1998 Supply and Demand Ch. 1

1. Wisconsin Educator Supply Information

Highlights of Findings
Program Completers: Dec. 1, 1996, to Aug. 31, 1997
Suppliers of Newly Hired Educators With No Experience
Sources of New Teachers Hired in Wisconsin
Newly-Hired Educators over a Five Year Period
Active Pool of Educators Seeking Positions
Support Personnel

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Highlights of Findings

• A large supply of experienced and inexperienced teachers continues to be available during the current year for Wisconsin public schools in most subject fields.
  
  
• The largest number of new licenses were granted in elementary education, social studies and English.
  
  
• Approximately 48 percent of newly hired educators had no previous teaching experience and were trained in Wisconsin educator preparation programs.
  
  
• The number of secondary/specialty teachers prepared declined by 243, an eleven percent decline, which contributed to increased employability in many fields.
  
  
• The number of teachers prepared in special education declined by over one hundred teachers from the high of 857 recorded in the 1997 edition of this report. The largest declines were in learning disabilities and early childhood-EEN.
  
  
• Public universities continue to prepare the large majority of educators (seventy-six percent of the total) and continue on most campuses to reduce the numbers in chronically over-supplied areas such as elementary education, socials studies and English.
  
  

Program Completers: Dec. 1, 1996, to Aug. 31, 1997

The 33 teacher preparation programs in Wisconsin were asked to provide data to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) on the number of license programs completed by educators in the various subject fields and non-teaching areas between December 1, 1996, and August 31, 1997. All programs except Ripon responded to this request. The researcher grouped the licenses within each broad subject field so licensing variations within a field would not suggest a greater number of prospective teachers available (for example, elementary education included all DPI license codes from 100 through 188; music included codes 506, 511, and 515; social studies included codes 701 through 761). This grouping procedure resulted in a more accurate count of individuals licensed to teach in the various areas of each subject field (see Appendix for a complete list of DPI license codes).

In Wisconsin, high school teachers receive licensure to teach in their major and in certain minor and double major fields as well. Since educators may teach in their licensed minor, this encourages prospective teachers to obtain a minor along with their major. Thus, additional licenses at the secondary level increased the overall employability of high school teachers by approximately 4 percent (see Table 7 ). The situation is different for elementary education. For example, an elementary education teacher who also has a special education license would have to complete two separate programs--one in elementary education and the other in special education. Yet a teacher with an elementary license can teach at the middle school/junior high level with a minor in a subject field. Elementary education majors with a second teaching major also had a 4 percent increase in their employability by securing a position in an alternate field (Table 7). Many special education majors earned licenses in more than one field, which increased their employability by 11 percent. Most of these multiple licenses occur in special education or elementary education.

Figure 1, created from data in Table 2 , details the longitudinal pattern of the number of newly prepared educators in elementary, secondary, and special education. The actual counts of the licenses earned by each training institution in 1996-1997 are presented in Tables 1.1 and 1.2 . Generally, Wisconsin educator preparation institutions have graduated decreasing numbers of teachers in the field of elementary education since the 1990-1991 year, with the current trend averaging around 1700 teachers for the last four years. There was an eight percent decrease in the secondary/specialty fields with the largest decrease occurring in physical education. The downward trend in the preparation of teachers at both the elementary and secondary levels will need to be evaluated as increasing numbers of educators reach retirement age. In Figure 1, the pattern in special education shows the trends from 1981-1997. The 1992-1997 data show that for the past five years there has been a gradual increase in the preparation levels of special education teachers, with this past year showing a sharp reversal of this trend.

Figure 1

Licensure Programs Completed Over Seventeen Years

Suppliers of Newly Hired Educators With No Experience

The total head count number of newly hired teachers for Wisconsin Public Schools without experience prepared in Wisconsin educator preparation programs is shown in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 for the 1996-1997 school year. The use of the head-count in this table does inflate the numbers because each part-time individual is counted as one full position and duplicate count of individuals occurs when individuals teach in more than one subject field. The table includes individuals who may have graduated several years ago, but this is their first education position. The count of individuals is based on the position in which they are employed rather than the field in which they hold licensure. Thus, individuals who are teaching with an emergency license may be graduates of institutions that do not offer preparation in the specific field in which they are teaching. Considering that DPI issues a large number of emergency licenses in special education, this explains the discrepancy between data in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 and other tables in this study. For example, a teacher prepared in social studies may have accepted a position in special education on an emergency license. The institution that prepared the social studies teacher is credited with preparing a special education teacher even though it may not have a program in that field. These tables show the recent contribution of each teacher preparation program to the pool of newly hired teachers.

Sources of New Teachers Hired by Wisconsin Public Schools

DPI has a licensure record for each teacher who was newly hired in Wisconsin for the 1997-1998 school year. Table 4 shows the FTE breakdown of the sources of newly hired teachers by subject field. An explanation of the categories used in Table 4 follows:

• Wisconsin Newly Hired Educators without Experience designates individuals who have been trained in Wisconsin colleges and universities and have no teaching experience.
  
  
• Wisconsin Newly Hired Educators with Experience designates individuals who were prepared in Wisconsin colleges and universities and have at least one year of teaching experience and are returning to the field.
  
  
• The Experienced Educators Relocating includes all individuals who were employed in the Wisconsin Public Schools in 1996-1997 and moved to a different Wisconsin Public School district for the 1997-1998 year.
  
  
• The two out-of-state categories follow the same patterns described above except that these teachers received their preparation in states other than Wisconsin.
  
  

The data in Table 4 was based on the information school districts collected on the third Friday in September and submitted to DPI. The data in this table, when compared to similar information from previous years, have shown a similar employment pattern, with very little change from the previous year. There also was a decline in the number of teachers hired who received their preparation in other states.

Newly Hired Educators over a Five Year Period

The number of newly hired teachers in Wisconsin Public Schools during the past five years is shown in Table 5 . Two different teachers, each employed 50 percent, were counted as one FTE. This has the net effect of reducing the count of the total number of educators employed when the FTE statistic is used. The data collected for Tables 5, and 7 showed that a large proportion of secondary level teachers were hired on a part-time basis.

Active Pool of Educators Seeking Positions

The pool of available educators encompasses all teacher candidates who are actively seeking employment in the public schools. The researcher initiated a study of the pool of teachers seeking positions in September 1996. Each Wisconsin Public School administrator and each Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) director was sent a survey requesting the number of vacancies in each subject field that had been posted in their district or CESA for the fall term. Each administrator and director was asked to rate the number of applications received in relationship to the vacancies in each subject field. A five-category scale, which ranged from 0 for a serious shortage of candidates to 5 for 50 plus applications for each position indicating extreme oversupply, was provided on the survey. Thus, for each vacancy the researcher gathered two pieces of information--the number of applications and a rating of that number from extreme oversupply to extreme shortage. Fourteen small districts that had incomplete data or did not respond were not included for a 97 percent return rate. These data are available in the 1997 edition of this report and graphic maps showing the employability of candidates in the large subject fields from these data are found in the 1997 DPI web site (http://dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/supplyd.html).

Support Personnel

School districts employ a variety of personnel to support the educational process. These personnel are an important element in the field of special education. Assessing the availability of support personnel prepared in certain categories (for example, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy) is difficult because many of the individuals in these fields are contracted for their services by agencies outside the public schools. A more detailed measure of the employability of these educators is the data from the district survey sent to each special education administrator which is reported in the 1995 edition of this report. Also the study of the active pool of educators seeking positions presented in the 1997 edition of this report provides more updated information on the availability of candidates to fill these positions (see web site listed above).

For questions about this information, contact Paul Trilling (608) 266-0933

Last updated on 12/6/2010 1:27:28 PM