Drawing on findings from its newly released report, California’s Teacher Education Deserts: An Overlooked & Growing Equity Challenge, the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools held a webinar on April 23 to discuss the obstacles that some regions face in attracting and retaining highly qualified educators.
As staffing shortages continue to impact local educational agencies across the U.S., teacher education deserts, defined as a county that does not have a preparation program within 60 miles of its county office of education, are most common in California’s rural border counties (those that border other states and/or Mexico).
Nine of California’s 58 counties — Alpine, Del Norte, Imperial, Inyo, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Sierra and Siskiyou — are considered teacher education deserts.
Issues including declining interest in the profession, confusing and/or overcomplicated credentialing processes, passing credentialing assessments, program affordability, concerns around compensation, burnout and mounting political attacks affect many areas, but rural programs specifically.
“Research suggests that teachers are more likely to complete their student teaching and also secure employment close to where they receive their teacher training,” said Kai Mathews, the director of the Center’s California Educator Diversity Project. With that in mind, researchers set out to discover ways in which the geographic location of training programs impacts teacher supply and regional shortages.