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Show Report Says Utah Mot Losing Teachers to Other States Contrary to a commonly held but mistaken impression, Utah is not losing a large proportion of its teachers to other states. This point was brought out in an analysis prepared by Utah Foundation, the private governmental govern-mental research organization of the annual teacher personnel report re-port of the Utah State Department Depart-ment of Public Instruction. The Foundation study shovs that 732 persons, or approxi-. approxi-. mately 70 per cent of the graduf ates from Utah teacher training institutions who taught anywhere any-where last year, accepted teaching teach-ing positions in Utah. This percentage per-centage is identical with the proportion pro-portion of teacher training graduates who were residents of Utah. From this, the Foundation concludes "it woudl appear that the teacher graduates from the Utah institutions 'lost' to other states were mainly residents of those states to begin with." Approximately a third of the teacher graduates for one reason or another do not enter the teaching profession immediately after graduation. According to the study, many of these are girls who marry and assume homemaking duties, while others are students who wish to continue con-tinue their formal studies. About 6 per cent are individuals who obtain nonteaching positions. Foundation analysts point out that Utah recruits a substantial number of teachers from other states each year. Last year, for example, a total of 266 persons who taught the previous year in some other state accepted teaching teach-ing positions in Utah. Surprisingly Surpris-ingly enough, 25 per cent of the out of state teachers came from California a state ranking near the top in teaching salary levels. Utah probably could obtain even more teachers from other states, the study says, were it not for a school health education requirement which prevents some teachers from securing certification and employment in Utah. This provision was amended amend-ed in 1955 by the Utah Legislature Legisla-ture so that the State Board of Education now may prescribe the health education requirement needed for certification. The Foundation, therefore points out that "if the health education requirement re-quirement is posing a major ob- stacle in the recruitment of out-of out-of state teachers it coudl be modified mod-ified by the State Board of Education. Ed-ucation. The Foundation report observes ob-serves that data giving the reasons rea-sons why teachers left their positions po-sitions were not published by the State School Office this year. Information for the previous year, however, indicates that family and personal reasons are the major factors in determining where a teacher will teach, and particularly in the determination of teacher movements from state to state. Another important source of teachers for Utah schools, according ac-cording to the Foundation report, re-port, is former teachers and for- fewer than 2 per cent of all Utah teachers did not have a bachelors degree. By contrast, nearly 10 percent of Utah teachers in 1952 were teaching without a college degree. Another indication of this improvement, im-provement, pointed out in the study, is the rapid decline of teachers teaching with substandard substand-ard qualifications. "Emergency" teachers teaching with temporary tempor-ary letters of authorization totaled to-taled 447, or 4.5 per cent of the state's teaching force in 1961-62. Following World War II, in 1945 there were 1,713 "authorized" (noncertificated) teachers in the state, which number was equal I to 34.6 per cent of all Utah teachers. mer graduates of teacner training train-ing institutions who return to teaching. In the 1961-62 school year 422 teachers who had taught or had graduated at some earlier time accepted teaching posts in Utah. Altogether, Utah recruited 1,420 new teachers for its public schools last year. No new teacher employed last year had less than three years of college with 96 per cent having four or more years. Still another myth dispelled by the Foundation research report re-port pertains to the quality of Utah teachers. According to the report, "the level of academic training among Utah teachers : has been improving steadily during dur-ing recent years." In 1961-62 |