LOS ANGELES (AP) — Years of pink slips have taken a toll on California's teachers to be sure, but the dim job market has also had an impact on people wanting to become teachers at a time when the state's population of children reaching school age is rising.
While the numbers do not yet signal an outright teacher shortage, officials say they point to a worrisome trend of a graying workforce and fewer entrants into what has traditionally a middle-class mainstay occupation.
Juliet Tiffany-Morales, research analyst for SRI International who has studied education trends, says so far the profession is holding its own because school districts have increased class sizes to cope with teacher layoffs, and the number of retiring teachers has more or less equaled the number of new teachers.
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