And One More Thing…Demand for Teachers in Illinois
And one more thing…
In my last show I was talking about job opportunities in the state of Illinois for those who wanted to be an educator at any level. As I mentioned, the state is making it more and more difficult for those who want to teach in the state due to high requirements to earn a state education licensure. Issues such as the high requirements for practicum hours, not having a degree in four years, and extra assessments that a person needs to take discourages students from becoming future educators. This doesn’t even include problems in the field such as the pension program being on the precipice of implosion. These issues are causing a demand for teachers statewide as no one wants to go into the field. The school districts are actively looking for qualified educators to work at their schools. The State Board of Education estimates there are more than 2,000 (2,037 at the time of posting) teaching positions open in the state for qualified candidates. A simple search on the IASA job bank website will reveal this.
Now is the perfect time to get into teaching. Now is time to bite the bullet, get though the countless requirements, and excel. If you have a drive for educating students the answer isn’t teaching at the college level, rather it is to teach at the secondary (High School) level as they have the most demand especially in science, special education, language arts, math, and foreign language. Don’t worry too much if you want to teach something other than those subject areas, there still are openings for you. Incoming teachers fresh out of college can have a rewarding career teaching, without much trouble finding a job. Most of the time, there are job openings inside your own county. Is teaching a easy job? No. At the end of the day though it could be the most rewarding job you may have.
Just remember to save some money from your paycheck for your own retirement. There are no promises that teachers entering today will have a pension when they retire…but that is a discussion for another day. Until then be kind to one another and I’ll see you on the airwaves.
Brody Anderson is a student at Monmouth College. He studies History and Education. He is best known for hosting Wall to Wall Politics on WPFS 105.9 out of Monmouth. You can listen to him every Sunday from Noon till 1pm world wide from the WPFS website below.
http://bit.ly/2nxfeiB
