Gains Fall Short of Needed Pace

If Georgia is to have enough teachers to educate its students, officials with the University System of Georgia say, their colleges and universities will have to increase the number of people coming from those institutions with education degrees.

It was with that goal in mind that the Board of Regents approved an initiative in 2005 to increase both the number of teachers graduating from state colleges and universities and the number of minority students getting those degrees.

“Double the Number, Double the Diversity” was passed with great fanfare.

“We need to make the pipeline more robust by ensuring that the University System of Georgia becomes the primary provider of this state’s teachers,” Jan Kettlewell, the associate vice chancellor in charge of the system’s efforts to work with other education agencies, said at the time. “We need to provide minority students in Georgia’s public schools with the role models that are so important to their educational success, and we need to help new teachers succeed by giving them as much support as possible.”

Almost three years later, Ms. Kettlewell and other officials are pointing to a growth in the number of teachers coming out of colleges and universities as evidence that the program appears to be working. But they also concede that the schools are not on a pace that will meet the goals approved in 2005.

“We have to step up to do it,” Ms. Kettlewell told the regents last week.

Ms. Kettlewell was presenting a report on the university system’s progress so far.

Many of the figures are encouraging. In the 2001-02 school year, Georgia colleges and universities graduated 2,660 new teachers, according to the report. Five years later, 3,822 graduated.

“That’s a huge increase from where we were when we started,” Ms. Kettlewell said.

The system also cranked out more minority teachers in 2006-07 than in previous years, with 702, an increase of 16.8 percent from the 2003-04 total of 601.

There are other benefits of the teachers being educated by Georgia colleges and universities, the report notes.

Of the teachers who came out of those institutions in 2004-05, 77 percent were working in the state’s public schools when the next school year began, the report notes. And teachers educated in Georgia were less likely than others to leave the profession or the state’s public schools after a year. The agency charged with credentialing teachers estimates that teachers who walk away cost the state about $400 million a year.

“Obviously a great concern for school systems is the hiring of high-quality teachers who will continue to teach in the school system year after year. (University system)-prepared teachers are a good investment for school systems because of their higher retention rate,” the report said.

But the goal of “Double the Number, Double the Diversity,” based on 2004 figures, is to prepare 7,000 teachers a year by 2010 – far more than would be produced if the state’s teacher-education efforts continue to grow at the same rate.

Though the number of teachers coming from university system schools is up from five years ago, it declined slightly in the 2006- 07 school year, to 3,822 from the previous year’s total of 3,968.

Ms. Kettlewell said colleges with teacher-education programs have agreed to an even higher set of goals. Though the system’s goal is to produce 60 percent of the teachers needed by the state in 2010, the schools agreed to shoot for 80 percent in 2020.

Other statistics are also troubling.

“While the number of new teachers prepared by (university system) institutions has increased, the number of mathematics and science teachers remainsfar too low to meet the state’s needs,” the report said. Chancellor Erroll Davis floated the idea that the state consider paying public school educators who will teach in areas such as math and science more than teachers in other fields earn, noting that the university system has a similar practice with its professors.

Some lawmakers are considering the idea, including Sen. Dan Weber, R-Dunwoody, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

The regents also approved a new initiative last week aimed at increasing the number of teachers produced by the university system.

Education degrees will be the first offered by the “Georgia ONmyLINE” program, an effort to design Internet-based course work for adults who want to get a degree in critical areas.

For example, an accountant who wanted to become a math teacher could take education courses online without having to give up a regular paycheck for a year or two to go to back to college.

The university system will speed up the admissions process for those who sign up for the program. That will allow students to begin classes in January.

Five schools are currently participating: Georgia Southern University, Valdosta State University, Columbus State University, Georgia State University and North Georgia College and State University.

Ultimately, though, Ms. Kettlewell said, colleges and universities will need more funding just to reach the goal set for 2010.

“Without an in influx of new dollars,” she said, “I don’t see how they’re going to do the double-double.”

Reach Brandon Larrabee at (678) 977-3709or brandon.larrabee@morris.com.

TEACHER NUMBERS

The number of teachers produced by some colleges and universities, and by the University System of Georgia as a whole, in 2006-07:

Armstrong Atlantic State 318 Augusta State 125 Georgia Southern 306 UGA 572 Valdosta State 295 OVERALL 3,822

Originally published by Brandon Larrabee Morris News Service.

(c) 2007 Augusta Chronicle, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.