Teachers in Short Supply

The Seattle Times ran this article from the Gannett News Service that I think highlights why outsourcing aspects of teaching is inevitable.  While districts around the U.S. entice teaching candidates with signing bonuses ($4000), laptops, and gym memberships, the article points out the obvious reality.  Tom Carroll, president of the nonprofit National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, states

The real problem, Carroll says, isn’t attracting teachers — it’s keeping them.

Almost half of all teachers leave the classroom within five years. In high-poverty, urban schools the article contends “about half of teachers leave after two years, Carroll said.

The article doesn’t refer to the high costs involved in recruiting, interviewing, training, and incurring these expenses all over again when the revolving door swings past and our young colleagues  move on.  Hang-on, it’s not just the young, NEA President Reg Weaver concludes the article with, “I cannot tell you the number of people who are just waiting to retire because of lack of support, lack of respect and [low pay]. Rather than face those conditions, they leave.”

Here’s another example of why I see the 2nd10 as a time of (real) transformation for education.  Once again, necessity is the mother of invention.

3 thoughts on “Teachers in Short Supply”

  1. a journalist with al-Baghdadia television network –could be heard yelling in Arabic: “This is a farewell … you dog!”
    It may take two days to restore power to all the affected homes.
    Bush called the passage of the pact “a way forward to help the Iraqi people realize the blessings of a free society.”

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