AZ: Teacher shortage threatens to stall students' education

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A classroom of first-graders at Hamilton Elementary School in Phoenix lost its teacher shortly after she was hired. So the principal called in a substitute.

Then she called another. And still another.

"I'd guess that we've had 10-12 substitutes in there," Principal Mishay Tribble said. "One would come and stay two days. The next one would come and stay three days." One was sent home after he came onto campus reeking of booze, she said.

Arizona's teacher shortage is threatening the education of hundreds of children. In many schools, children spend a semester or an entire school year trying to learn from a string of substitute teachers, each with different rules and different skills. Children fail to create a relationship with one teacher or a community with their classmates. Kids can lose interest in going to school, and their learning can stagnate or slide backward, educators warn.

No one tracks the number of hours or days students statewide spend with substitutes instead of regular teachers. Evidence of the problem is found in formal appeals some K-12 schools file each year to the Arizona Department of Education to improve their "failing" or "underperforming" labels. The state received 117 appeals for the 2006-07 school year, and each school explained why its students had poor test scores or low graduation rates. Nearly one in three of those schools told stories about students who spent at least part of their year with substitute teachers.

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