Senate Bill 101 "Teacher Cadet Program"
Click for PDF: http://www.akdemocrats.org/sponsor/SB101_ss_sen_lincoln.pdfSB101 The national shortage of qualified teachers for public schools has made headlines across the country and across the state for several years. To assist with this problem, which directly affects the quality of our children's education, state governments have developed plans to recruit and retain teachers.
In Alaska, the teacher shortage is not a broad-based problem. We experience a shortage of instructors for specific subject areas, and our retention problems are focused in rural areas. When we look at recruiting and retaining teachers, we need to focus on creating a base of instructors who are dedicated to rural schools and rural communities.
In rural Alaska, turnover is a major contributor to teacher shortages. Many rural districts experience annual turnover rates between 20 and 50 percent, compared to urban districts where turnover rates are between 6 and 14 percent.
The historical pattern in rural schools staffed by teachers recruited from "Outside" begins with these new teachers excited about the adventure of teaching in rural communities and ends with teachers leaving after only a few years. According to the recent report, Retaining Quality Teachers For Alaska, teachers cite personal/family reasons as well as career opportunities as the top reason for leaving. Changing these particular factors may be beyond the reach of policy, but policy can address our recruitment practices.
To increase retention we must "grow our own" teachers, with roots in their communities and in our state. This should be our goal for rural and urban schools. On average, 70% of our state teaching force has been imported from "Outside."
My contribution to this effort is Senate Bill 101, which would establish a Teacher Cadet Program in four high schools across the state. The program is a teacher recruitment strategy designed to attract young people to the profession through a challenging "Introduction to Teaching" high school class.
A similar program in South Carolina, which began as a modest pilot program in 1985, now attracts over 2,500 high school students annually and operates in 149 high schools across the state. More than 2,000 former cadets currently teach in state. One South Carolina teacher who works with Teacher Cadets and first-year teachers wrote, "It was no surprise that those who had been Teacher Cadets were also among the best first year teachers we have."
The challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers for hard-to-staff schools and subject areas is all the more important in an era of increased state and federal accountability, high stakes testing and the noble goal of leaving no child behind. When we consider research that shows low teacher turnover is associated with higher student achievement, it is clear that teachers are critical to eliminating the achievement gap. Let's make them Alaskan teachers.