Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 6:02:23 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wine up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't their be a nationwide shortage? I've been out of the game for a bit but, I think there are generally enough people in the wings to cover turnover... although I could see how that might not be true for all subject areas.
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tractor
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Post by tractor on Jun 26, 2014 6:11:19 GMT -5
There is a real shortage in some fields, like special education. My wife is a special education teacher in central Michigan. Our ISD presently has six openings that they have not been able to fill. Most are EI (emotionally impaired) positions, which are always in high demand, with a high burn out rate. My wife has been teaching in an EI classroom for 23 years, at a year around school (no summers off), it's a very high stress job, but somehow she keeps going.
Their are tons of elementary teachers out there looking for work, but you need to specialize in something if you want to find a job. The openings are there.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 6:13:24 GMT -5
I'm sending out good thoughts to your wife tractor. 23 years in EI! No down time?
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Cookies Galore
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Post by Cookies Galore on Jun 26, 2014 6:32:08 GMT -5
My brother-in-law is a science teacher in a (presumably) shitastic school district. He received his principal certification before he left for Qatar so hopefully he will be out of there soon and into a better district. If they'd move closer to my area and out of depressed coal country there would be more money...
BIL volunteered to go to overseas with the air force because deployment pay is world's better than his teaching salary. But, he enjoys working with the kids (he teaches middle school and coaches high school soccer) and his goal is to be a principal. Hopefully that will happen soon!
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 26, 2014 7:16:46 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wine up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't their be a nationwide shortage? I think for a lot of people it's the schedule. You can be home with your kids summers and school breaks. Often teachers have sick days and good benefits. Hopefully that's not the only reason people teach, in fact I would think the ones who can't handle it do it for only those reasons and the ones in for the long haul actually have some aspect of teaching that they really enjoy. As a teenager I always pictured myself being a teacher but I didn't get an education degree or get certified and ended up getting a job as an engineer. I've always had teaching in the back of my mind. I have no idea if my area has a shortage of STEM teachers or not but I know they do offer alternative certification through the school districts.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2014 7:16:51 GMT -5
All teachers now, thanks to illegals, have to be ESL certified. Those that don't have it are forced to get it, on their own time btw. There are areas, not all shitholes, where there's still jobs. AZ is one of them. Pay is only lousy in non union states.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 7:18:02 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wind up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't there be a nationwide shortage? I think that a lot of the glut is in areas such as History and English, where there aren't many other jobs where you can apply your degree. I know that when I was working as an actuary, we got quite a few Math teachers. Teaching also offers some security you can't find elsewhere if you get tenure. Note the earlier post about teachers still on the job even though they're practically senile. (DS had one middle school history teacher who had speech problems due to a stroke. He was allowed to "teach" by showing videos. And this was an area with exorbitant property taxes and a supposedly excellent school system.) Then there's the pension- a rarity in the private sector anymore- and being able to be home in the summer. You have to get your foot in the door and hope you get tenure, but if you do, you're golden.
I'm intrigued by the idea of teaching Math in the school system now that I'm retired but I'm afraid that Common Core and all the other BS would do me in. And I'll never join a union. Never. I would, however, be willing to tutor for free.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 26, 2014 7:20:49 GMT -5
I'm intrigued by the idea of teaching Math in the school system now that I'm retired but I'm afraid that Common Core and all the other BS would do me in. This is what is stopping me also. I'm not sure if my area participates in "new math" or not.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 8:12:19 GMT -5
This is what is stopping me also. I'm not sure if my area participates in "new math" or not. It's not just the new math. It's the obsession with teaching to maximize test scores, having to teach with kids in the classroom who don't belong there (and that would include most who need attendants), administrations bending over backwards to keep kids in the system when they should be suspended or expelled (some one mentioned a school system with "positive behavior specialists"- why do we need those?), etc. It would also grate on me to see people doing a crappy job but still there because they had tenure. I realize there are good tenured teachers, but my issue is that you can't get rid of the bad ones unless they commit a crime, and you can't eject the mediocre/lukewarm ones and bring in new graduates. DS was a Math major and tried student teaching. He loved the kids, hated the system. Now he settles claims for an insurance company. I think I'd last 2 months, tops.
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yogiii
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Post by yogiii on Jun 26, 2014 8:15:06 GMT -5
This is what is stopping me also. I'm not sure if my area participates in "new math" or not. It's not just the new math. It's the obsession with teaching to maximize test scores, having to teach with kids in the classroom who don't belong there (and that would include most who need attendants), administrations bending over backwards to keep kids in the system when they should be suspended or expelled (some one mentioned a school system with "positive behavior specialists"- why do we need those?), etc. It would also grate on me to see people doing a crappy job but still there because they had tenure. I realize there are good tenured teachers, but my issue is that you can't get rid of the bad ones unless they commit a crime, and you can't eject the mediocre/lukewarm ones and bring in new graduates. DS was a Math major and tried student teaching. He loved the kids, hated the system. Now he settles claims for an insurance company. I think I'd last 2 months, tops. I'm in tune to most of that stuff. I have quite a few extended family members who are teachers, they've all advised against it. Maybe in my next life I should go into insurance
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 8:47:05 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wine up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't their be a nationwide shortage? Serious answer . . . I started teaching forty years ago (I was barely 20 years old). Choices of professions for women of my generation in my region were teachers, nurses, and secretaries. Notice that if you majored in business back then, it wasn't to get on the executive track.
There were always exceptions. My optometrist is only a little younger than I am, and she was the first female graduate of the UAB School of Optometry. But most people aren't the exceptions, and so a lot of teachers were produced.
We haven't retired yet. But look at your kids' teachers sometimes, and I think you will sense that there are two very different waves present.
In every area you have to know someone to have a shot at becoming a teacher at a good school. There is a reason why the "teachers of the years" seem to always come from the same districts.
Meanwhile the teacher shortages are going to show up first in the very poorest systems. Just because you have a teaching degree doesn't mean that you don't value your life. I love what I do, but that is in part because of where I do it. You have a skill set. That doesn't mean that you would be willing to do whatever you do in a miserable environment just because of that skill set. You'd choose to do something else.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Jun 26, 2014 10:13:55 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wine up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't their be a nationwide shortage? Serious answer . . . I started teaching forty years ago (I was barely 20 years old). Choices of professions for women of my generation in my region were teachers, nurses, and secretaries. Notice that if you majored in business back then, it wasn't to get on the executive track.
There were always exceptions. My optometrist is only a little younger than I am, and she was the first female graduate of the UAB School of Optometry. But most people aren't the exceptions, and so a lot of teachers were produced.
We haven't retired yet. But look at your kids' teachers sometimes, and I think you will sense that there are two very different waves present.
In every area you have to know someone to have a shot at becoming a teacher at a good school. There is a reason why the "teachers of the years" seem to always come from the same districts.
Meanwhile the teacher shortages are going to show up first in the very poorest systems. Just because you have a teaching degree doesn't mean that you don't value your life. I love what I do, but that is in part because of where I do it. You have a skill set. That doesn't mean that you would be willing to do whatever you do in a miserable environment just because of that skill set. You'd choose to do something else.
You answered exactly what I was thinking. The statistics show the average teacher turnover rate. I can't find anything that actually shows the turnover rate in the suburbs versus the ghetto. Of course the turnover rate is going to be high in the ghetto. I won't drive through it let alone work in it.
So what is the true teacher turnover rate in non-ghetto type schools??
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tractor
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Post by tractor on Jun 26, 2014 12:10:29 GMT -5
I'm sending out good thoughts to your wife tractor. 23 years in EI! No down time? Thanks Oped, she puts up with way more than I'll ever understand. 16 hour work days are normal for her. She's passed the hump now and can see retirement in her future, only five more years to go.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 26, 2014 17:27:15 GMT -5
Serious answer . . . I started teaching forty years ago (I was barely 20 years old). Choices of professions for women of my generation in my region were teachers, nurses, and secretaries. Notice that if you majored in business back then, it wasn't to get on the executive track.
There were always exceptions. My optometrist is only a little younger than I am, and she was the first female graduate of the UAB School of Optometry. But most people aren't the exceptions, and so a lot of teachers were produced.
We haven't retired yet. But look at your kids' teachers sometimes, and I think you will sense that there are two very different waves present.
In every area you have to know someone to have a shot at becoming a teacher at a good school. There is a reason why the "teachers of the years" seem to always come from the same districts.
Meanwhile the teacher shortages are going to show up first in the very poorest systems. Just because you have a teaching degree doesn't mean that you don't value your life. I love what I do, but that is in part because of where I do it. You have a skill set. That doesn't mean that you would be willing to do whatever you do in a miserable environment just because of that skill set. You'd choose to do something else.
You answered exactly what I was thinking. The statistics show the average teacher turnover rate. I can't find anything that actually shows the turnover rate in the suburbs versus the ghetto. Of course the turnover rate is going to be high in the ghetto. I won't drive through it let alone work in it.
So what is the true teacher turnover rate in non-ghetto type schools??
They carry them out feet first because they never leave. I tried for years to get into the fundamental schools. Not a prayer of a chance.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Jun 26, 2014 20:56:24 GMT -5
Serious question....if teaching is such a tough profession and it pays so lousy (per all of the posts on here) why are people lining up to be teachers? In my area you have to know someone on the school board to have a shot at becoming a teacher. Many people with teaching degrees wine up in unrelated fields because they can't get in with a school district (except as a sub and that pay sucks). If it was as awful as some day on here, shouldn't their be a nationwide shortage? DH still likes the kids and the act of teaching, it is the paperwork and the botched roll-out of the Common Core in our state. Throw in a difference in ideology between him and his principal, and it was time to leave. His students are troubled youth, so he has IEPs and social worker reports left and right on top of lesson plans. I think the reason that so many students go to college to become teachers, is because that is one job that they are familiar with. Many students will never see the inside of a corporate office, and have no idea what careers like that entail. The idealistic ones may also have intentions of "doing it better". Think about the types of jobs little kids mention when asked what they want to be when they grow up: police officers, firefighters, doctors, etc. They are jobs that the kids can define, and people they see in the community.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 26, 2014 21:15:48 GMT -5
All teachers now, thanks to illegals, have to be ESL certified. Those that don't have it are forced to get it, on their own time btw. There are areas, not all shitholes, where there's still jobs. AZ is one of them. Pay is only lousy in non union states. That is not true for NYS.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 21:22:24 GMT -5
Not true in PA either.
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imanangel
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Post by imanangel on Jun 27, 2014 4:11:56 GMT -5
All teachers now, thanks to illegals, have to be ESL certified. Those that don't have it are forced to get it, on their own time btw. There are areas, not all shitholes, where there's still jobs. AZ is one of them. Pay is only lousy in non union states. That is not true for NYS. Not true for the school I work for either, nor was it true for the districts I worked for in Michigan.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 6:39:48 GMT -5
All teachers now, thanks to illegals, have to be ESL certified. Those that don't have it are forced to get it, on their own time btw. There are areas, not all shitholes, where there's still jobs. AZ is one of them. Pay is only lousy in non union states. That is not true for NYS. don't believe it's true in MD either.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 27, 2014 6:42:35 GMT -5
The pay or being forced to be ESL certified?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 7:15:28 GMT -5
The pay or being forced to be ESL certified? being forced to be ESL certified.....so far we found 4 states (NY, MD, PA and Michigan) where it isn't true. not sure where you're getting your information.
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973beachbum
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Post by 973beachbum on Jun 27, 2014 7:19:22 GMT -5
The pay or being forced to be ESL certified? I don't think I even know of a district that has more than one ESL certified teacher let alone all of them. That is a total pipe dream even if the district wanted it. As far as pay, teachers around here brand new just graduated teachers start at $50K a year. We hired an engineer new grad for a lot less. So the typical theory that the STEM makes the bigger bucks doesn't fit.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 27, 2014 7:23:31 GMT -5
Must be a southern and western thing. All new teaching grads are ESL certified and teachers at my old school have to get it.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 27, 2014 7:24:08 GMT -5
SouthernSusana, do you have it?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 7:51:28 GMT -5
There has been a shortage of GOOD teachers since I was a kid....
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Wisconsin Beth
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Post by Wisconsin Beth on Jun 27, 2014 8:13:25 GMT -5
All teachers now, thanks to illegals, have to be ESL certified. Those that don't have it are forced to get it, on their own time btw. There are areas, not all shitholes, where there's still jobs. AZ is one of them. Pay is only lousy in non union states. That is not true for NYS. I don't think it's true for Wisconsin either but my kids are in a German Immersion School so the teachers are fluent in German. Some are fluent in multiple languages from the "Meet the Teacher" bits I've seen coming home with DD. There was an article in the paper here a few years back about teachers being moved around due to seniority but not being qualified. Like a non-foreign language speaker moving to one of the Immersion Schools. Which defeats the purpose of the Immersion School setup. But MPS has so many problems and they continue year after year; despite money and new administrations (both school and elected officials) and nothing seems to change.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 8:31:37 GMT -5
SouthernSusana, do you have it? No, you don't have to be ESL certified or even have a class in it (like you do in Special Education) in Alabama. It might be a good thing, though, to require an introductory class.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jun 27, 2014 8:44:10 GMT -5
Frankly, we don't have much of a need for ESLteachers because we font have much of an immigrant population. One rural schhol district has one because if the children if the farm hands, and the rest of the ESL kids in the county get bussed to that school district.
There is a larger ESL program I'm a neighbor ing county because if a military base, but the schools are far from overrun with non English speakers.
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sheilaincali
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Post by sheilaincali on Jun 27, 2014 8:47:39 GMT -5
There has been a shortage of GOOD teachers since I was a kid.... I have to disagree with you. So far DS has had over 30 teachers in his academic career. The communications teacher in Junior High wasn't the best, one of his GATES teachers in CA was totally ineffective, his Math Teacher first semester this year wasn't very good and his English teacher had some problems (didn't understand what it meant to teach an advanced class vs. regular class). So that's 4 "bad" teachers out of over 30.
The other 26+ have been amazing. I am seriously astounded at the quality and caliber of the teachers that DS has in his high school. For the most part they are an impressive lot of teachers that are passionate about what they do and it shows. Some a young- straight out of college, some have a 5 to 10 years under their belts and some taught when I went there 20 years ago.
To say there have been a shortage of GOOD teachers for the past 20+ years is completely inaccurate in my opinion (as the parent of a junior and the aunt of 9 nieces and nephews currently between the ages of 2nd grade and 10th grade)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 9:01:00 GMT -5
Anyway, I think Darkhonor is right. I think the teacher shortage is dependent on where you are. How would you find out where the shortages are and just how "short" the area is? Speak to your district office. Talk to the local colleges with teacher certification programs. They know where the shortages are. Nationally the shortages are Science, Math and SPED.
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