Date of Award:

5-1949

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

School of Teacher Education and Leadership

Department name when degree awarded

Education Administration

Committee Chair(s)

John C. Carlisle

Committee

John C. Carlisle

Committee

Ethelyn O. Greaves

Committee

Carlton Culmsee

Committee

E. A. Jacobsen

Committee

L. G. Noble

Committee

R. W. Roskelley

Committee

Dee A. Broadbent

Abstract

During the years of World War II the faculties of the public schools in Utah, as well as in the rest of the nation, were depleted to a serious extent, and enrollment in teacher training institutions throughout the country decreased. Because of this condition the State Department of Education in Utah as well as in other states was forced to issue letters of authorization to teachers who could not meet standard certification requirements in order to staff the schools. Many of these teachers are still teaching today.

A study of the history of education in the United States and in the state of Utah shows repeated periods of "shortage" and "surplus" in the supply of teachers available for work in the public schools. During prosperous years such as were experienced during and since World War II there seems to have been a shortage in properly trained teachers. Teachers who joined the armed services combined with those who left their positions to take jobs where the salaries were better account for this initial shortage. At the present time when economic conditions appear to be "leveling of", the supply of teachers seems more nearly to meet the demand or in some cases to exceed it. In times of depression the supply has appeared consistently to exceed the demand.

Ralph McDonald, Executive Secretary of the National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, stated that "one of the most vexing problems of American education is that relating the supply of teacher to the demand. The schools of the nation have experienced alternate periods of great over-supply and crucial shortage of certified teachers. At practically no time in recent history has there existed even momentarily a balanced relationship between the number of positions and the number of available teachers." He further stated that "both the imbalance itself and the apathy with respect to it have arisen largely because of the absence of authentic data regarding either supply or demand." It is, therefore, pertinent that this problem should be continuously studied in every state in the Union.

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