Employment: U.S. Has a Shortage of Math and Science Teachers

Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF) hopes financial and training incentives will help fill the need for 200,000 new teachers. Stacy Teicher Khadaroo of The Christian Science Monitor, reports on experiences of two new science teachers, Jeremy Kennefick and Geoffrey Gailey and how the U.S. madly needs more math and science teachers:

It's no easy task to recruit people with proclivities for science into schools – and to keep them long enough to nurture a talent for teaching. But over the next decade, schools will need 200,000 or more new teachers in science and math, according to estimates by such groups as the Business-Higher Education Forum in Washington. Already, many districts face shortages: In at least 10 states, fewer than 6 out of 10 middle-school science teachers were certified when the Council of Chief School Officers compiled a report last year... Most teachers who leave the profession do so not because of pay primarily, Ms. Collins says, but because they feel isolated, or the working conditions in their school are poor, or they start to see it as a professional dead end. In addition to tuition assistance and summer stipends, the KSTF fellowship tries to address those issues in its extra professional-development support for new teachers like Geoffrey Gailey.

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