Atlanta — November 16, 2004

The University System of Georgia intends to double both the number and the diversity of the teachers it currently prepares by 2010, the Board of Regents heard today in a presentation by the leader of the University System’s P-16 initiatives.

Associate Vice Chancellor for P-16 Initiatives Jan Kettlewell updated members of the Regents’ Strategic Planning Committee on a plan to be presented to the board for formal approval in January 2005. The plan aims at increasing the total number of new teachers produced by University System institutions to 6,100 and the number of new minority teachers – important role models and mentors for minority students – to 2,800 by 2010.

An additional component of the plan is for the University System to work in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education and the Georgia Committee on Quality Teaching to increase support for beginning teachers, so as to cut by one-third the number of public-school teachers who leave the profession after only a year or two. With projected public-school enrollment increases and no change in the teacher attrition rate, Georgia will need approximately 14,500 new teachers by 2010. If through the partnership of the Georgia Committee on Quality Teaching, the teacher attrition rate is reduced by one-third, this need will drop to an estimated 11,600 teachers.

“We are focusing on quality, in addition to quantity,” Kettlewell stressed. “Georgia needs more teachers who are fully qualified to teach the field in which they are hired to teach. When we say we’re going to double the number and diversity of teachers, we also will place special emphasis on producing high-quality teachers.”

Data from the Professional Standards Commission shows that 46 percent of the 12,507 public-school teachers hired in Georgia for Fiscal Year 2003 were produced by out-of-state institutions. The University System produced 24 percent (3,025) of the number of new teachers needed, and not all of them were teaching in Georgia’s public schools the following year. Kettlewell said a key goal of the plan she will ask the Regents to approve in January is to make the University System of Georgia the state’s primary provider of teachers. The plan will hinge in part on increasing teacher-production targets for the USG’s 15 statewide teacher-education programs, expanding the roles and responsibilities of the System’s two-year colleges in teacher preparation, approving more USG institutions to prepare teachers, and expanding the number of pathways by which those interested in second careers can enter the teaching profession.

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