Teachers are the future of our Nation (and the world), but there are often many barriers for people wishing to become teachers. College prices have been dramatically increasing for years while teachers' pay has stayed fairly constant. This puts an increased financial burden on teachers as soon as they graduate college, especially since our clinical hours and student teaching often severely limits the number of hours pre-service teachers can work. 

But there are ways in which ISU can help lessen the financial burden on pre-service teachers (specifically in the secondary math field). In our first semester of Senior year, we are required to travel up to 60 miles every day to be in a school for just one hour a day, every day. This causes a significant burden on pre-service teachers and that was before gas prices essentially doubled in price. If you were placed at a school just 25 miles away, which is not extremely likely and many will be farther, the cost to the student will be roughly $1,000 just in gas. If the school was 40 miles away it would be around $1,500. This is an absolutely outrageous burden on students at ISU, especially when there are other options. 

Some of the options include 

• Decreasing the number of times that students would need to commute to the school. 
  • Instead of having to travel every day to just spend one hour at the school, we could spend 2-3 hours twice a week. This is what many other education majors at ISU do, such as elementary education. This would severely decrease the financial burden to students and would also allow students to gain more time back. If students are placed somewhere 45 minutes away the is at least 7.5 hours in driving time every week in which we could do other things. Not to mention the ecological impact on society that could be prevented. 
• Reimburse Cost of Gas 
  • While not as beneficial as the above option this would also financially help students. As mentioned before it is likely that we will need to spend at least $1,000 on gas for just this singular semester. Not to mention that as education majors it is essentially required that you have a car and can drive, which is another extremely unfair burden on students and their families as many can't afford not only the cost of car payments but also the cost of car insurance. Not to mention that for every mile a car is driven the value of the car depreciated $0.15 to $0.50 every mile. Which lowballing it at $0.20 per mile would be another $600 inc cost (and none of this includes maintenance).