Teacher shortage gives way to teacher glut: school systems slashing positions due to economy

[Karmadillo]

Well, it could be worse. At least we're not slashing the military budget or cutting aid to Wall Street.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihJWq9LZMeJRfuAbcUoWGgHXEg5AD9BU6HRO0

LAWRENCE, Kan. — When Lilli Lackey started college, talk of a growing teacher shortage gave her confidence that a job would be waiting for her when she got out.

Now, six months after graduating, she considers herself lucky just to find work as a substitute.

Across the country, droves of people like Lackey are unable to find teaching jobs, in large part because the economy is forcing school systems to slash positions. The teacher shortage that many feared just a few years ago has turned into a teacher glut.

"I always thought that if I didn't find a job, I would be able to sub. And then once that started to be more difficult, it was really kind of devastating," Lackey, an art teacher, said during a career fair for educators at the University of Kansas.

Since last fall, school systems, state education agencies, technical schools and colleges have shed about 125,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, many teachers who had planned to retire or switch jobs are staying on because of the recession, and many people who have been laid off in other fields are trying to carve out second careers as teachers or applying to work as substitutes to make ends meet.

In Texas, the Round Rock school district had more than 5,000 applications for 322 teacher openings this year and saw its pool of subs almost double to 1,200, about 2 1/2 times as many as it needs even on a particularly bad day during flu season, said spokeswoman Joylynn Occhiuzzi.

"It is a tougher job market, and you get applicants that you might not normally have because of the economy," she said.

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[SammyWinstonJack]

1. Priorities, man, priorities.

At least we're not slashing the military budget or cutting aid to Wall Street.

[FLAprogressive]

7. +1

[Yuugal]

19. Amen

[DailyGrind51]

2. Yet, schools of education continue to market on the basis of shortage.

Especially, to laid-off older workers in search of mid-life career options.

[donco6]

4. There is still a shortage - just not in everything.

If you teach math or science or special ed - you can find a job. Anything else - sorry.

[tonysam]

11. Only math--sorry

A shortage was ALWAYS a lie for school districts to treat teachers like dirt--because they could. Unless a teacher is a nepotism, nobody will have careers in this field anymore.

[donco6]

22. Well - no -

We hire about 70 teachers a year, and I can honestly assure you, they are not all related.

[tonysam]

28. Well, yes, did you read the article?

I couldn't care less about your own district.

Hell, in Nevada they are using "retire and rehires" to take jobs these districts claim they can't find applicants. It's bullshit; they want to save on pension costs. In fact my replacement is one of those hires.

[donco6]

29. Yes, I did.

I'm just telling you the situation in one actual district. I realize they have their nationwide statistic to publish. But that's not what we're seeing here. Sorry to disappoint, I guess.

I reiterate: if you want a job in science, math or special ed, you can always find a viable opening around here - and probably land it hands down if you have any experience at all.

I'd throw foreign language in there, too.

[DailyGrind51]

37. I would qualify my initial post with, "in every community".

With the possible exception of inner city schools in Chicago, not even math or special education graduates are having an easy time getting placed in Illinois.

[donco6]

39. Send them out here - seriously.

We're going to have a glut of retirees soon, with PERA changing their retirement age. People are jumping to get out before they're forced to work more years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Retirement is way down in my district

It's health insurance. We don't have to pay for it as employees. When we retire, we do.

[tonysam]

13. And older workers need to stay the HELL away from public education

Age discrimination is rampant in the field. School districts, especially dumbass principals, of which there are far more than the decent variety, don't want people with life experience because they can't "mold" them to the way they want them, and the older workers usually know more than these younger and younger principals who are infesting our schools with their idiocy.

Plus older workers are more expensive the than the young bimbos they love so much.

[imdjh]

18. The people who warned me off teaching, were teachers. They hate the BS from above, and the ....

..... disrespect from students and parents.

[Withywindle]

25. My mother is a retired public school teacher.

I would never become a teacher because of what I heard from her. And not just what she told me - from what I could see her going through. How frustrated and depressed and exhausted she was, and how much happier she was when she got out of it. Kids can ALWAYS tell when parents hate their jobs.

It wasn't the students! She loved most of them, and she still gets positive letters and emails and Facebook messages from them 15 years later and they always make her day. It wasn't the subjects she taught. It was the administrators, and the insane hours (teachers always do about twice as much "homework" as their students) and the lack of support.

[tonysam]

26. That job is SO hard; most people don't understand how it kills you mentally

I was always dog tired after each day, no matter how many days I put in.

After my first principal I had when I went regular contracted retired, a great guy, I never had support from principals and administrators. They were liars and assholes who belong in jail rather than being role models for kids.

It's been a year and a half since I lost my job and my career, and I am still reeling from the effects.

[Withywindle]

34. I know. I believe it.

My mom was SO beaten down by it. After she was finally able to retire, after a couple months of withdrawal and rest, she came out of her chrysalis like a butterfly.

[liberalhistorian]

31. I was the same way, that's a major reason why I didn't

go into education as well. Both my parents were teachers and I saw every day what they had to go through, how much they gave and how little they got from parents, admins, and society in return. No way was I ever going to deal with that. It's why I don't apologize one bit for my mom having to use Medicaid to pay for my stepdad's nursing home care, since they'd already used up most of what they had dealing with his early-onset dementia and since they both spent forty years giving everything they had to teaching and getting little in compensation for it.

[Withywindle]

33. That is NOTHING to apologize for.

We can really measure our society by what is most valued economically.

Teachers struggle along for, at BEST, middle-class or lower-middle-class wages, while well-connected young men from expensive business schools who basically do nothing but push imaginary theoretical money around on computer screens get obscenely rich.

And the former get treated like beggars while the latter cannot be criticized at all or else it's "class warfare."

Fuck that. It's shameful that your parents' medical expenses weren't taken care of as a matter of HONOR for this country.

[liberalhistorian]

44. Amen! Very

well put, and thank you.

[liberalhistorian]

24. I think they should, too, but for the opposite reason.

Too many have little or no understanding of differences and disabilities and have no interest in upgrading their education and skills to encompass new information and research when it is so critical for the well-being of students for them to do so; they're also still in "punitive" mode, for the most part, iow, punishing differences instead of understanding the whys and wherefores of many conditions and that NOT ALL CHILDREN act the exact same way, nor should they be required to do so. The only teachers I had problems with in regards to my aspie son were teachers older than fifty, who were a real pain in the ass; they wouldn't even listen to his professionals and sped coordinators and refused to acknowledge that he could be extremely intelligent and still have difficulties in some areas. Their way of thinking is outdated, outmoded and very dangerous to students nowadays.

And as far as "dumbass principals"-most of the "dumbasses" are older ones, not the younger ones. I've had nothing but good experiences with younger ones. Older ones-meh.

And my retired teacher mother, in her late sixties, more than agrees; in fact, she's adamant about it. My retired teacher stepdad would agree, but he's in a nursing home with dementia now.

[tonysam]

27. Wrong. It's the younger principals who are assholes

Of course I worked as a teacher, so I know what it's like. Those young people are in administration because they couldn't hack it in the classroom or they never worked in the classroom at all.

And it's getting worse with the superintendents. Now there is a push by Eli Broad and his ilk to recruit MBAs, people totally unqualified to run schools.

[liberalhistorian]

30. My parents were teachers for over forty years, so I think

they're at least as qualified as you are to make that determination. Although they'd strongly agree with the ridiculous absurdity of the push for MBA's as school heads, and I learned to never get them started on admins, period. Most admins, as they said, had either been out of the classroom for too long or had never set foot in one to begin with, yet, they never wanted to hear anything from the REAL front line, teachers, and it was always the teacher's fault if their stupid harebrained policies didn't work. Actually, my parents had a lot of choice words for school boards a lot of the time as well, especially those without any members with an educational background.

[donco6]

43. Sometimes, maybe.

But the principals I've seen promoted here were very good teachers. Did they always make good principals? No. But most often they did fine. The ones we hired from outside were a lot more "iffy." We've had some spectacular blowouts. But when we've promoted from within, we've had a lot better luck.

[The Midway Rebel]

32. I agree, age discrimination is a factor.

They need people they can coerce.

[donco6]

3. We're being cut 6.12% next year.

That's about 2.5 million from 40 million. We've already had to cut everything non-essential. We used to have 8 administrators; now down to 4. Used to have APs; now have none. About 12 hours of para time per SCHOOL. With this cut, we'll have to close schools and combine kids to make bigger classes. There isn't any other choice to come up with this kind of money.

[Bigmack]

5. It's working perfectly....

The ongoing Repub plan to gut government and create a two tiered society is working perfectly. The plan to gut government..... well, that's pretty much "mission accomplished". With no money, all those messy "programs" are done with. Education = opportunity to move up in society. If you gut education, you can stop all that foolish working-class-moving-on-up stuff. The middle class moves down to the working class, too. And the working class.... they're just happy to have any jobs at all. "Thank you, massa".

Shit!

[Karmadillo]

6. It's not fair. Two political parties for the wealthy and none for the middle and working classes.

nt

[Igel]

9. Which explains perfectly why

teacher staffing and education, a state issue, is being cut most heavily in Democratic controlled states (for the most part). It's because the repubs control them. :think:

At some point the facts really do have to stop spinning so that they can be observed.

Moreover, there's another point that's relevant here: Legislative budgeters have IQs under 20--by definition, since that's essentially what legislators require. The kinds of assumptions they make are geared to produce overreactions when there's a change in income levels and underreactions when income is fairly flat. The previous year is what all future years are like: If we have increased income, we can plan for increased income every year for the next 20. If we have decreased income, we must plan for decreased income every year for the next 20. The only curve that can exist in the future is a straight line, whatever the curve for past income levels might have been.

Take the Clinton surplus. It wasn't huge, and the assumption in 2000 was that the growth rate would essentially be as high in 2000 as it was in 1999, that it would be as high in 2001 as it was in 2000, and as high in 2002 and 2003 as it was in 2001 and 2002. However there was a recession in 2001--and that eliminated the surplus immediately. Then there was a stimulus package of sorts--now considered to be okay when there's a recession--but that also would have wiped out the surplus because it was a tax cut (additionally it wasn't a single year's lump expenditure). Then there was additional military spending. Yet the fundamental fallacy in talking about the trillion dollars or so in the Clinton "surplus" was the uberconservative assumptions that went into budgeting forecasts. The first factor--the recession, likely at some point by defined away by the tyranny of the straight edge in forecasting models--is completely sufficient.

It's likely that next fall states will realize that their tax revenues are increasing and after shouting doom and gloom, legislators will again engage in that horribly politicized process called "buy the votes"--what forbids legislators from producing savings accounts, from not making routine, on-going spending take up every last cent of the tax revenues garnered in boom times.

[Bigmack]

10. I still see the Repubs as responsible...

even in Dem areas. As people bring less and less home... if they have jobs at all... cutting taxes seem a logical place to stop the hemorrhage. People feel that schools are going to have to tighten their belts, just like anybody else. Of course, the schools' belts have already been tightened a lot, so.....

If people are having a tough time feeding their kids or paying medical bills, the instrumental music program at school, or the gifted program seem less important.

[tonysam]

12. Public schools are being gradually privatized

with Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and other "philanthropists" getting their filthy tentacles on the education system. It is working spectacularly well.

[surrealAmerican]

8. The arts are always the first to be cut ...

... because there is no standardized testing in art, music or drama.

[Starry Messenger]

14. My school is shedding my job.

Funding ends for my teaching position in the spring.

[YvonneCa]

15. I'm sorry to hear that...

StarryM. :hug: I retired when my school pushed me out. Good luck to you.

[Starry Messenger]

16. Thanks YvonneCa.

I'm really scared. I'm only 39. I hope things will pick up again in the next few years. I really want to keep teaching. Thank you for the hug. :hug:

[YvonneCa]

20. It is scary in Californa right now. There is a...

...big 'shuffle' going on in education. I DO think things will settle down eventually and I hope you WILL keep teaching. Heaven knows, California has a LOT of kids who need good teachers. :) If I can help, let me know.

[donco6]

21. That totally sucks.

I'm sorry, Starry.

[Starry Messenger]

23. Thanks donco

I love this job. :/ The kids this year are doing really great work too. I was hoping it wasn't going to come to this.

[Blue_Tires]

17. ttt

[Nikki Stone1]

35. This goes deeper than the recession; check out Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine

The first positions cut when PIRATIZATION occurs are the teachers and the healthcare workers.

[MadHound]

36. It's wrong to call it a "glut" of teachers,

There is still a desperate need for teachers, but due to the lack of money and this economy, school districts cut teaching positions, forcing kids into ever larger classes. Our school system needs more teachers in it, there is still a shortage, but since school funding is stupidly based on the whims of the voters, schools can't afford more teachers. And our children are the ones who suffer.

[tonysam]

38. Wrong. There has NEVER, EVER been a real "shortage" of teachers nationally

It is a lie created by the media and fostered by the school districts. School districts have LIED about it for years--THAT'S the issue. Colleges of education have fostered the lie in order to get more money. But what happens is when students graduate after taking on piles of debt, they can't get jobs, and what jobs there are to be had in school districts in their geographical area are invariably given to nepotisms. They are relegated into a slave caste called "substitute teachers" and can do it for ten years or more before getting a position. These substitute "jobs" have rotten pay and no benefits. The years substituting typically don't count at all towards seniority or "teaching experience" on the "step system" for salaries.

Nepotism in public employment is a form of corruption. You have ENTIRE FAMILIES working for a school district, and their jobs are like hereditary titles, with these jobs being passed down from generation to generation. It should fucking ILLEGAL to hire relatives in school districts, but the way to stop this is to convert the entire public education hiring system into a civil service system where hiring is based on test scores and experience--not on "who you know." Our "reformers," however, aren't interested in real reform of the system.

What there has been is a massive problem with oversupply of teachers in most areas of the country and undersupply in a few others. Pension laws and stupid licensure regulations make sure teachers don't relocate to other states where they could be needed. If you are let go from one state, you have to literally start all over again in another, beginning with their stupid licensure laws. Even if you have 20 or 25 years teaching experience, you have to pay--out of your pocket--money to take stupid tests you shouldn't have to take. States like California make you go through a whole series of hoops to get licensed. Furthermore, pensions are not portable.

The bellyaching by school districts of shortages in urban districts is the biggest lie of all. The working conditions for teachers there are abominable, but the worst abuse of teachers by principals is in these very districts where in the past administrators have whined they can't find teachers. Oh, they're there, all right, and principals make sure they shitcan these teachers for bogus reasons or deny them tenure because there are literally hundreds of people standing in line to take their jobs.

[tonysam]

40. Some years ago somebody on PBS had a documentary

which supported my contention about the myth of a teacher shortage. Somewhere I had read, and this was a few yeas ago, there were only something like 42,000 new teaching jobs created nationally, while at the same time colleges and universities had graduated over 200,000 people majoring in education. The problem was worse because these newly minted teachers were chasing too few jobs and competing with EXPERIENCED teachers who were either laid off, terminated for other reasons, or decided to move to other areas of the country for whatever reason.

Now with state budgets and school district budgets going down the drain, the problem is much, much, much worse.

[donco6]

41. Again - no.

You make these blanket statements, seeming to speak for all schools in the country. But much of what you say is not at all true here.


1. We have had shortages in math, science, special ed and foreign language teachers. We've had to place long-term subs quite a few times. We often end up hiring them permanently once they get their certification (which is one of the main reasons we run into that keeps us from hiring them outright).

2. Very few of our teachers are related to anyone in the district. Sometimes we have teachers come back to teach in their home town. But the vast majority don't know anyone here.

3. We're the largest metro area between Kansas City and LA. We should have an oversupply of any discipline, but we don't.

4. I don't know that our conditions are "abominable." Maybe in Denver proper - I've heard stories there . . . Here, while they could be better, we've tried to put the majority of our funds into teachers. Our class sizes are about 23:1 - less in some of the high schools. We are all small schools here - the biggest are the K-12s with about 700. Our high schools are all under 400. We have 7 high schools: A Big Picture school (with a 16:1 ratio), an Expeditionary Learning school with an Arts focus, a Coalition Academy school, an IB school, an Asia Society school with a Mandarin language focus, and a New Technology school. We also have a recovery school for kids who have dropped out.

5. We do studies each year as to why our teachers leave us. Most leave because of their own choices - they get married (no. 1 by far), they have kids (no. 2), they retire, family problems elsewhere that they have to take care of, getting a job in another district, etc. We have about 15 actual non-renewals out of 330 teachers.

6. We do have a lot of applicants for some positions (elementary ed, certain disciplines like PE, art, music, English, Social Studies). But we pump thousands of dollars of staff development into each one (when we hire a Montessori teacher, for example, they usually have to receive the training, which we pay for, for the entire summer.) We are loathe to give up on them if there's a chance they're going to pull it out in the end.

7. These are all public schools - no charters here.

The point of all this is that - while I worry about the future of education with Arne at the helm - to discourage all young people from entering education is too drastic a move for me.