More Students & Less Teachers

NCES statistics have been updated and the big story that everyone is covering is the dramatic increase in students - over 1 million new students reporting to schools. And on the teaching front there is barely a sound. Based on an average class size of 20, we would need 50,000 new teachers to handle this new work load and that is only to cover the new students - it doesn't even address the issue of teacher retirements and teachers changing careers.
So how many new teachers came out with brand new bachelor degrees in education? NCES reports that we had 827 fewer new teachers in 2006 than we did in 2005. The number continues to drop. At a time when we need a significant increase in teachers, our main supply continues to decrease. The shortage continues to move toward crisis level in the most critical element in education and the band aids of long term subs, teaching out of certification area and recruiting from overseas continue to keep things on track.
And the only people that suffer are the students.