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Teacher Shortage In America

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At the end of the day, there is one thing that every person around the United States has in common if they have any type of education. They have all taken at least one course in math and science. It may not seem like this is important, but the problem behind it is the fact that there are fewer people every year that want to teach these courses. With that being said, the lack of these teachers cause a lack in the quality of education that one is receiving. The only way to prevent this is for the teacher shortage in the fields of math and science to be solved immediately, no matter what the cost. Even though some people believe giving benefits to only math and science teachers would be unfair, the idea of these benefits seem to be the only solution …show more content…
As of 2013, the article “Average U.S. Starting Teacher Salaries by State” expresses that the starting salaries for teachers across the United States have ranged from $27, 274 dollars to $51, 539 (Teacher Salaries, 42). To most, this may seem like a good deal of money, but depending on where the educator lives, this income may just barely be getting them by. This income also does not reflect the hard work and dedication that comes with being a major in the fields of math or science. From a personal account of being a mathematics major, the idea of just how hard these majors can be is all too well known. For someone who is in the Bachelors of Science major with a focus on mathematics, by the time graduation rolls around, they will have completed 42 hours of math and 16 hours of science. To simplify it, those numbers equivilate to 14 math classes and five science classes, which are numbers that are a lot easier to take in, but at the end of the day, it is still a large amount of work to be done in four years. In Yonghong Xu’s article, “Attention to Retention: Exploring and Addressing the Needs of College Students in STEM Majors,” Xu synthesizes that this curriculum is so hard for some that these majors are dwindling down not because of the major itself, but because students are overwhelmed by the work (Xu, 68). To know that there …show more content…
When I made the decision to go into education, numerous teachers who had already been in the profession for years urged me to major in a certain subject, and then obtain the alternate certification. One in particular was currently going through the process himself and could validate that this route was just as effective as getting an actual education degree in a certain subject field. To know that educators who did not take this route themselves would strongly advise one to now, should open eyes to the fact that even they see no difference in the quality of a teacher that comes from an alternate certification. Brian Evans even discusses in his article “Mathematics and Science Teaching for New Alternative Certification Teachers” that an alternate certification is just a different way to become a teacher without actually having to get a degree in education and there is a rise for people in math and science to obtain their certificate this way (Evans, 45). If one were to take the time to think about it, these people would not really know to obtain their certificate this way unless they were told about the process of how to do so. That in return means that there are people out there above the title of a student who are pushing the notion that an alternative certification is not a bad thing, and it does not take away from the quality one

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