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PBS PROGRAM QUESTIONS TEACHER SHORTAGE

September 3, 1999

Longtime public radio and television reporter John Merrow says the growing national concern about teacher shortages in many school districts is nothing new. In "Teacher Shortage: False Alarm?" -- the latest in a series of education reports on PBS -- Merrow questions the Department of Education's estimate that the nation's schools will need to hire 2.2 million new teachers in the next 10 years to adequately serve America's K-12 students. "Virtually every President since Eisenhower has sounded the same alarm, and somehow we have survived," Merrow says. "Is the danger real this time, or could this be a false alarm?" The latest episode of "The Merrow Report" airs Sept. 10.

Though Merrow acknowledges the widespread problem of "out of field" teaching and some districts' shortages of math and science teachers - no mention of special ed. in the written literature introducing the program - he suggests the solution is more complicated than hiring more teachers. "A closer look reveals flaws in the system that create these problems," he argues. For example, some state laws permit teachers to teach multiple subjects, but teachers rarely come out of college with training in all of them. "Administrators and others often operate on the assumption that teachers are interchangeable parts, thus justifying assigning a Phys. Ed. teacher to teach Math, for example," Merrow says.

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In addition to what Merrow calls "administrative incompetence," a serious lack of practical, classroom teacher training is also to blame, he says. Retention, the oft-repeated word among teacher advocacy groups, is more important than hiring, Merrow agrees. "Our schools are losing teachers almost as fast as they can be recruited, which means that it might be time to fix the leak in the pool, instead of trying to add more water," he says.

Merrow has been an education reporter for National Public Radio and the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS. He began as a public school teacher and holds a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The Merrow Report is produced by the non-profit Learning Matters Inc. In addition, Merrow speaks out on a weekly one-hour live webcast that will debut Sept. 7.8