The following commentary appeared in the July 8 edition of . Sharon Iorio, dean of 麻豆传媒's College of Education, shares her expertise in the commentary.
Our nation is facing a shortage of teachers trained to prepare students for 21st-century careers and to help high-needs students. Interestingly, these challenges are really not so different from those faced throughout our nation's history.
In colonial New England, struggling villages had difficulty keeping their schools open, and when settlement moved west, it was often not easy to find teachers for the one-room schoolhouses that dotted the prairie.
Nevertheless, as early as 1647, Massachusetts law mandated that every town of 50 or more families support an elementary school, and by 1918 compulsory education for elementary school became law in all states. Today children in America enjoy 12 years of free public education. However, overall population increases have contributed to severe teacher shortages in urban and rural schools.