Teachers' Job Outlook Brightening in NYC

by Olivia Rubino-Finn

There’s never been a better time to become a teacher. The New York State Department of Education has released employment statistics about graduates from 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years who received initial certification, based on NYS teacher employment data in the Basic Educational Data System. The data are for the New York State public school system only and do not include non-public school data.

In the wake of mass retirements among teachers in New York City school districts—caused by the ratification of a new contract in 2014 by the United Federation of Teachers, which offered better incentives to teachers on the cusp of retirement—there stand to be significant vacancies in coming years.

For incoming and transfer students, the benefit of pursuing teaching training at Adelphi is especially strong. The University’s relationship with the city’s Department of Education (NYCDOE) is closer than ever, and recent graduates receive prime placements in every borough, often leading to permanent hires. Surveys of Adelphi alumni show that 80 percent of graduates are hired within six months of graduation; similarly, a report prepared by the Department of Education revealed that more than half of recent Adelphi graduates were immediately hired into the NYCDOE system in 2015.

A study published in September by the Learning Policy Institute, an education think tank, found a 35 percent drop in teacher-preparation program enrollment from 2009 to 2014.

Leib Sutcher, the study’s co-author, was quoted in The Washington Post as saying that the “analysis estimates that U.S. classrooms were short approximately 60,000 teachers last year. Unless we can shift these trends, annual teacher shortages could increase to over 100,000 teachers by 2018 and remain close to that level thereafter.”

Adelphi’s Ammon School provides students with quality training that gives them a leg up in this competitive arena. In addition to classroom practice and field placement in diverse settings, students receive hands-on instruction from expert faculty. “Our graduates have the requisite skills to fill the shortage need areas [in the public school system],” said Corinne Donovan, the Ammon School’s assistant dean of research evaluation.

Professional teacher education at Adelphi is a smart move for transfer students in particular. The Scholar Teacher Education Program (STEP), a five-year joint degree program for those preparing to teach at the childhood or adolescent grade levels—or in K-12 Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) programs—allows students to complete their bachelor’s and master’s degrees in record time. Donovan noted that transfers in STEP can even come out with two certifications, for example, one in childhood education and another in special education, which qualifies them to teach a wider range of classes. “To come out of school in five years with those dual certifications, it’s phenomenal,” she said.

Transfer students can also expect a learning environment that caters to their unique needs. “It’s a really welcoming place,” said Daryl Gordon, the Ammon School’s associate dean. “It’s intimate enough that it provides transfer students with a lot of support in all the parts of becoming a teacher, from small class sizes to comprehensive support in the certification process, which can be really confusing and intricate.”

Though times have been tough for teachers in recent years, he added, things are looking up. “We’re seeing a lot more openings come through.”