Things are heating up as the new FTC season nears, with some intriguing game clues appearing on Ken Johnson’s blog , and new team member applications filling our mailbox.  There’s still time to apply to join Team Duct Tape — just check out our About Us pages to learn more.

And STEM ed continues to make headlines. In STEM Teaching Pool Grows as Vacancies Shrink, Education Week notes the increasing availability of educators with strong math, science and technology backgrounds who are having trouble finding work even as STEM education demands grow.

An excerpt:

Across the nation, alternative-route program officials say they are seeing increasing enrollments from career-changers with strong backgrounds in the highly sought-after fields of math, science, and technology.

But the extent to which school district officials are primed to take advantage of larger—and in some cases stronger—talent pools in those fields depends on those officials’ ability to negotiate the factors affecting the teacher labor market, say experts familiar with hiring practices.

Despite state efforts to create pathways to teaching tailored to math and science professionals, the downturn has shrunk the overall availability of teaching jobs. That means not all people with strong credentials in those fields who turn to teaching—attracted by the challenge of teaching in K-12 grades and the relative security of the profession­—will have jobs waiting for them.

Read the whole article at Education Week .