What keeps the CMS superintendent up at night? Finding new teachers

Few things worry Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Ann Clark more than whether the district will have the ability to fill classrooms with teachers in years to come.

As low pay and morale continue to discourage prospective teachers in North Carolina, the main pipeline into the teaching profession appears to be drying up, Clark said Wednesday at a forum hosted by the nonprofit MeckEd.

That’s what keeps her up at night more than anything else, she said. And since teachers often move on to become principals and administrators, those positions are “in peril” as well, she said.

“If we don’t turn that around, we are shooting ourselves in the foot in this profession,” Clark said. “We have got to quickly think about how we attract the best and brightest to this state.”

Clark said that two years ago, she would have given a different answer to the question of what keeps her up at night. She said she would have cited the growing number of impoverished students and persistently wide achievement gaps between white and minority students.

North Carolina lawmakers made a positive step in increasing pay for beginning teachers last summer, but Clark said there is more to be done.

The state legislature also ended the N.C. Teaching Fellows program in 2011. The popular training system had offered 500 high school seniors substantial scholarships to in-state colleges in exchange for four years of teaching after graduation.

Clark said the state needs to offer scholarships and opportunities that will attract talented people to the profession. She said that four years ago, North Carolina’s public universities produced only a single physics teacher.

“We have to put our egos aside. We have to look at the data. We have to be realistic about what isn’t happening,” Clark said.

This story was originally published February 11, 2015 at 11:13 AM with the headline "What keeps the CMS superintendent up at night? Finding new teachers."