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OCR for page 60
Determining Supply:
Individual and District Activities
Each year between 5 and 10 percent of the nation's public school
teachers leave the profession. Some leave permanently; some leave tem-
porarily; and they leave for a variety of reasons to take a different job, to
pursue further education, to start a family, etc. What this means, however,
is that every year between 100,000 and 200,000 replacements are needed to
fill those vacancies, although the actual number is not known. From where
do these teachers come?
The panel attempted to answer that question, particularly for secondary
school science and mathematics teachers, by looldug at three sources of
evidence: (1) state and national models of teacher supply and demand;
(2) in-depth case studies of classroom teacher recruitment in a number
of school districts; and (3) insights obtained through a conference on
professional personnel systems in large school districts.
In this chapter we first discuss what constitutes supply-continuing and
new science and mathematics teachers and their incentives and decisions
about teaching along stages in their career paths. We then look at supply
from the district viewpoint, from which widely varied policies for recruiting,
screening, and selecting teachers cause variations in the adequacy and the
quality of the supply of teachers available to different districts.
THE COMPONENTS OF SUPPLY
The supply of teachers for the coming school year is a relationship
between the number of qualified individuals who would be willing to teach
and such incentives as the salaries, benefits, retirement programs, working
conditions offered by school districts, and other alternative career opportu-
nities. Ideally, it would be desirable to have a behavioral model of supply
60
OCR for page 61
DETERMINING SUPPLY
61
that would take into account the interaction and interdependence of a-
wide range of variables and could help answer such questions as how many
teachers can be expected to quit in response to a change in retirement
policy, or how many former teachers can be expected to reenter if salaries
are raised by a certain amount.
Policy makers frequently ask questions about the likely impacts of
various education policy actions and socioeconomic forces on prospective
teacher supply and demand. 1b address such questions requires a capacitor
to project supply and demand under varying assumptions about future
circumstances. In turn, this capability requires the development of models
that are both behavioral and dynamic. By this we mean models that capture
relationships between variables in the environment and the behavior of
actors in the educational system, and in particular capture relationships
between changes in circumstances and subsequent changes in the numbers
and kinds of people interested in obtaining teaching positions or in the
numbers and kinds of teachers demanded by school systems.
Before such models can be developed, additional research on the
relation between incentives and supply and between variables in the en-
vironment and supply, as well as additional data to support the models,
will be needed. The national and state models examined by the panel are
projection models based on extrapolations of current conditions or histor-
ical trends, although some use refinements such as age and field-specific
attrition rates in projections of continuing teachers and consideration of
a broader range of new supply sources. In practice, these models try to
estimate the number who will be available from each of the two major
components of supply: continuing teachers teachers who are teaching this
year and will continue to teach next year in the same location and new
entrants. There is a continuous flow of teachers into and out of the teach-
ing force, as shown in Figure 3.1. This diagram can apply to the nation,
a state, a school district, or to special groups of schools such as rural or
inner city schools, or to special types of teachers such as science teachers,
mathematics teachers, or minority teachers.
Continuing Teachers
The most important element of teacher supply during a given year
is the retention of people returning from the prior year. ~ obtain that
component of teacher supply, we need to know the attrition between the two
years. However, the attrition rate is a complex function depending on the
various incentives that cause teachers to retire, to move to another school,
or to leave teaching for other careers including homemaking. In practice,
the method typically used in current models involves making an assumption
about attrition rates, sometimes adjusted for trend and sometimes not. For
OCR for page 62
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OCR for page 63
DETERMINING SUPPLY
63
many years the model used by the National Center for Education Statistics
for the intermediate set of projections used an attrition rate of 6 percent
based on survey data that were collected by NCES in 1968 (Metz and
Fleischman, 1974~. In 1987 NCES used an estimated turnover rate of 7.5
percent for elementary teachers and 6.5 percent for secondary teachers
(CES, 1987a:46~. The results of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)
should provide a basis for more accurate attrition rates.
In state models, the supply due to retention can be estimated in a more
satisfactory way, since states generally have information on the attrition rate
for teachers in the state for the prior year and assume that the rate will be
the same in the current year. However, attrition levels vary from state to
state and over time. Attrition for states is different from national attrition,
since the former includes teachers who move to other states and continue in
teaching. Some states also have the information to compute more refined
attrition rates, such as for different age groups of teachers and for different
subject fields. (Evidence from these states shows that as the teaching stock
ages, the average attrition rate will change.) Interestingly, attrition rates
in these states for teachers of science and mathematics are not noticeably
different from rates of teacher attrition in other fields. Tables 3.1 and 3.2
show retention rates for public school teachers in the states of Illinois and
New York for mathematics, science, and the total for all subjects. (As we
point out later, the lack of difference in rates by subject may be due to the
influences of general enrollment declines during the early 1980s.)
TABLE 3.1 Retention Rates for Illinois Public School Teachers
1977-1984 (Percentage Retained in Consecutive Years)
Secondary Grades (9-12)
Year PrimaryMathematicsScience All
Grades Subjects
(PreK-8)
1977-1978 90.591.792.1 90.8
1978-1979 90.491.792.3 90.2
1979-1980 91.692.390.5 91.9
1980-1981 91.892.592.5 92.1
1981- 1982 92.693.093.8 93.3
1982-1983 92.594.694.5 93.0
1983-1984 93.5n.a.n.a. 93.4
Note: Data are for downstate schools only (i.e., all school districts except the
Chicago Public Schools). This table shows retention rates of teachers; however, the
source publication shows attrition rates, i.e., 100 = the retention rate.
Source: Illinois State Board of Education (1983: Tables 2 and 3; 1985b: Table 8).
OCR for page 64
64
PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND ~4THEMATICS TEACHERS
TABLE 3.2 Age-Specific Retention Rates of New York Public Secondary School
Teachers (grades 7-12) in 1984 (Percentage Retained from 1983)
Age
All Secondary
Mathematics Science Subjects
Under 35 90.6 89.9 89.2
35-39 94.1 95.6 94.4
40-44 94.9 95.6 94.8
45-49 g5.8 95.8 95.2
50-54 91.9 93.0 92.0
55-59 84.2 84.0 83.5
60 and over 73.2 69.1 70.2
Total all ages 92.4 92.7 91.6
Source: New York State Education Department (1985a).
New Entrants
The more difficult part of modeling teacher supply consists of pre-
dicting the potential willingness of people who were not teaching last year
to enter the teaching force. In Figure 3.1 we have labeled all sources
of teacher supply other than continuing teachers as "new entrants" or
"reentrants." Major categories under the heading of new entrants include
newly certified persons, persons with previous teaching experience and
certification (i.e., reentrants people who come from the so called reserve
pool of teachers), persons hired through some alternative or emergency
certification procedure, and in-migrants.
The major categories can be broken down into yet finer components.
Newly certified persons may be either newly certified graduates of teacher
training programs or newly certified graduates with other majors. Experi-
enced teachers may have been on leave or layoff, they may have entered
other careers (including homemaking); they may have been teaching as
substitutes; they may have resigned for long-term health reasons; or they
may be in-migrants. In-migrants are teachers who were teaching last year,
but not in the particular jurisdiction or subject field for which the supply
is being estimated. In some states virtually any college graduate, with or
without teaching certification or experience, can be counted in the supply
OCR for page 65
DETERMINING SUPPLY
65
of new entrants; these states permit certification on the basis of testing,
permit hiring on an emergency certification basis, or use an apprentice
teaching program.
In the first phases of our deliberations, we discovered that the major
proportion of new [hires each year did not come from new college graduates,
but rather from the corps of experienced returning teachers. Although the
percentages varied across subject areas, level, and location, in general it
was found that less than half of new hires were new college graduates
(National Research Council, 1987c:27~. For example, Able 3.3 shows that
the proportion of new hires who were new college graduates was less
than 30 percent in each of six types of urban-suburban-rural districts. The
National Education Association's (NEA) surveys of American public school
teachers found a decline over the years in the proportion of new entrants
who came directly from college (NEA, 1987e:24~. From the data provided,
the percentage of new hires who had been in college the previous year can
be computed to be 67 percent in 1966, decreasing to 17 percent in 1986.
These findings are important in light of the fact that the supply-demand
model used by the National Center for Education Statistics until 1987 based
its estimates of teacher shortage on the assumption that all new hires would
be new college graduates. Following the publication of the panel's interim
report, NCES discontinued this practice.
WHAT INFLUENCES AN INDIVIDUAL TO TEACH?
From an examination of teacher supply, the panel has concluded that
the answer to the question "Who will teach science and mathematics in
the nation's schools?" is heavily influenced by the incentives offered to
teachers, former teachers, and potential teachers. This conclusion follows
from the results of a long history of studies showing that the supply of
skilled labor for particular occupations is sensitive to financial incentives
(see, for example, Harris, 1949; Arrow and Capron, 1959; Freeman, 1971~.
This section summarizes what is known about the role that particular
incentives play in the career decisions of teachers, former teachers, and
potential teachers. We discuss in subsequent sections the extent to which
the important incentives play a role in teacher supply and demand models,
or could play a role in improved models.
Although this report is concerned with science and mathematics teach-
ers, most of the literature on teacher supply does not distinguish between
these teachers and other elementary and secondary school teachers. Con-
sequently, we must look to the broader literature for evidence on incentives
and teachers' responses to them.
OCR for page 66
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OCR for page 67
DETE~INING SUPPLY
67
Before turning to this evidence, we want to make clear that this
discussion should not be interpreted as implying that financial incentives
are the only factors that influence teachers' and potential teachers' career
decisions, or even that they are the most important influences. Teachers
enter teaching for a variety of reasons to work with children, to experience
the satisfaction of helping others, to have a schedule similar to their own
children's schedule. Other reasons for entering teaching were given by
some of the newly hired teachers interviewed in the panel's case studies.
They entered teaching because of particular experiences they had in the
past teaching opportunities during college that were rewarding or an
outstanding individual high school teacher who served as a role model, for
example. Teachers also leave teaching for a variety of reasons" to pursue
another occupation, to follow a spouse whose job has been relocated, to
engage in full time childrearing. For most teachers and potential teachers, a
moderate change in salary, say $2,000 to $4,000, probably does not influence
the decision about whether to enter teaching or how long to stay in teaching.
However, a critical question is whether such a moderate-sized salary change
would influence the career decisions of enough college graduates to have a
marked influence on supply. That question is addressed here.
It is also important to keep in mind the unit of analysis that provides
the focus for particular studies of the determinants of teacher supply. For
example, a number of studies report that recruitment efforts by individual
school districts have been successful in expanding the quantity and quality
of applicants for teaching positions. Presumably the reason is that these
efforts have made particular school districts seem especially attractive to
a significant portion of the pool of potential teachers. It does not follow,
however, that active recruitment policies by all school districts would ~m-
prove the quantity or quality of science and mathematics teachers in our
schools. Instead, these policies are likely to influence only the distribution
of the available supply of teachers among different districts. The impli-
cation of this example is that, when evaluating the evidence on responses
to incentives, it is important to consider the extent to which the incen-
tives alter the quantity and quality of the pool of science and mathematics
teachers available to the nation's schools, or whether they influence only
the distribution of the available supply among districts.
This section focusing on individuals is organized according to what
might be called the steps in the pipeline that place teachers in schools:
1. College students' decisions about occupational preparation;
2. The decision about whether to enter teaching;
3. Teachers' decisions about how long to stay in teaching;
4. Former teachers' decisions about whether to return to teaching;
OCR for page 68
68
PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHERS
Teachers' decisions about moving from one state to another; and
Teachers' decisions about when to retire.
College Students' Occupational Preparation Decisions
Over the last 15 years, the percentage of American college students
training to become teachers has declined precipitously. One indicator of
this is the proportion of graduating seniors majoring in education. This
proportion has fallen from 22 percent in 1971-72 to 9 percent in 1985-
86 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1988b:210~. This indicator
is suspect, however, because an increasing proportion of college students
training to teach also major in a particular discipline, for example, math-
ematics or biology. As a result, the trend in the number of education
majors may provide misleading information about the trend in the number
of college students preparing to teach. Unfortunately, no reliable national
data exist on the number of individuals obtaining teacher certification each
year. This makes it necessary to turn to individual states for information on
the number of new certificants. Able 3.4, which provides information on
the number of individuals obtaining certification in New York and North
Carolina in selected years between 1974 and 1985, illustrates the dramatic
decline in the number of individuals obtaining teacher certification in these
states. In each state the number of new certificants in 1985 was less than
half of the number of new certificants in the mid-l97Os.
There are two related reasons why the number of college students
training to teach declined dramatically over the last 15 years. The first is
the decline in the number of teaching positions available for newly certified
teachers a response to enrollment declines. For example, the number of
new teachers (that is, teachers without previous teaching experience) hired
by public school districts in Michigan declined from more than 6,000 in
1973 to fewer than 700 in 1984. In addition, many beginning teachers lost
their jobs as fiscally strapped school districts reduced staff in response to
enrollment declines. Since the probability of obtaining a teaching position
is a critical factor influencing college students' decisions about whether
to train to teach, the decline in this probability was an important factor
contributing to the decline in the proportion of college students preparing
to teach.
A second factor was the decline in teaching salaries relative to salaries
offered by business and industry. As depicted in Figure 3.2, teaching salaries
fell relative to salaries in business and industry during the late 1970s. Thus,
as papers by Manski (1987) and Zarkin (1985) have shown, the combination
of the decline in the probability of obtaining a teaching position and the
decline in the competitiveness of teaching salaries were strong signals to
college students to pursue occupations other than teaching.
OCR for page 69
DETERMINING SUPPLY
TABLE 3.4 Number of People Obtaining Teacher Certification in New York and
North Carolina, 1974-1985
Year New York North Carolina
1974 34,770
1975 6,538
1976 24,039 6,413
1977 5,673
1978 5,105
1979 4,684
1980 16,348 3,852
1981 3,145
1982 3,095
1983 3,071
1984 17,275 2,997
1985 16,002 2,830
69
Sources: New York State Education Department (1988~; Murnane and Schwinden
(1989:9, Figure 1~.
The Decision to Enter Teaching
One of the surprising facts about the operation of the teacher labor
market is that one-third to one-half of college graduates who obtain teacher
certification never teach-or at least do not teach in the state where
they obtain certifications One explanation is that teacher certification
has traditionally been relatively easy to obtain in most states and, as a
result, many college students obtain certification even though they have
little interest in teaching. A second explanation is that the decline in the
number of teaching vacancies during the l970s left many newly certified
graduates without job offers in teaching.
The fact that a large proportion of graduates certified to teach do
not teach raises the interesting question of who enters teaching and who
does not. Recent work by Murnane and Schwinden (1989) indicates that
the answer varies across subject specialties and race. They found that the
National Teachers Examination (NTE) scores of white certificants trained
1 National data on who is certified to teach are not available, and state-level data provide no
information on cenificants who leave the state.
OCR for page 70
70
PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND lL4THE~lTICS TEACHERS
$32,000
$28,000
~-
Is
cn
a)
cr:
$24,000
$20,000
$16,000
O Physics ~ Chemistry ~ Teachers
0 Mathematics ~ Biology ~ Humanities
)
0~ ~ ~ 1 1 1 1 ~ 1 1 1
1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988
Year
it,
¢\~ ~
~q Pa
i
~ V
FIGURE 3.2 Average starting salaries for teachers and for business and industry ($1987)
by college graduates' field of college major. Sources: College Placement Council (1988~;
National Education Association (1987a).
in chemistry, mathematics, and English were important predictors of the
probability of entry into teaching. The entry probabilities for white certifi-
cants in these areas with scores at the 90th percentile were 10-17 percentage
points higher than the enter probabilities for white certificants in these areas
with scores at the 10th percentile. (NTE scores made the most difference
in the probability of entry for certificants specializing in mathematics.) For
white certificants with other subject specialties, the NTE score was not an
important predictor of the probability of entry.
The likely explanation for this pattern concerns the opportunity cost
of becoming a teacher that is, what one gives up if one decides to
teach. As presented in Figure 3.2, between 1968 and 1987 starting salaries
OCR for page 81
DETERMINING SUPPLY
81
year, suppIy-demand models, and information system design and use. (See
Appendix A for more detail.)
In both the case studies and the conference of personnel directors,
differences among the districts were as apparent as the commonalities.
Observations made by the school district officials during the course of these
three activities are noted throughout the report.
This section summarizes the lessons the panel has learned from these
activities concerning the variation in school district practices and the per-
ceptions of how practices influence school districts' success in recruiting
skilled math and science teachers. The section is organized by topics cor-
responding to the following elements of the hiring process: determining
needs, soliciting applicants, screening applicants, and making offers. The
section emphasizes school district practices because they provided the fo-
cus for the case studies and the conference with the personnel directors.
However, it is critical to keep in mind that determination of who teaches
in the schools depends not only on these practices, but also on applicants'
responses to these practices.
Determining Needs
Knowing how many new teachers of each subject at each grade level
will be needed in the coming year is a critical first step in planning a
hiring strategy. Yet, for many districts, it is extremely difficult to collect
this information in a timely fashion. Some reasons are detailed below.
Uncertainly About Student Enrollments
Student enrollments are the primary determinant of the demand for
teachers. Based on comments from the personnel directors of seven large
school districts, it appears that projecting future enrollments accurately is
difficult to do, especially in districts experiencing significant in-migration
or out-migration. Since there are many such school districts, the panel
infers that many districts do not have reasonably accurate projections of
enrollments for a given year until the students actually appear in September.
When finances preclude flexibility in the ratio of the number of students to
teachers a situation present in most of the districts included in the case
studies-teachers cannot be hired in anticipation of enrollment increases.
This inability to offer firm contracts to strong applicants in late spring,
when many applicants desire commitments of employment, hinders many
districts' efforts to hire skilled teachers.
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82
PRECO! :~;EGE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHERS
Uncertainty About Budget for the Next School Year
Another related problem is that in the spring when hiring takes place,
districts may not know the budget for the next school year. According to
union contracts, this forces the district to inform large numbers of teachers
in March that they will not be employed the following year. Then when the
budget is assured, they find that some of the people who receive notices
have found other work. Thus, the district must look for new people.
Internal Transfer Queues
In many districts, contracts with teachers specify a formal procedure
under which teaching vacancies are made available to teachers already
employed by the district, before they can be filled by a newly hired applicant.
Completing the steps of the internal transfer process often takes several
months. Until the process is completed, the personnel office cannot be sure
of the identity of the school in which a vacancy will ultimately be present,
or even of the teaching specialties that will be needed.
Delays in Reporting Resignations
For a number of reasons, teachers may delay reporting that they plan
to resign their positions. One reason is that some contracts specify that
teachers employed by the district on the date on which a new contract is
signed are eligible for certain fringe benefits included in the new contract,
such as improvement in health benefits. As a result, teachers wait until a
new contract is signed, which often runs into the summer months, before
resigning. Another reason for late resignations is that some school princi-
pals will ask teachers who intend to resign to withhold formal notification so
as to subvert the internal transfer process. Principals do this to gain control
over who fills the vacancy. One consequence of this practice, however, is
a wave of resignations in late summer, when it is difficult to find qualified
applicants.
Attrition During the School Year
While most suburban districts and smaller-sized districts tend to con-
centrate their recruiting on finding strong applicants in late spring to fill
vacancies expected for the following September, many urban districts hire
teachers throughout the year to fill unanticipated vacancies resulting from
teacher resignations and unexpected enrollment growth. In fact, the per-
sonnel directors from several urban districts reported that as many as half
of the teachers they hire are asked to start teaching during the school year,
rather than in September.
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DETERMINING SUPPLY
83
Soliciting Applicants
School district personnel directors use a variety of strategies to recruit
applicants for teaching positions. These include recruiting at nearby col-
leges and universities, relying on informal networks of information about
individuals not currently teaching who are interested in returning to the
classroom, and, in one urban district, recruiting graduate students to teach
part time. These are a few examples of the many strategies that personnel
directors described as effective for finding applicants.
The need to recruit varies greatly among school districts, and large
differences are observed in ratios of applicants to vacancies reported by
districts in the same labor market area. For example, in the Washington,
D.C., metropolitan area, the District of Columbia has great difficulty at-
tracting applicants; it reports about three applicants for each teaching job.
By contrast, suburban Montgomery County reports a 13 to 1 ratio; and
Prince George's Counpr 8 to 1 (Sanchez, 1989~. The wide array of recruit-
ing strategies employed reflects such differences in the ability to attract
applicants.
School systems may advertise and make trips to job fairs or colleges
where they have successfully recruited in the past. If personnel officials
feel there is a particular shortage, special early offers may be made. At
times, to eliminate a particular shortage, special incentives, such as a bonus,
may be offered. What seems clear from personnel administrators is that
many school systems are searching nationally, or at least beyond their
local or state borders, for persons in similar fields. One year the quest
may be for science and mathematics teachers; another year it will be for
reading teachers; still another year, it may be for early childhood teachers.
Lately a widespread need has been for special education teachers and for
teachers of the same ethnic backgrounds as those of the students in the
district. According to the personnel directors of large school districts who
shared their experiences with the panel, recruiting generally was restricted
to known sources, because experience had taught recruiters that persons
unfamiliar with the climate, housing costs, student populations, or culture
were unlikely to remain in their systems.
While there was enormous variation in the way personnel directors
found applicants, some patterns emerged. First, almost all personnel di-
rectors indicated there was no shortage of qualified applicants for teaching
positions in science or mathematics at this time. (Most districts did re-
port shortages of minority applicants and applicants for special education
positions.) Exceptions were a few cases of an inadequate supply of appli-
cants to teach physics. Several respondents commented that the supply of
qualified applicants for each vacancy in biology was considerably greater
than the ratio of qualified applicants to number of vacancies in chemistry
OCR for page 84
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PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS TEACHERS
or physics. Second, most respondents indicated that a large percentage of
their applicants were individuals with previous teaching experience.
While it is hazardous to make inferences about patterns in recruiting
strategies from an unrepresentative sample, the following patterns seemed
to be present in the survey information. School districts that paid relatively
low salaries, particularly districts in rural areas, relied especially heavily
on attracting applicants who had grown up in the area and were eager
to return home. Districts that paid high salaries and offered attractive
working conditions found that many of their applicants were teachers
currently employed in nearby districts. Urban districts that needed large
numbers of new teachers each year were more likely than other districts to
engage in national recruiting strategies. While some personnel directors of
large districts indicated that they did find national recruiting worthwhile,
they were quick to point out that hiring applicants from regions of the
country with very different climates often led to very high turnover rates.
As a result, they had learned to concentrate their recruiting efforts on
geographical areas that had supplied a relatively large number of applicants
in the past, and had found it particularly fruitful to recruit in areas in which
teachers were being laid off as a result of declining enrollments and budget
cutbacks.
Screening Applicants
The strategies used to screen applicants for teaching positions, in-
cluding who does the screening and how it is done, varied considerably
from district to district. Our discussions with school districts indicated that
recruitment of new teachers by large school systems with diverse student
populations was often hindered by the fact that recruiters could not specify
the school to which the applicant would be assigned. Many persons would
find such a school system desirable if they could teach in a given section
of the school system or in a specified school. Since recruiters could not
make those promises or could not make those promises soon enough in
the recruitment period, candidates were lost to the school system. In other
school systems of various sizes, however, the school and the position was
able to be specified early in the screening process.
Ib provide a sense of the variation in screening applicants, we describe
the screening practices in two school districts in the Northeast-the sub-
ject of a recent Harvard University doctoral dissertation (Shivers, 1989~.
(The districts are not identified because a commitment of confidentiality
was made to the study districts.) The first district is an ethnically and
socioeconomically diverse community adjacent to a central city, and has a
long-standing reputation of providing excellent education. The second is an
urban district with a history of budget problems and difficulties in raising
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the achievement of a clientele containing a large proportion of low-income
and minority children.
In the first district, the screening process is extremely decentralized.
The central personnel office weeds out unpromising applicants and passes
on to school principals a list of promising candidates. In the words of the
acting superintendent, who had been personnel director for a great many
years (as quoted in Shivers, 1989~:
In a nutshell, our aim here is to use the central staff to do a paper
screening of the candidates, to do some initial interviewing, and then to
forward as quickly as possible as many reasonable candidates as possible
to the building principal or the curriculum coordinator [department
chair] at the secondary level . . . and then to let them do the selection.
That is to say that we sort of send out a group of people with the Good
Housekeeping Seal of Approval that are a general batch. And from that
general batch the principal should choose.
At the high school level, the school principal delegates to the depart-
ment chair authority to choose among applicants. The logic underlying this
practice is that chairs are responsible for the quality of instruction offered in
their departments and for evaluating teachers. Consequently, they should
be responsible for hiring the teachers who will provide the instruction to
students. Using open-ended questions, chairs interview each candidate sent
from the central personnel office. They also call references. They are not
obliged to choose among the candidates sent to them. If none seems satis-
factory, they can ask the personnel director to find other candidates. They
can also use their own informal networks, such as professional associations
and experiences with substitute teachers, to find candidates.
Chairs indicated that they do not attempt to hire teachers fitting
one mold. Rather they look for candidates who know their subjects,
demonstrate evidence of teaching skills, and also do something special,
so as to maximize the probability that they will appeal to a subset of the
school's diverse student population. One indication of the diversity that is
sought is that in one year during the early 1970s, when 115 teachers were
newly hired, there were 87 different graduate backgrounds, 25 states, and
7 countries represented (Shivers, 1989~.
One attribute that chairs do seek in applicants is some (but not
too much) teaching experience. One chair summarized this priority by
stating that she did not want a "person with a B.N degree and no experi-
ence .... This is too complicated a school to take children to teach
children. If I had my druthers they [great candidates] would have had
two years experience somewhere else so they would have made their really
bad [teaching] mistakes somewhere else" (Shivers, 1989~. Although the
superintendent is formally responsible for hiring teachers, in practice the
authority is delegated to principals, who in turn delegate it to chairs. In
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PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND hl`4THEM`4TICS TEACHERS
fact, after the chairs complete their interviewing and choose the candidates
they want to hire, they convey their choice to the winning candidate and
also call the candidates who are not chosen. Thus, the decentralization
goes beyond advice-giving. In practice, the department chairs choose the
teachers.
In the second district studied in this doctoral dissertation, the screening
process is markedly different. Principals and building-level department
chairs have only a minor role. The superintendent and central office
assistants play the major role in determining who will be hired. As In
the first d~stnct, the process begins with a central office screening of the
credentials of applicants. Potentially acceptable candidates are asked to
come for interviews. It is at the interview stage at which the process In this
d~stnct is so different from the one-on-one interviews between candidates
and building-level department chairs that were used in the first d~stnct.
Shivers (1989) describes the interview process used In the second district
as follows:
All new teacher candidates are asked to gather at the same time at
the . . . high school gymnasium to be interviewed. Interview panels, which
are put together by the personnel director and by department heads,
include three to six interviewers [typically including] the appropriate
district-level department chair, a secondary school principal, a building-
level department chair and another teacher from the department, and
one or two central office administrators ....
Teachers are called one by one to face a panel of interviewers who
are seated at a table on the gymnasium floor, out of earshot of the
candidates waiting in the stands ....
Lists of questions are prepared beforehand by the respective district-
level department chairs. Before the interviews, panel members choose
from the list the five or six questions that their panel will ask. The
same questions in the same order must be asked of each candidate ....
During the interview, the panel members rate each answer as positive,
negative or neutral ....
Panel members are not permitted to respond to the candidate's
answers, and no follow-up questions are permitted .... The strict
procedure for interviewing was developed in response to concerns voiced
by the affirmative action office . . . that there be no preferential treatment
of candidates for teaching jobs.
After all candidates have been interviewed, the respective teams
rate their candidates as highly recommended, recommended, or not
recommended. Generally, they do so by consensus. The ratings are
sent to the assistant superintendent for personnel who then checks
references of recommended candidates .... The superintendent or
assistant superintendent may interview top candidates after they have
been recommended by the panels. At this stage the superintendent will
make the final selection.
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Clearly, the screening processes in the two districts studied by Shivers
(1989) are extremely different. The experience of applying for a teaching
position differs greatly in the two districts. What cannot be known from
Shivers' work is whether the screening practices influence who ultimately is
hired. This could occur because the department chairs in the first district
look for skills that are different from those sought by the superintendent
in the second district. It could also occur because the screening processes
influence the size and quality of the applicant pool or the rate at which po-
tentially effective teachers accept job offers. Informal networks of college
placement officers, college faculties, or students may have a great deal of
information about how districts screen applicants and the effects on appli-
cants. Unfortunately, there has been virtually no systematic research about
potential applicants' responses to differences in recruiting and screening
practices.
The case studies commissioned by the panel revealed considerable
variation in screening practices among districts both in the degree of
centralization and in the relative roles played by paper credentials, test
scores on standardized written tests (which some districts administer as
part of the screening process), and interviews. While the case studies do
not provide a basis for describing the distribution of screening practices
among the nation's 15,000 school districts, they do verify that practices vary
enormously. They also raise the question of the extent to which variation
in these practices influences the ability of school districts to hire teachers
who are effective in teaching math and science to students.
Making Offers
The case studies revealed enormous variation in the types of offers
made to candidates whom school districts would like to employ. Dimensions
of the variation include timing, specificity concerning the nature of the
position, and salary.
Timing
Personnel officers in some school districts, especially well-financed,
growing districts, are authorized to offer binding contracts to strong can-
didates before the exact number and composition of vacancies are known.
Several personnel directors suggested that this practice facilitates their re-
cruitment efforts by allowing them to recruit aggressively in colleges and
universities during the spring months and to sign up promising candidates
before other districts had ascertained the number and nature of their vacan-
cies. Other personnel directors told about the other side of the coin, losing
promising candidates because their districts prohibited offering contracts
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PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AND AL4THEMATICS TEACHERS
until firm information on vacancies was available, which often took until
late summer.
Specificity
In the first of the two districts that were studied by Shivers (1989),
being offered a contract meant that the candidate knew a great deal about
the position: the school building, the subjects to be taught, the grade levels,
and the name of the department chair. In the second district, a teaching
contract meant only a commitment to salary. Not only did the newly hired
teacher not know the building or the classes to be taught, but also the
new teacher did not know the date on which this information would be
available.
The case studies commissioned by the panel indicated that the exam-
ples described by Shivers are not particularly unusual. Epically, in smaller
districts, candidates are told more about the details of their teaching po-
sition than in larger districts. However, in some large districts Stan at the
school site play a significant role in the screening process and, in these
districts, candidates are often hired to teach in a particular school.
Salary
In the 24 districts included in the panel's supplementary case studies,
the starting salary for a candidate with a B.N and no teaching experience
ranged from $14,420 to $26, 061. The starting salary for a teacher with an
M.N and the maximum amount of experience that the district rewarded
ranged from $25,956 to $47,941. Some of the differences in salary scales
were responses to differences across communities in the cost of living.
However, the comments of the large district personnel officers indicated
that the salaries they could offer played a significant role in the ability of
school districts to attract a strong applicant pool and to capture the most
capable candidates from the pool.
Another important aspect of hiring practices revealed by the case
studies is that the formal salary schedule in many districts does not totally
determine the salary offered to a newly hired teacher. For example, Dade
County offers a $1,000 signing bonus (paid in the first check of the second
contract year) to new hires in shortage areas. The first of the two districts
Shivers studied sometimes convinces especially strong candidates in short-
age fields to sign contracts by giving credit in terms of steps on the salary
schedule for practice teaching and for experience outside teaching. Current
contracts in Boston and Rochester include specific language allowing the
district to do the same thing.
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Not all variation from the salary schedule involves pay increases.
The second of the two districts Shivers studied frequently hires teachers as
permanent substitutes instead of as regular contract teachers. This provides
an annual savings of $9,000 to the fiscally troubled district. In this district,
attempts are made to attract strong candidates in science and mathematics
by offering them regular teaching contracts instead of positions as full-time
substitutes. Unfortunately, no information is available on the impact of
this practice on the district's ability to attract strong candidates.
Who is Hired
The case studies revealed enormous variation in the practices school
districts use to recruit. screen, and hire teachers. It is not possible from
these studies to determine the extent to which the variation in practices
influences the ability of districts to attract strong candidates. In fact,
the case studies revealed that there is not even a common definition
of a strong candidate. The remarks of personnel directors suggest that
districts' constraints and practices do matter. For example, the notes contain
many comments about losing candidates either because salaries were not
competitive or because the district could not make a firm contractual offer,
while another district could. Some districts can hire early, and those that
can have a better choice of candidates. Maintaining close ties with a local
teaching credential program also helps bring strong candidates.
Moreover, there is the distinct possibility that school district practices
matter less in the late 1980s than they will in the l990s. The reason concerns
the potential change in the overall balance between teacher supply and
demand. With the exception of a few fiscally constrained urban districts,
most districts included in the case studies reported an adequate number
of qualified candidates for each vacancy in mathematics and science. Most
districts also reported that many applicants were experienced teachers, and
that they filled a large proportion of vacancies with experienced teachers.
This reliance on older or experienced applicants raises the question
of whether the responses of personnel directors in 1987 and 1988 provide
reliable predictions of the adequacy of the supply of qualified math and
science teachers in the years ahead. In the late 198Os, the demand for new
secondary school teachers is relatively low because high school enrollments
are not growing. At the same time, the reserve pool of individuals certified
to teach but not currently teaching appears to be quite large, in part because
it contains many individuals from the large cohorts born at the tail end
of the post-World-War-II baby boom. The l990s will be characterized by
growing demand for science and mathematics teachers, both because of
modestly growing secondary school enrollments and of increasing numbers
of resignations from an aging teaching force. At the same time, the size
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PRECOLLEGE SCIENCE AD ~THE~TICS T~CHE~
of the reserve pool may decline, both because the number of individuals
in the 30-40 age group will be smaller and because the anticipated general
labor shortage will bring about more competition for all skilled workers.
In an environment characterized by a shortage of qualified applicants for
teaching positions, school district practices in recruiting, screening, and
hiring teachers may have a considerable impact on the distribution of
qualified teachers across school districts.
Conclusions
The evidence on school district hiring practices has two implications
for understanding teacher supply and demand. First, as the demand for
new hires increases in the 1990s due to increases in both student enrollment
and teacher recruitment rates, recruiting, screening, and hiring practices are
likely to have a much greater impact on a school district's ability to attract
skilled science and mathematics teachers than is the case in the late 1980s.
Districts that are able to offer attractive salaries and working conditions,
to recruit aggressively, and to make offers in a timely fashion will be much
more successful in attracting skilled teachers than districts that cannot. As a
result, the variation in practices that currently exists may result in significant
disparity in the quality of new hires attracted to different school districts.
A particularly disturbing aspect of this prediction is that districts serving
large numbers of disadvantaged children tend to have hiring practices that
do not contribute to attracting skilled teachers. District practices through
which seniority rules may restrict new hires to the least desirable school
in the district or which introduce a long waiting period before vacancies
can be opened to outside applicants are disincentives, as is uncertainty of
initial school assignment. Consequently, increased competition for skilled
teachers is likely to result in an additional factor contributing to the set of
reasons that such children tend not to receive high-quality education.
A second implication of the qualitative evidence described in this
section is that increasing teachers' salaries, although perhaps a necessary
condition for attracting more skilled teachers to individual school districts, is
not a sufficient condition. For example, it is unlikely that significant salary
increases in the second district Shivers studied would lead to improved
school faculties unless screening practices are reformed.
One might argue that these two implications drawn from the case
studies are not particularly relevant to assessments of the adequacy of
teacher supply and demand models. This would be correct if the goal of
the models is seen in terms of assessing the overall balance between the
demand for teachers and the supply of teachers. However, to the extent
that the models are used to measure how well all school districts are able
to provide qualified mathematics and science teachers to all children, then
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differences in the practices school districts use to recruit, screen, and hire
teachers are extremely important.
SUMMARY
We have taken a close look at the effects of incentives to pursue a
teaching career in science or mathematics on the supply of teachers. The
factors influencing the individual's choices are beyond what the normal
projection model can capture. Although better behavioral models are
needed to measure the sensitivity of teacher supply to incentives, a number
of research issues will have to be investigated before the models can be
developed.
In addition, although the teacher supply and demand models con-
sidered in the panel's interim report do not use school districts as units
of analysis, many decisions are made at the district level that affect sup-
ply and demand. As our case studies and interviews with school district
personnel directors have shown, school districts vary greatly in the initia-
tive they exert to fill their demand for teachers of subjects experiencing
shortages. Individual maneuverability in recruiting and special or external
circumstances affecting a district are key factors that influence a district's
science and mathematics supply and demand situation and these factors
may outweigh those factors that can be quantified for modeling. These
realities are central to the workings of supply and demand for science and
mathematics teachers and should be monitored to the extent possible, as
described in the following chapter and in Chapter 6. Chapter 6 concludes
by recommending a series of conferences with a sample of school districts
held on a regular basis, to discuss these factors and explore ways of rec-
ognizing them in statistical and descriptive reports on teacher supply and
demand.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
teacher supply
