Survey says teaching gaining new popularity

BOSTON — A new survey indicates a jump in interest in teaching, which fell on hard times in the early 1980s after word got around that the only thing tougher than finding a teaching job was living on the salary.

Enrollment in the nation’s teaching programs rose by 61 percent between 1985 and 1989 and the figure would have been higher had all those who applied been accepted, according to an unpublished study by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

“As someone who makes his living teaching people to be teachers, I’m ecstatic,” said Gary Galluzzo, an associate professor at Western Kentucky University and co-chairman of the study.

And there’s more good news. While the perennially popular social studies have held steady, the interest in teacher-poor subjects such as math and science appear to be keeping apace.

But the progress is not all positive. Researchers said total enrollments may have skyrocketed, but elementary and secondary school teachers are still mostly white and female.

Minority participation in schools of education exceeds 15 percent in only six states while 33 states had minority enrollments of 20 percent or more, according to the survey, which was presented in Chicago last month at the association’s annual meeting.

“The enrollment thing is fine and all well, but the fact that they don’t have any minorities is really a huge headache,” said Mary Dilworth, director of research and information for the Washington, D.C.-based association.

Explanations for the overall surge vary but the numbers come as no surprise to admissions officers, who said they have seen a gradual but constant increase in enrollment each of the last five years.

The average number of education-degree candidates enrolled at 90 U.S. colleges and universities surveyed randomly went from 520 to 835 between 1985-88, the study said.

Administrators at teaching programs around the nation attributed improved enrollment largely to the exposure through the mid-1980s of serious problems in the U.S. education system.

Many parents tuned in to the trouble when a National Geographic-sponsored Gallup poll in July 1988 indicated Americans ranked among the bottom third in an international test of geographic knowledge, and those ages 18-24 came in last.