Legislators meet in Rogers, talk about teachers

ROGERS -- The number of subject areas in which Arkansas faces a "critical" shortage of public-school teachers increased from 12 to 15 within the past year, according to a state report.

The report also indicates not enough help is on the way. The number of people pursuing teaching licenses in those shortage areas equals only 81 percent of positions available statewide in the same areas.

Jeremy Owoh, an assistant commissioner from the state Department of Education, presented the report to a joint meeting of the House and Senate education committees Thursday.

The legislators met in Rogers in conjunction with the Professional Learning Communities at Work Institute, a convention for educators Rogers High School is hosting this week. The House and Senate education committees will meet again at 9 a.m. today at Rogers High School to discuss professional learning communities.

Teacher shortages continue in areas such as special education, math and Spanish. English language arts showed up this year for the first time in at least five years as a critical shortage area, according to the report.

State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, voiced her concern about the situation.

"This is 'Houston, we have a problem,'" Elliott said. "This is the first time I ever recall there being a shortage in English language arts and in social studies. This is huge. This is like you woke up in Arkansas and there were no Razorbacks."

The report also showed the number of people enrolled in the state's educator preparation programs -- both the traditional and alternative routes -- has declined from 6,161 in 2013 to 3,563 this year, a 42 percent drop.

"We realize that's a major issue," Owoh said.

Owoh explained several initiatives the state has engaged in to promote teacher recruitment and retention.

One such program is Arkansas Teacher Cadets, which aims to attract the brightest high school students to the teaching profession. The program has been implemented in 58 Arkansas schools and has more than 500 students participating in it, according to the report.

The state's number of public-school students has grown by 5.2 percent while the number of certified teachers employed in Arkansas' schools has grown by 3.8 percent over the past 13 years. The student-to-teacher ratio thus has increased slightly from 14.2-to-1 to 14.4-to-1 during that time.

Teacher retention continues to be a concern for the department. Nearly one out of every four Arkansas teachers leave the profession within their first three years and about 30 percent leave within five years, according to the report.

Two representatives of the Bureau of Legislative Research presented results of a study of issues affecting teacher recruitment and retention.

In a survey of teachers conducted last fall, 308 out of 1,199 respondents -- or 25.7 percent -- answered yes when asked if they were considering quitting their teaching job, according to the bureau's report.

Those who answered yes were asked why. Nearly two-thirds cited stress and workload and 54 percent chose paperwork and bureaucratic issues as one of their primary reasons. The third-most cited reason was lack of respect for the profession, according to the report.

State Rep. Bruce Cozart, R-Hot Springs, is chairman of the House Education Committee. Thursday's discussion was part of the legislators' evaluation of education adequacy they do every two years that forms the basis of how much the state decides to fund public schools, Cozart said.

"We have to do an adequacy study and then we have to present an adequacy plan to the governor by Nov. 1 of every even-numbered year," Cozart said after the meeting. That work has been going on since March, he said.

NW News on 07/13/2018