According to a story in Education Week, colleges and universities are flooding the job market with elementary school teachers.  Education Week reporter Stephen Sawchuk writes,

Though universities’ economics departments preach the gospel of supply and demand, that principle is not always followed when it comes to their education departments.

Data, while imprecise, suggest that some states are producing far more new teachers at the elementary level than will be able to find jobs in their respective states—even as districts struggle to find enough recruits in other certification fields.

Fortunately, North Carolina is not on the list.  Our growing urban and suburban communities provide ample demand for elementary school teachers.  On the other hand, states like Illinois, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan have a glut of elementary teachers.

A number of large school districts in our state take advantage of other states’ oversupply of teachers by recruiting them to teach in North Carolina.  In fact, a recent U.S. Department of Education report revealed that around 32 percent of North Carolina’s teachers were trained out of state.