To fill teacher jobs, community colleges offer new degrees

By JANELLE RETKA of The Seattle Times

Amid national teacher shortages, community colleges are stepping in, launching teacher-training programs traditionally found in four-year colleges. In Washington state, nine community colleges offer education degrees for teaching grade school and up. Six other states — Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada and New Mexico — have community colleges offering K-12 education degrees. The expansion comes at a good time: Teacher shortages have worsened in the past decade, and fewer undergraduates are going into teacher training programs. A report in March showed the number of people completing a teacher-education program declined by almost a third between the 2008-09 and 2018-19 academic years.