Teacher Shortages in Urban Schools

Abstract

Quality teachers have an impact on improving student learning and performance, but teacher shortages remain a significant problem for urban schools. This article examines the impact of traditional approaches in teacher recruitment through university-based certification programs as well as alternative certification routes. Each approach may have particular merit, but each also faces particular obstacles, such as overcoming preconceptions held by preservice teachers or demonstrating consistent quality in its trainees. These approaches are primarily concerned with aspects of recruitment and largely ignore the way systematically poor retention measures also contribute to staffing needs. The article argues that traditional and alternative certification efforts are by themselves limited in their potential to address the problem of teacher shortages in urban schools and that an organizational view of schools that looks beyond individual teachers as the lone indicators of instructional performance and educational equity might be a better guide to future research and policy formation endeavors.

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