Dive Brief:

• "The Condition of Future Educators," a new report from ACT, has some bad news for the education sector: the number of high school students wanting to become teachers has "significantly declined" in the last four years. 
• Only 5% of the 1.85 million high school students who took the exam in 2014 said they wanted to be teachers, a 2% decrease from 2010. 
• This news compounds the fact that the U.S. is currently experiencing a teacher shortage, and the National Center for Education Statistics says the need for K-12 educators is only going to increase in the coming years.

Dive Insight:

Making this statistical decline all the more troubling is the fact that the number of ACT test takers has increased by 18% over that same four year period. This means that even with more students taking the test, and from more diverse backgrounds, the number has continued to fall.

ACT has a number of recommendations for curbing the shortage. For one, it says schools of education should begin "recruiting high achieving college students who are undecided about their future careers." It also recommends offering alternative paths toward the classroom, as well as increases to pay and benefits in the profession.