada, Florida, Texas [and ARIZONA], among others); and in the
population of teachers from diverse racial, cultural, and linguistic
backgrounds.

Promising Practices: New Ways to Improve
Teacher Quality, U.S. Dept of Education
***

The number of [middle and] secondary school teachers employed in the
US in 1996 is 1.19 million, growing by 19% to 1.41 million by 2008.

Projections of Education Statistics to 2008,
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
***

...56% of high school students taking physical science have teachers
who don`t have a physical science background. ...30% of high school
math teachers don`t have a college major or minor in mathematics.

...students in urban areas have less than a 50% chance of getting a
secondary math or science teacher who has at least a minor in that
subject.

What Matters Most: Teaching for America`s Future,
National Commission on Teaching and America`s Future
***

A search of the DANTES online teaching jobs database found well over
two hundred western school districts still searching for middle and
secondary math and science teachers in mid-semester 1998.

AZ Department of Education Website
http://internet.ade.state.az.us/
***

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu          http://purcell.phy.nau.edu         PHYS-L list owner