Tom Quinn ’94, a math teacher and coach at Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, N.J., says that approximately 30 percent of his district is of Asian-American descent. "There are a lot of young students coming in and English is a second language to them. They have to learn on the fly basically. It’s just a part of our schools now."

As for an overall population increase, Quinn says that the elementary schools are seeing more and more students each year. The secondary schools, he adds, are going to be affected by it within the next few years.

Along with this boom in school-aged children comes the need for more teachers, a problem that has been growing steadily. Estimates are that schools will need to hire about two million public school teachers in the next decade. And, a recent federal study showed that the school environment continues to push teachers out of the profession. More than 20 percent of newly hired teachers leave the profession after four years, creating an almost constant demand for new hires.

"Salaries are a big part of the teacher shortage," says Estler. "But I think maybe we just haven’t done enough to recruit students to be teachers while they are still in high school," she says.

Rob Gourley ’95, a middle school computer teacher in the Muhlenberg School District, says that although teaching salaries have improved, people realize that they can be making a lot more in a corporate environment.

Sarel Fuchs, Ph.D., chair of the Education Department at Albright, says that "presently there are a lot of teachers about ready to retire. At the same time, it is becoming harder to become certified to teach. We will find a shortage of teachers soon."

But McCrae adds that many young people are simply frightened by the violence that has occurred in so many schools. "People don’t become teachers to put their lives on the line," she says.