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This is an oped describing how layoffs of teachers in recent years have created a paradoxical situation in which there will soon be teacher shortages, penned by UC Riverside interim Dean of Education Douglas E Mitchell in yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News:

“The looming shortage is the result of massive teacher layoffs resulting from California’s budget crises and the 2008 recession,” writes Mitchell. “College students, recognizing the loss of teaching jobs, dramatically reduced enrollment in California’s university-based teacher training programs. Enrollments at teacher credential programs in California colleges and universities dropped by more than 40 percent since 2007, and more than 50 percent since 2001.”

“An informal University of California-Riverside poll of personnel administrators in Southern California indicates that the reserve pool of laid-off teachers will be essentially exhausted by the beginning of the 2013-14 academic year. As a result, school districts are beginning to look again for newly credentialed teachers. Enrollment cuts by California schools of education means they will be hard to find.”

You can read the full text of the oped here: California facing a severe teacher shortage.