Education: Two Reports

The rural education division of the U. S. Bureau of Education last week mulled over a report issued by its colleague, the statistical division. It was an encouraging sort of report; said that since 1922 there had been an increase of 25.5% among women. 30.1% among men, enrolled in U. S. teacher-teaching institutions; said that there were 40,963 more teachers-in-the-making in 1923 than in 1921; that 11 new teachers’ colleges had opened, making 382 in all the U. S.; said that, taking the average training period of all these institutions as two years, only 126,874 recruits annually for six years would be necessary to fill or refill all the public-school teaching positions in the U. S., which now number 742,172; said that in the past two years or so there had been, in all, 418,533 recruits (i. e., students enrolled), or in other words, that teachers were being trained almost twice as fast as they were needed if teachers had to be replaced only every six years.

“That’s all very well,” thought the rural education division, “but the statistics do not reflect the quality of these teachers that are being turned out, nor the type of position that constitutes nearly a fourth of those 742,172 teaching positions in the U. S.” Nearly a fourth of all the positions are in one-teacher schools, and “it would be hazardous to guess” how many one-teacher school jobs are accurately described by the following hypothetical advertisement:

“Wanted: Teacher for rural school; woman preferred; salary $800 a year; high school graduation and professional training not necessary; low-grade certificate accepted; satisfactory board and room not guaranteed; applicant need not be more than 20 years of age and need not have taught more than one year in the same school.”

Furthermore, the rural education division showed that, notwithstanding the large number of “recruits” enrolled, the teacher-teaching institutions had actually graduated only 40,484 teachers in 1923-24. Half of these were needed to take care of the normal increase, due to population growth, in elementary school enrollments. That left only some 20,000 trained teachers to fill vacancies caused by teachers leaving the profession. At that rate, the crops of new teachers now coming up are sufficient only if each teacher remains actively on the job for 30 years instead of six. In fine, said the rural education division, it is an excellent thing that teachers’ colleges and normal schools are trying to stimulate their enrollments; an excellent thing that some states have introduced (even though only as temporary expedients) normal training courses in their high schools.