Introduction
Syracuse University graduate Roshone Ault is one of 7,000 young college graduates who have joined Teach For America to help relieve the nation's teacher shortage. After a five-week training program, TFA corps members teach for two years in hard-to-staff public schools. Ault teaches at the John A. Reisenbach Charter School in New York City. (Teach For America)
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Severe teacher shortages are expected over the next 10 years, mainly because of widespread teacher retirements, swelling school enrollments and the trend toward smaller classes. Education experts and policy-makers are bitterly divided over how to offset the shortages, which will primarily affect inner-city and rural schools and hard-to-staff subjects such as math and science. Most of the states now permit “fast-track” certification programs that can turn out teachers in as little as four weeks. And some districts issue emergency teaching certificates to people with little or no teaching experience. But critics fear that alternative-certification initiatives are lowering teacher-quality standards. They say that raising salaries and giving teachers the professional recognition and support they deserve is the only way to reduce shortages while maintaining quality.
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