Oklahoma will be a great ABCTE state

spent the day in Oklahoma City visiting with their teacher licensing and recruitment team and it was a great meeting. Oklahoma is getting hit hard for a couple of reasons. First they have many teacher retirements coming up with, according to NCTAF, 46% of their teachers over the age of 50. Second, by 2011 they will have Pre-K in public schools – meaning they need a lot more teachers to cover more grades. So an alternative route has the full support of the state department of education. This is phenomenal for us and we could see Missouri like numbers (over 1,200 enrolled in the first year).

Especially if the press is kind to us in getting the word out…..
http://newsok.com//article/3369091

http://www.okcfox.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.ok/26b850fe-www...

http://www.kfsm.com/news/sns-ap-ok--teachercertification,0,6634389.story

ABCTE Science Teacher in the News

It has to be about the students. When ABCTE was formed, it was because so many students were going without a great teacher because the certification rules were so complex that too many people were ignoring the teaching profession.

When we read about our teachers making a difference, it shows that the founding members of ABCTE were right. Blake Hedden is teaching science in Oconee County in South Carolina. This is an areas where it is difficult to recruit math and science teachers and now Blake is helping fill that need. They have combined their 'grow your own' teacher program with ABCTE to make sure that their students have great teachers.

Please take a moment and read the article – if we had a couple thousand more Blakes in the world, our teacher shortage would be over.