{"id":805,"date":"2008-11-25T21:41:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-26T01:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=805"},"modified":"2008-12-29T21:40:56","modified_gmt":"2008-12-30T02:40:56","slug":"critical-teacher-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=805","title":{"rendered":"Critical teacher shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the next state board of education meeting, the need to address critical teacher shortages in certain teaching fields for the 2009-2010 school year will be discussed. This action item<\/a> shows that “middle and high school level science” is one of those areas in trouble. That’s nothing new, though, since science has been identified in years past, too. Once all of these critical shortage areas are officially recognized, then some programs meant to help alleviate those shortages can kick in: Critical Teacher Shortage Tuition Reimbursement Program and the Critical Teacher Shortage Student Loan Forgiveness Program. Here’s a short descriptio<\/a>n of both programs. It is nice to get financial aid, of course. But it’s definitely not like winning the lottery. Here’s a summary of the programs from years past<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Critical Teacher Shortage Tuition Reimbursement Program provides financial support to qualified teachers by assisting them with the repayment of undergraduate and graduate education courses that will lead to certification in a critical teacher shortage subject area. Eligible applicants may receive payments for up to $78 per credit hour, for a maximum 9 hours per award year or $702. The maximum amount eligible applicants may receive is up to $2,808 for up to 36 credit hours. Awards are prorated based upon the number of submissions and the amount provided by the Legislature. The average amount awarded in 2006-07 was $117, which is an award of $16 per credit hour.<\/p>\n

The Critical Teacher Shortage Student Loan Forgiveness Program provides financial assistance to eligible Florida teachers by assisting them in the repayment of undergraduate and graduate educational loans that led to certification in a critical teacher shortage subject area. Eligible applicants may receive an annual award of up to $2,500 to repay undergraduate loans and $5,000 for two years to repay graduate loans for support of postsecondary education study. Participants may receive up to a maximum of $10,000 for the duration of the program. As with the Tuition Reimbursement Program, awards are prorated each year. The maximum prorated award amounts were $1,012 for graduate loans and $506 for undergraduate loans in the 2006-07 award year.<\/p>\n

Most of the science teachers receiving awards seek certification in middle grades science or biology, while fewer are in areas of the physical sciences–earth science, chemistry, or physics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Awards are prorated based upon the number of submissions and the amount provided by the Legislature.” In these tough financial times I don’t see that provided amount being very much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the next state board of education meeting, the need to address critical teacher shortages in certain teaching fields for the 2009-2010 school year will be discussed. This action item shows that “middle and high school level science” is one … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-cZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3541,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3541","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":0},"title":"Why isn\u2019t Florida government making science education a priority?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"An op-ed I wrote was published in today's Orlando Sentinel. Press releases issued by the Florida Department of Education are always overflowing with good news. Everything is great. Student performance is always trending upward. Our state government is doing everything right when it comes to education. But the it\u2019s-always-sunny-in-Florida mantra\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3515,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3515","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":1},"title":"Science teachers are a critical need in Florida … again","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 18, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Florida Department of Education issues an annual report entitled Identification of Critical Teacher Shortage Areas. (Here is the most recent report.) For at least a decade, science has been on the list of certification areas that \"represent the greatest need among teachers statewide.\" The factors used to determine which\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3486,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3486","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":2},"title":"A decade later and science education is still not important to Florida’s leaders","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday was the big day! The results for the annual statewide education assessments were released. A press release from Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran's office celebrated score increases in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Biology. He praised \"awe-inspiring\" teachers and he highlighted a new law that pushed all\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3506,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3506","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":3},"title":"Florida Evolution vs. Creationism Timeline","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The need to defend science education in Florida is truly never ending. I chronicled the many skirmishes, battles and wars fought over the teaching of evolution in my book Going Ape: Florida's Battles over Evolution in the Classroom. The Florida anti-evolution efforts I wrote about started in the 1920s and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1636,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1636","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":4},"title":"Florida, we have a problem","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"July 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to be a teacher. Not now and most likely not anytime soon. I have my college degree in biology education. I have my teacher certification in biology and middle school math, too. All I need to do is apply for jobs. But I simply can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cross that\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1636#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":333,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=333","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":5},"title":"Science teachers need more than pay; they need guts!","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This news article in the St. Petersburg Times provides a decent analysis of one possible reason Florida's students do so poorly in science: shortage of qualified teachers. I like the nod the reporter made to the draft of the new science standards. He slipped in a mention of evolution's inclusion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the Classroom"","block_context":{"text":"In the Classroom","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}