Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990 TAG: 9006120366
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By THOMAS BOYER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Just five years ago, there were predictions of widespread teacher shortages, producing empty classrooms or unqualified instructors. Today, what's in shortest supply are places in Virginia teacher-education programs.
Teaching is still having trouble competing for the best students with such professions as engineering and accounting, statistics show. But there are abundant signs that the academic credentials of today's new teachers are stronger than they've been in a long time.
Anne Byrd of Virginia Beach is typical of the latest generation. Byrd, 23, graduated this spring from the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, where the path to becoming a teacher is a five-year, double-degree program.
The five-year plan, which has been adopted by many Virginia colleges, allowed Byrd to earn a master's in education alongside a bachelor's degree from UVa's English department.
She said she might never have ended up a teacher if she hadn't seen a brochure for the dual-degree program during her freshman year.
"It didn't make it such a risk, going into that program," she said. Had she decided that life in front of the blackboard didn't agree with her, she still would have her liberal-arts degree, she said.
UVa was one of the first Virginia colleges to switch to the five-year plan, and officials there believe it has paid off in more applications from stronger students. Average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores for students who enter teaching at UVa have improved by about 150 points - roughly one-fifth - since the mid-1980s.
Teacher-ed programs elsewhere have surged as well. Nationwide, enrollment has jumped 61 percent since 1985, according to a survey last year by the National Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
"We'd have to go back to the mid-'70s to see these kinds of numbers," said Fred Kraemelmeyer, director of teacher-education services at Old Dominion University. Kraemelmeyer said his staff has been overwhelmed arranging student-teaching for 350 students this year, double the number of the mid-1980s.
By this fall, to comply with new state requirements that prospective teachers earn an arts and sciences degree in addition to their education classes, ODU and many other schools will begin to require five years' study in most teacher-education programs.
Kraemelmeyer, whose school lobbied hard against requiring arts and sciences training for all teachers, worries that a five-year requirement will discourage some from applying. For many students, expecially those who must work part time while in school, five years will easily stretch to six, he said.
"Looking at six years, when you're 18 years old, that's one-third of your life," he said. "You can become an attorney in seven years, for crying out loud . . . In a way, it's a good time [for the shift to five years], because we have a lot of students, and business is good."
College officials say the surge in interest in teaching probably results from a mix of trends, from salaries to the state of the economy. Just this year, Virginia's average teacher salary topped $30,000, and starting salaries are usually more than $20,000.
by CNB