Exploring rural administrator perspectives of the decline in science and math secondary education graduates from a regional public university in a Midwestern state over the last ten years : a case study

There has been a marked decline in the number of graduates from the secondary education science and math program at a regional public university in a Midwestern state over the last ten years. Using qualitative and quantitative data gathered from interviews and surveys, this study revealed that this trend damages the ability of rural schools in the service area of this university to find and staff highly qualified science and math teachers in their high schools; thereby, unfairly impacting rural school students opportunities to learn from highly qualified teachers in those disciplines. To address the struggles that rural school administrators and students face because of this troubling reality, this study constructed its recommendations to directly combat the issues related to production of new teachers from this university and staffing teachers in rural schools.