Chapter IX: Teaching Combinations in High Schools

Abstract

JLHERE were available for this review one nationwide investigation which included teaching combinations and one or more studies for each of seventeen different states which were limited to the teaching combinations within their respective states. Studies for two other states are listed in the bibliography but were not available for review. General FindingsMore than 1000 different subject combinations were found in Ohio by Anderson (407) and 552 were reported for Minnesota by Overn (438). The percentages of teachers who were teaching one field only were 23 for Kansas (414); 29.9 for Iowa (412); 47.5 for Illinois (411); 50 for new positions in Wisconsin (442) ; 75 for the north central high schools of Michigan (451); 62 for Minnesota (438); and 86 for New Jersey (425). In Kansas 50 percent of the teachers had combinations which included three or more fields; in Iowa 32.7 percent; in Minnesota 12 percent; and in Illinois 7.5 percent. Teachers of English, mathematics, industrial arts, and home economics constituted one-half the teachers in Woody's study (451) who were teaching in one field only. An inspection of the accompanying tabulation will reveal that the special fields were more often taught alone than were the academic fields.Twenty-five percent of the group studied by Anderson (407) were teaching nothing in their major or minor fields of preparation, while Umstattd (448) found 16 percent with no classes in their major fields. In the latter study, 43 percent of the academic majors and 25 percent of those who had majored in the special fields were teaching at least one subject outside their fields of concentration, and in Kemp's California investigation (426) 33 percent were found to be untrained for a portion of their work. On the same point Stum (447) found a percentage of 35. Luker (432) reported that 14.2 percent of the South Dakota systems had no teacher teaching in his major field only, that 18 percent had one teacher teaching some subjects outside his major and minor fields, 41 percent had two such teachers, and 33 percent had three. Ogden (437) stated that 85 percent of Stanford graduates during their first year of teaching taught in the fields of their major and minor preparation, while Anderson (407) showed that the percentage teaching in fields of major preparation decreased with experience.Hostettler (421) reported only a slight reduction since 1920 in the average number of subjects in teaching combinations. As a remedy for this condition several investigators (407, 421, 427) recommended certification by subject, yet Hagood (417) discovered that the Nebraska standard requiring inexperienced teachers to teach only those subjects in