STATE USES INNOVATE WAYS TO DRAW TEACHERS

When the economy is good, college graduates look to the private sector for employment opportunities and good salaries.

John Miller, director of teacher certification for Missouri's Department of Education, said the nation's teacher shortage can be blamed in part on a good economic environment that pits schools against private-sector employers.

As a result, the state is becoming creative as it tries to entice quality educators or experienced noneducators into Missouri schools.

"We're actively engaged in trying to develop alternatives to help school districts across the state," said Miller. "We have eight or nine options being developed for addressing the teacher shortage."

One such program seeing some success is offered at two Missouri universities.

Southeast Missouri State University has seen tremendous growth in its alternative certification program since it began two years ago. A similar program at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg has operated for about 10 years.

"I've gone from four folders and about one inquiry a week to 50 or 60 folders and 15 to 16 inquiries per week," said Fred Yeo, director of alternative certification at Southeast. "I see this as another way to help school districts out."

Yeo said alternative certification is a compacted education program that credits degree-holders for experience in the private sector. Participants receive a two-year, temporary Missouri teaching certificate while they complete mandatory education courses.

Program participants are generally people in their 30s and 40s who are moving from other jobs to a classroom, said Yeo. They must possess a college degree from an accredited school and have about five years of experience in their field to be considered for the program.

"You're getting paid as a teacher while we send someone out the same number of times we would to evaluate a non-paid student teacher in our traditional program," Yeo said.

Yeo said not all applicants are accepted to the program because they must hold a degree in a state-approved high-school subject area. However, some exceptions can be made based on the types of courses taken by the degree-holder, he said.

For example, psychology is not listed by the state as a high-school course, so a person with a bachelor's degree in psychology would probably not be accepted into the alternative certification program.

But a person with a degree in mass communications might be accepted into the program because the majority of his courses might fall under a state-approved curriculum like speech or language arts.

"In a sense, we're not holding strictly to having to have a degree in a particular area," said Yeo. "You have to have a degree and you have to have the experience and the course work. You can't get around that."

Miller said Missouri school districts have "pocket shortages" of teachers based on "the ability of a district to hire somebody." Several factors, including salary, location, employment criteria and working conditions, affect a district's attractiveness to teachers, he said.

In addition, teachers take longer to train than some other professionals, which means shortages develop and are diminished over relatively long periods of time.

Said Miller: "The difference with teachers and plumbers or other types of professions is you can turn them out in 12 or 24 months. Teachers take four to five years before they are trained. You have to plan about eight years back before you get the first teacher off the assembly line."