Grads, career-changers surge into teaching

Mary Hansen considered going into teaching when she was in college. Now, two decades later–with retirement savings shrunk
and kids’ college on the horizon–the Carmel resident is doing it.

Michelle Skinner wanted to go
to graduate school after earning her degree at Butler University. But she put that off to do something "worthwhile"–teach
high school English in the poverty-ridden Mississippi Delta.

Hansen, 43, and Skinner, 22, are emblematic of a surge
of Hoosier residents and students moving into elementary and high school teaching this year.

It’s partly an outgrowth
of the recession and stock market crash, which have left one in 10 Hoosiers out of work, decimated retirement portfolios,
and thrown college grads into the worst job market in a generation.

"Education seems to be recession-proof,"
Hansen said after a day of classes in an accelerated master’s program she’s taking to become credentialed to teach high school
science. "It’s not a job where you make a lot of money, but your job security is pretty steady."

But
the popularity of teaching also stems from a rise in service-oriented altruism, particularly among young people. That trend
showed up in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, which rode an army of volunteers both young and old to secure the
first Democratic presidential win in Indiana in 44 years. It also inspired some to pursue more service work.

"My
experience on the campaign directly influenced my decision to hold off on graduate school and try to give back," said
Skinner, a Texas native who has joined Teach for America–a national program that places recent college graduates in two-year
jobs at urban and rural schools.

Education has been one of the few sectors with decent employment prospects during this recession. The education and health
services sector added 16,000 jobs in Indiana during the 12 months that ended in April.

However, the biggest area for job growth has been at career and technical colleges such as Ivy
Tech Community College, which are retraining a flood of workers rendered jobless by the recession.

Still, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts
job prospects in primary- and secondary-school teaching will be "good to excellent" over the
next seven years as the field adds more jobs than nearly all other sectors.

Budgets under pressure

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any painful cuts. Indianapolis Public Schools let go of 400
teachers at the end of its school year. Even fast-growing suburban systems, such as Noblesville Schools,
had to trim teacher positions.

Also, the economy forced some teachers to put off their planned retirements. That curveball forced IPS to lay off 22 corps
members of Teach for America.

But those teachers were quickly placed at charter schools in Indianapolis to complete their second year with Teach for America.
The program came to Indianapolis last year and now has attracted 100 teachers to the city.

Education leaders hope the new entrants help plug a looming shortage of schoolteachers and administrators
that will come when baby boomers retire en masse. They also hope the new talent–if it stays in teaching–helps
improve the quality of Indiana’s schools.

"It is an issue of huge significance to us because, particularly in Marion County, the quality
of K-12 education is not where we need it to be," said Anne Shane, vice president of BioCrossroads
Inc., a life sciences business development group that has urged improvements in Indiana’s science and
math education to help its economy.

Applications surge

The
rise in people going into teaching can be seen on several fronts. Applications for Indiana teaching licenses rose 48 percent
last year, to more than 22,000, and are up another 15 percent so far this year, according to data from the Indiana Department
of Education.

People who
have not gone through a multiyear teacher-training program at a college can apply for an alternative teaching certificate.
Those applications were up 50 percent last year, to 128.

National applications to New York-based Teach for America rose 40 percent this year over 2008.
In Indiana, applications climbed 20 percent.

At DePauw University in Greencastle, 70 graduating seniors applied to Teach for America. That’s
more than one in 10 graduates–one of the highest percentages of any school in the nation.

Teach for America applicants at Butler University
in Indianapolis totaled 36, triple their 2008 level. Gary Beaulieu, Butler’s director of internships
and career services, said applications to similar teaching programs surged across the board.

"These kids want to give back; they really want to give back," he said.

Beaulieu said liberal arts majors at Butler
used to find jobs or spots in graduate school in their fields–political science majors might work in
state government, for example. But many of those positions dried up since the recession began in December
2007.

But special teaching
programs–including a new one in Indiana called the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship–have been ramping
up even as more traditional job openings have disappeared.

Hansen was one of 59 Hoosiers granted a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She has committed to teach
science for three years in either an urban or rural school system.

Hansen is a chemist by training and spent five years after college selling chemicals for the Tennessee-based
Eastman Chemical Co. Once she started having kids, she stayed home full time to raise them.

Her eldest child is now 14, and the Hansens
are looking ahead to college costs. Since Chuck Hansen makes his money doing consulting projects, his
income can go up and down. Mary Hansen would like something steady to balance that risk.

Teaching fits the bill. It also provides steady health insurance, which would give a huge financial
boost to the Hansens. They have shelled out increasingly large sums to buy individual health insurance
coverage.

But the allure
of teaching for Hansen is less about finances and more about feelings.

"Everybody has school memories," she said. "You remember the experiences and you
remember the positive effect [teachers] had on you."

The same sentiment comes from recent DePauw grad Ian Yearwood, 22. He’ll get his first chance
to lead a classroom this fall at the Challenge Foundation Academy, a charter school in Indianapolis.

"I just get a lot of joy helping people
out, and helping them open new doors that they never knew were there," said Yearwood, who is in
the 1 percent of Teach for America participants who majored in education.

For Will Carter, who is in the Woodrow Wilson program with Hansen, going into teaching dovetails
with his 10-year career as a Quaker pastor.

Carter, 38, who holds a math degree, gave up his job at the Amazon distribution center in Whitestown
to accept the fellowship. The program, run by the New Jersey-based Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship
Foundation, pays a stipend and covers the cost of the fellows’ graduate school.

Carter caught the teaching bug before joining
Amazon. He started tutoring and doing fill-in teaching recently while working as a pastor in North Carolina.

"I saw that math education really is one
of the great downfalls that needs to be addressed," said Carter, who also has experience working
for a financial services firm.

Whether all these new teachers stay in education is another matter. Teach for America, in particular, has been criticized
for the relatively low numbers of its alumni who actually stick with teaching.

But for now, with relatively few options around them, rookie teachers all say they want to teach
for the long term.

Even
Skinner, who still considers a career in academia an option, said of high school teaching, "I’m sort of open to the idea
that I’m going to fall in love with this and do this forever at the secondary level."