1999 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

1. Wisconsin Educator Supply Information

Highlights of Findings

• A large supply of experienced and inexperienced teachers continues to be available during the current year for Wisconsin public schools in many subject fields.
  
  
• The largest numbers of new licenses in general education were granted in elementary education, social studies, English, and reading.
  
  
• The number of teachers prepared in special education increased by over one hundred teachers from the 752 recorded in the 1998 edition of this report.
  
  
• Approximately 47 percent of newly hired educators had no previous teaching experience and were trained in Wisconsin educator preparation programs.
  
  
• Public universities continue to prepare the large majority of educators (seventy-five percent of the total).
  
  

Program Completers: Dec. 1, 1997 to Aug. 31, 1998

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, 1997, and August 31, 1998. Program completers are defined as individuals who have completed a degree or program (may be post-baccalaureate programs) at a Wisconsin college or university that leads to a license to teach in Wisconsin. All programs 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 A 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 and specialty subject field teachers by approximately 6 percent (see Table 6). 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 in most subject fields. Elementary education majors with a second subject license also had a 12 percent increase in their employability by securing a position in an alternate field (Table 6). Many special education majors have additional licenses in elementary education. Also included in Tables 1.1 and 1.2 are individuals who may already have held a license and then obtained an additional license in the time period specified.

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 in each training institution in 1997-1998 are presented in Tables 1.1 and 1.2. Generally, Wisconsin educator preparation institutions reported fewer program completers in the field of elementary education since the 1990-1991 year, with the current trend averaging around 1600 teachers. There was a small increase in the secondary/specialty fields, with several fields showing modest gains. The trends in the preparation of teachers at both the elementary and secondary levels will need to be evaluated in those fields with current shortages of teachers as increasing numbers of educators reach retirement age. In Figure 1, the pattern in special education shows the trends from 1981-1998. The 1992-1998 data indicate that for the past seven years there has been a gradual increase in the preparation levels of special education teachers with the exception of the 1996-1997 year.

Figure 1

Licensure Programs Completed Over Eighteen 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 1998-1999 school year. The use of the headcount 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 Public Schools for the 1998-1999 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 1997-1998 and moved to a different Wisconsin Public School district for the 1998-1999 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 years.

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 past two years have shown a gradual increase in the total number of newly hired educators, a trend which should continue to increase for the next ten years.

Active Pool of Educators Seeking Positions

The pool of available educators encompasses all teacher candidates who are activelyseeking 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 the 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 along with graphic maps showing the employability of candidates in the large subject fields. It is projected that this component will be again included in the 2000 edition of this report.

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.

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

Last updated on 12/6/2010 1:28:20 PM