Another thing educration and liberalism have in common is hysteria, hysteria not for its own sake, but to push an agenda. Liberalism has given us overpopulation! (remember back in the 70s how "the scientific consensus" was that we were all going to starve to death by 2000?), ice age!, we’re going to run out of oil! (we still hear that one–they just keep shifiting the year up every time it doesn’t happen, like the second-coming groups), obesity! (this is only on the days when we’re starving to death because of evil Rethuglicans! isn’t the hysteria of choice), chemicals!, silicone breast implants!, powerlines cause cancer! (that was no doubt fed by the 100% founded on bullshit Erin Brockovich), DDT! (speaking of things based on bullshit, in this case, on nothing whatsoever but a book with no research behind it, just sobbing about not hearing birds), three mile island! (not a single health issue ever arose from it), and now global warming! climate change! The "higher-order thinking" educrats also run around screaming their heads off about the latest, greatest disaster–and lately, the teacher shortage! we’re running out of teachers! teachers are leaving the profession! squeal has been getting a lot of airtime on the edusphere.
Let’s check that, shall we? First, let’s look at the number of bachelor’s and master’s degrees awarded nationally in education from 1994-2004, according to the Department of Education:
|
Year
|
Bachelor’s
|
Master’s
|
|
1993-94
|
107,440 | 97,427 |
|
1995-96
|
105,384 | 104,936 |
|
1996-97
|
105,116 | 108,720 |
|
1997-98
|
105,833 | 113,374 |
|
1998-99
|
107,086 | 118,048 |
|
1999-00
|
108,034 | 123,045 |
|
2000-01
|
105,458 | 127,829 |
|
2001-02
|
106,295 | 135,189 |
|
2002-03
|
105,790 | 147,448 |
|
2003-04
|
106,278 | 162,345 |
And for the numerically challenged, here it is charted:
The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded is fairly stable–not rapidly declining, as the hysterics scream. Note, however, that the number of master’s degrees is significantly increasing. That doesn’t indicate droves of teachers leaving the profession (hint: people who are leaving the profession don’t pay to get MAs). That indicates that an increasing number of teachers are entrenching themselves in the profession, quite the opposite of the disaster du jour.
But surely, education must be suffering, right? I mean, they can’t get this teacher shortage stuff from nowhere, can they? Let’s look at the five fields that awarded the most bachelor’s degrees in 2003-2004. Education has to be at the bottom somewhere.
|
Discipline
|
2003-04
|
| Business | 307,149 |
| Social sciences and history | 150,357 |
| Education | 106,278 |
| Psychology | 82,098 |
| Visual and performing arts | 77,181 |
Hmmmm. Education is number three, after only business and the social sciences. How about master’s degrees?
|
Discipline
|
MA
|
| Education | 162,345 |
| Business | 139,347 |
| Health professions and related clinical sciences | 44,939 |
| Engineering | 32,698 |
| Public administration and social services | 28,250 |
There are more master’s degrees awarded in education than any other field. Here’s the chart:
In fact, of the fields that customarily award bachelor’s degrees (some fields, such as law, do not), education is the only one that offers more master’s degrees than bachelor’s degrees. Education schools churned out 162,345 master’s degrees in 2003-2004, and the number of bachelor’s degrees have remained stable–not to mention the fact that only two fields churn out more bachelor’s degrees than education. So no, education is not suffering, new teachers are not declining in numbers, and teachers are not leaving the profession in droves.
Let’s retire this particular Chicken Little nonsense, shall we? Thanks.
Other education articles here.
Steve says:
At least here in CT, the pursuit of Masters degrees is mandated for public education teachers . . . keeping the pipeline filled, and everybody merrily employed, eh?
May 2, 2007, 6:00 amScott McLeod says:
As you point out, there may not be a shortage of licensed educators being produced by universities. That said, I have a few thoughts on your data that I believe are worth considering:
1. Not everyone who gets a teaching degree actually goes out and teaches. One of the things we’re seeing in educational administration (the source of many of those Master’s degrees in education) is that people are getting licensed to be principals (for school district salary raise purposes) but never actually become principals (primarily because of all the hassles of the job). Many states thus have plenty of licensed personnel but a shortage of folks who actually want to be principals.
2. My understanding is that we are in an upswing in terms of overall student population. In other words, although the number of new teacher graduates may be holding steady or even increasing, we need to see if that number is increasing in proportion to the increases in student population. Otherwise there will be a need for teachers simply because of the disproportionate rates of growth.
3. Your graphs show the number of education degrees. I don’t think you can say that ‘teachers are not leaving the profession in droves’ based on these data. You need data on teacher turnover for this issue.
4. Finally, of course, it often is difficult to find adequate numbers of teachers in certain licensue areas (e.g., special education, math, science, English as a Second Language, foreign languge), particularly in rural or urban school districts. In other words, the data varies as you begin to break down ‘education majors’ into smaller categories.
Just some thoughts for your consideration. An interesting post. Thanks.
May 2, 2007, 7:36 amRyan says:
Scott touched on some of the problems; here’s some more.
1. You’ve not even shown, really, how many teachers are going into the profession, because many (in my area, at least) are doing BA+1 programs where they come out of school with their Master’s degree. Thus, you can’t extrapolate how many new teachers there are based strictly on BA and MA degrees issued.
2. Further, how does the input say anything about the shortage? Your logic here is akin to saying that if the government collects 4 trillion dollars in taxes then there certainly can’t be a deficit, because look at how much money has gone in!
3. Without putting these numbers in the context of how many teachers there are nationwide, how many leave the profession, and how many are needed in specific places or specific areas, what have you really shown?
4. Could it be that more MAs in education are given than in any other field because the MA in Ed is ridiculously easy to get? Stack your average graduate ed program next to the typical MBA, and there’s no comparison.
5. You may be on to something if you want to show that the number of people going into education has remained study, or potentially even increased, but again that says nothing about the teaching shortage.
Swing and a miss, prof.
May 3, 2007, 12:26 amrightwingprof says:
First, no, I don’t need to prove anything. I’m not the one making the claims, nor am I the one making claims with nothing to back them up. The teachers’ unions and educrats are. All they have presented are anedcotes, and anecdotal evidence is an oxymoron (in other words, anecdotal evidence is not evidence of any kind).
Second, no, education is a pragmatic, not an academic degree (like, say, English is). There is only one reason to get an education degree: to teach. If there are people saying, “Hmmm, I want to be an engineer, so I’ll get an education degree,” there are so damned few of them that they’re not worth consideration, and certainly don’t negate the fact that the number of ed degrees has remained stable.
May 3, 2007, 5:40 am