New Op-Ed: Adequate Cal State Funding Can Ease Teacher Shortage

On March 22, 2017, Fox & Hounds published an op-ed from Dick Ackerman and Mel Levine, co-chairs of the California Coalition for Public Higher Education, titled, “Adequate Cal State Funding Can Ease Teacher Shortage.” Here’s an excerpt:

California has a severe shortage of teachers and one of the reasons we aren’t producing more instructors is the failure to adequately fund the California State University system—the primary pipeline for training members of the teaching profession.

Numbers tell the story.  This state ranks last in the country in teacher to student ratios.  We are 100,000 teachers short of what it would take just to get up to the national average.  And it will take another 106,000 teachers over the next ten years to simply keep up current staffing levels.  A survey of California school districts found that 75% are experiencing teacher shortages.  Obviously, we are going to have to bring more trained teachers into the system and that is where CSU comes in.

CSU prepares more California teachers than all other institutions combined and nearly 8 percent of the nation’s teachers overall.  The Cal State system is our best source of K-12 teachers and the key to improving the performance of our schools.  One of the reasons California pool of qualified teachers in not large enough is the State’s chronic underfunding of CSU and the University of California.

Read the complete op-ed on the Fox & Hounds website.