Survey highlights job success for recently graduated education majors

The IU Office of Teacher Education conducted a survey of graduates from 2007 to 2008 who earned a Bachelor of Science in teacher education at the Bloomington campus.

About 86 percent of the graduates surveyed had full-time teaching positions, said Jill Shedd, assistant dean for teacher education.

“It is very promising,” Shedd said. “With everything that is being printed about public education, we are truly impressed, actually humble, that so many of our graduates persisted in getting teaching jobs. I think it speaks to their passion to wanting to be teacher.”

The survey was started late last fall and ended at the beginning of this year. The Office of Teacher Education has created a system where every fall it is going to do a follow-up survey of graduates from two years out.

This semester a survey is being started for the 2008 to 2009 graduates, Shedd said.
The office selected a random sample of the 464 graduates and identified 309 to contact.

It received 130 surveys back, said Chuck Carney, director of communications and media relations for the School of Education.

“It is a small sample, but it is a representative sample,” he said. “Out of those who are
employed, 104 are teaching and of the ones who are not teaching, they are mostly in graduate school. It is actually somewhat encouraging based on where the employment situation is for teachers.”

Other than those graduates who had full-time teaching positions, 12 percent were in graduate school, and of those who were employed, about 64 percent were teaching in the state of Indiana.

“In these tough times and perhaps with a lot of competition for positions, they’re getting the jobs, so I think they are well prepared, and I have to assume that they are coming across as confidently and are doing a very professional job,” Shedd said. “It is really exciting, and it is a nice counterpoint to the things we are reading about.”

In addition to questions about their employment, graduates were also asked if they had been satisfied with the education programs at IU and whether they would recommend IU to other students interested in teacher education.

Almost 93 percent said they would, Shedd said.

“In our mind, that speaks volumes as to the quality of our program, that our graduates are satisfied and they are getting jobs,” she said.

— Claire Aronson