topic Re: Teachers in Community Chat

Teachers

Kachina624 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:21:09 GMT

School is starting here this week and next. Albuquerque is short about 300 teachers so they are going to hire some from the Philippines and pay them $36,000, which is 10+ X more than they'd make at home. It's no wonder our state education system is rated at or near last nationally. Maybe if they paid decent salaries, they wouldnt have this problem. Can you just imagine what great teachers these people will be?

I remember when my niece in Pa. graduated with her degree and teaching certificate, she couldn't find a job. She worked as a long-term substitute her first year.

Are teachers scarce in your neck of the woods?

Re: Teachers

Jtdmum — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:27:59 GMT

in overabundance and making 76k+ tenured. Full benefits, no summer work and don't have to get up when it snows. Never teach more than 4 classes daily.

I picked the wrong profession.

Re: Teachers

hopi — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:28:27 GMT

It is Shameful.

So very nice of you to support education, children and teachers.

Re: Teachers

care04 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:31:17 GMT

That's quite a story, @Kachina624. I am without words. Wow.

I teach in a rural area of Wisconsin. Teachers are scarce here, too. Teaching vacancies receive only 2-5 applicants, compared to 200+ from years past. The quality of candidates has sharply declined. Our kids deserve better than that.

Re: Teachers

RedTop — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:32:27 GMT

Yes, WV has a teacher shortage, but they seem to be dealing with it fairly well, by using retired teachers as long term subs.

We also have a shortage of nurses.

Re: Teachers

Kachina624 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:40:30 GMT

@RedTop wrote:
Yes, WV has a teacher shortage, but they seem to be dealing with it fairly well, by using retired teachers as long term subs.

We also have a shortage of nurses.

@RedTop. Everybody gets them from the Philippines too.

Re: Teachers

drizzellla — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:47:42 GMT

@Jtdmum wrote:
in overabundance and making 76k+ tenured. Full benefits, no summer work and don't have to get up when it snows. Never teach more than 4 classes daily.

I picked the wrong profession.

That is similar to our area. My girlfriend taught from 10 am - 2 pm. She started at $75,000 with full benefits for her family.

Many tenured teachers are making $100,000+. And their pensions are out of this world.

PS - I wanted to add the $75,000 starting salary was almost 10 years ago.

Re: Teachers

RoughDraft — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:49:34 GMT

Our state has been warned to expect a teacher shortage in the near future. Reasons are many. College students are not specializing in education. Those interested and talented in math and science are being lured to industry and better paying jobs with career potential. Salaries in rural areas are lower than suburban and urban areas (where there is union representation).

Trying to lure young people into returning to the education field will cost taxpayer money and I don't see anyone volunteering to pay higher taxes. It is what it is.

Re: Teachers

Kachina624 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 01:49:36 GMT

I retired from state government 20 years ago, but maybe I ought to dust off my teaching certificate and go back to work. I've never taught except for student teaching but that doesn't seem to matter.

Re: Teachers

lovesrecess — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:03:16 GMT

I taught in Albuquerque public schools from '88-'93. When I moved back to Texas and took a teaching job in a small district, I immediately made $27 more in salary than I made in NM. Texas usually fixes their teacher shortage by bringing up people from Mexico, giving them an alternative, quickie certificate after a week-long cram session about how to teach. Most speak zero English so they are put in "bilingual" schools...code for little, if any, English is spoken let alone taught. Every state has their own way of filling in the teacher shortage...but they need to figure out why there is a shortage in the first place! Not hard to figure out at all....crappy pay, long hours, and zero respect for the profession. Tenure is an out-dated, archaic system of rewarding endurance instead of excellence. Am very happy it has been replaced in most areas.

Re: Teachers

GenXmuse — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:15:13 GMT

Starting salary for teachers in NC is 32,000 and that was with a recent 4% raise that was difficult to get support for.

Re: Teachers

house_cat — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:18:53 GMT

Some of these anecdotes sound quite unrealistic.

I teach in a well-to-do suburb of Los Angeles and there is NO shortage of teachers. In fact, it is quite the opposite. A brand new teacher in my district starts with $40,000.

In the city of LA itself, as in many other CA cities, there is a shortage of teachers, even though their starting salary is a little higher at $45,000.

Re: Teachers

house_cat — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:26:03 GMT

These are May 2018 statistics.

Re: Teachers

blackhole99 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:41:53 GMT

No, teachers are not scarce in our area, never were. Teaching was a second career for my husband and it took him years before he was hired as a full time high school math teacher. It's not like he didn't have experience, he was a mathematician for 15 years at NSA before he got a teaching certificate. You actually have to know someone or have a connection to one of the administrators to get a full time job. If you graduated from the same college as the principal did, you were a shoe in. The one school my husband subbed at, all the teachers graduated from Penn State. Get this, my husband got hired because the superintendent was a brother, if you know what I mean.

Re: Teachers

Ruby Laine — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:42:42 GMT

In our state, teachers have just five years after their first year of teaching to complete their masters degrees at a cost of $30,000 or more. Many teachers are still paying off college loans when they start their next degree.

There is no tenure in my state. We depend on property taxes for public schools, so teachers realize they might not get their contract renewed at the end of the school year depending on state funding, which has dropped, and whether or not levies pass.

Re: Teachers

StylishLady — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:55:23 GMT

From what I read in the news, there is a shortage of teachers here in SW FL where they actually build new schools, a new high school in Bonita Springs has just opened. DH was a school teacher for 32 years back in central NY. We had some lean years on that salary, but made it through. DH taught summer school the last 25 years. His pension is really good and with our social security have a good life down here.

Re: Teachers

Kalli — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 02:56:03 GMT

There is a lot of competition for teaching jobs where I live. Often teachers take aide positions or coach sports to help them get in the door.

I don’t know any elem teachers who teach only 4 classes a day. With regard to not getting up on snow days, closing school is the decision of the superintendent. Liability is a concern of late so schools close rather than chance a bus accident on snowy roads. Snow days must be made up to satisfy the contract of a certain number of student days in a school year. Otherwise state funding could be jeopardized.

My state still has union representation so teachers’ salaries are higher than those states that held marches a few months back.

Re: Teachers

shopperqvc — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 03:00:44 GMT

In the crooked state of Illinois the teacher's pension fund has been robbed for the last 40 years by the state Legislature. They just passed a law where starting pay for a teacher is $40,000.00. But, they didn't bother to fund it, so that will just get added to our property tax bill. And there you have one reason teachers are not respected here. When your home is over assessed in order to get to the amount of money the county has to have, you look at your bill and see who is taking the most from you. Here the school systems combined take 63% of the tax bill. That, of course, will go up to make that $40,000.00 starting pay. Our teacher's have tenure, and the teacher's union do this little trick of waiting to even start trying to get a contract until school has started for the year. Then, out they go on strick, and now parents of young kids are over the barrel trying to find babysitters. They always claim "it's not the money", and "it's for the kids". Yep, it's for the money, and the only kids that really benefit are the kids living in the home with the teacher. I don't hate teachers, but the state needs to figure out another way to pay for them. And I do really dislike that union. They have gotten to the point they run the state. What the union demands, they get. A collective bargaining just rewards the lazy and insults the hard working. When everyone gets a raise no matter their job performance, that's just wrong. And once on tenure, there's no getting rid of a bad teacher. The school board can't afford the kind of lawyers the union can. It's a no win for the taxpayer. All the days off doesn't help either. Hot days, snow days, early release Wednesdays, threat of snow days, it makes the schools look weak. No other job gets those days off, not to mention all the Monday holidays. They stretch the school year out to 9 months, but they only go 8 months with all the days off.

Re: Teachers

missy1 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 03:03:55 GMT

@Kachina624

yes.

Our district hired a few from there. My child had one of the teachers. They were fantastic!

Because of the shortages, there is an alernative path program to obtain a credential. (as long as you have a BA/BS)

We have shortages because of the low pay. Start off in low 30's.

Re: Teachers

missy1 — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 03:08:44 GMT

@Ruby Laine wrote:
In our state, teachers have just five years after their first year of teaching to complete their masters degrees at a cost of $30,000 or more. Many teachers are still paying off college loans when they start their next degree.

There is no tenure in my state. We depend on property taxes for public schools, so teachers realize they might not get their contract renewed at the end of the school year depending on state funding, which has dropped, and whether or not levies pass.

Here they don't require a masters. And the pay difference isn't worth it for the huge loans. It's only worth it if you plan to be a principal etc.