Teacher Pipeline Shrinking: A Blog by the Kansas Association of School Boards

Teacher pipeline shrinking, task force tells State Board of Education

The pipeline of teachers in Kansas has decreased significantly over the past few years, a blue ribbon task force on the teacher shortage reported Tuesday to the State Board of Education.

The number of teacher education majors in public and private colleges in Kansas decreased 31 percent, from 7,752 in 2011 to 5,379 in 2014. The number of teaching degrees completed dropped 16 percent during that time from 2,271 to 1,901.

"That gives us the most concern," said Ken Weaver, who is dean of The Teacher's College at Emporia State University, and co-chair of the task force.

Rudy Perez, principal of Norton High School, who also served as co-chair said the challenges to increasing the number of teachers are low salaries, criticism of the profession and the instability of education funding.

Perez said the teaching profession "is getting pretty beat up." He said some of his staff members have difficulty persuading their own children to consider teaching as a  profession.

The task force recommended continued study of the teacher shortage issue and to involve local leaders to develop incentives to recruit and retain teachers. The group also urged the creation of a public relations campaign to tell inspirational stories about teaching.

In 2015-16, 220 of 286 school districts reported no vacancies, the task force said. Of the 277 vacancies unfilled for that school year, those vacancies were clustered in the southwest region, Kansas City, the northeast region and Wichita, the group said.

Of the 2,789 teachers who left the profession last year, 1,123 were due to retirement, while 500 provided no reason.

Weaver and Perez emphasized that the state needs to gather more data on why teachers were leaving and continue studying the issue to develop ways to get more people interested in teaching.

Education Board Chairman Jim McNiece called the report "a great start" adding the subject of teacher shortages may be studied further at a future board work session.

Four members of the KASB board were members of the task force. They included Lori Blake of Southeast Saline USD 306, Margaret Nightengale of Ulysses USD 214, Betty Arnold of Wichita USD 259 and Pam Robinson of Blue Valley USD 229.

(KASB released a report last August on how Kansas teacher salaries, education and experience compare to other states.)