Statement by Commissioner of Education Earl James McGrath, Some Issues in the Teacher Supply Problem
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OCR Page 1 of 9-SOME ISSUES- IN THE TEACHER SUPPLY PROBLEM *
The matter of getting and keeping an adequate supply of qualified
teachers is always a major problem of the profession. But for two reasons
it has become particularly diffucult to cope with in this decade.
The first reason is that the supply of manpower of college age from
which to draw the membership of all the professions and other occupations
requiring college preparation is smaller than in any recent decade or than
it is going to be in any decade in the foreseeable future. This situation is
the result of the low birth rate of the 1930's If we had the equivalent of
the average annual birth rate since 1947 as a reservoir to tap in recruiting
teachers the problem would be much less difficult. The first problem in
the shortage of teachers, therefore, is that the manpower pool is smaller in
proportion to the need for teachers than it has been or is likely to be soon again
Second, competition for the available manpower is becoming keener
every year. From the standpoint of the supply of teachers this competition
exists both in colleges where teachers are prepared and in school systems
where teachers are employed.
Every time a college or a university which prepares teachers introduces
a new curriculum leading youth into another profession or occupation,
it
creates a new competitor for teacher education. It is a matter of simple
arithmetic. If there are 1,000 students in a college with ten curricula open
to them no one curriculum can expect to attract as many students* as it would
if there were only three curricula. One solution would be to get a higher per
* By Earl J. McGrath, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency,
Washington, D.C., to be published in the June 1953 issue of EDUCATION
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