http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Aug-28-Sun-2005/opinion/3083515.html From the article.... Why not have the very large pool of laid off tech people teach? That is...IF there is a shortage....and there isn't. Nope. It's just about cheap labor. In the case of the teachers here it is just the ultra cheap of cheap taking hold. It appears the school district got themselves a crack immigration attorney, too, to do battle with the prevailing wage. The NEA points it out. In the 2004 NEA report, on "Trends in Foreign Teacher Recruitment", the NEA says, " "Some foreign teachers receive lower pay than comparable teachers in their schools." Yep.
It seems far more complicated than you suggest. First, let's define teacher shortage. It doesn't mean there aren't unemployed teachers. It means there aren't enough qualified in particular subjects willing to accept the pay in specific school districts. There is no question, for example, that there is a shortage of math teachers in the Kansas City, Kansas school district (a low-paying, largely inner-city district). And a quick look at pending retirements over the next 5 years and teachers in the education pipeline suggest the shortages will become more widespread. So what is the answer? The first step that states have adopted is to use alternative certification programs. This helps to attack the qualified issue. By expaning the pool of qualified people, you get more prospective teachers. My understanding in Texas is that the majority of new teachers now come from alternative certification programs. But clearly this isn't enough. We already have these alternative certification programs and yet we still have shortages. I'm sure Kansas City, Kansas would love to get some of Kansas City's unemployed IT workers to become teachers in their classrooms. That is exactly what programs like the following are designed to do. http://www.kckps.org/teach/fellows/ But it's proven to be not enough. So we could expand the pool of qualified workers even more. We could allow college graduates who haven't taken more than college algebra teach high school math. Or we could allow people without a college degree to teach high school math. I doubt this is the ideal solution, but maybe you can make an argument for it. So the next possibility is increased pay. Unfortunately, states won't pay for an accross-the-board pay raise. On top of that, the teacher unions won't allow targeted pay raises for specific subjects. The real answer is to allow supply and demand to work. If we have a math teacher shortage and we have excess phys ed teachers, we should pay math teachers more and PE teachers less. But that will never happen in public schools due to the unions. And taxpayers won't allow the tax hikes to raise the salaries. If we have a set amount of money to pay and we've loosened the standards as much as common sense will allow and we still can't fill a position, where does that leave us? It seems to me that importing a foreign college grad is the perfect solution given these costraints.
This suggestion says quite a bit about the poster. Short answer: Quite a few very talented (and not so talented) people do not include "teaching ability" in their range of capabilities.
Re: Re: H-1bs hired due to "Teacher Shortage" in Nevada Do you know the capabilities of these people or even anything about their teaching ability? Do you know anything about the capabilities of the H-1B's coming in? I can tell you this, the H-1B IT folks I have seen are often sub-par to the U.S. techies. I am not expecting anymore with this crop in the teaching arena. EVERY state I know of has teacher licensing requirements. That means that the teacher has to graduate from a certain kind of program, and have the right courses. Someone stepping off the plane from even Great Britain(where English is their first language) is not going to get a job teaching public schools here. That means either the state of Nevada is relaxing their teacher licensing requirements or else they are putting these foreign teachers through another training program. So, why not have the Americans go through the similar training or give them a chance? Recall the soldiers to teachers program? What happened with that? Looks like it went the way of H1-B to teacher. I think my comment says that they should look to Americans before piling on the cheap labor. But, you know the answer to that one. They are not going to do that. You must be out of your mind if you think this is about anything other than cheap labor. When I see all the education majors get a good job then I'll say we MIGHT have a teacher shortage. I can tell you this...it isn't happening. I can point to 10 teachers who graduated about two years ag. They had to take substitute teacher jobs to even try to get to know the principle in hopes that they could get on IF someone left. That certainly is no teacher shortage. Shortage: In a supply and demand world, this would mean that those in shortage fields get lots of offers and nice salaries right? Hmm. Something went wrong here, eh. Rob Sanchez, of Zazona, says that he personally knows engineers and mathematicians that have gone back to school to get education degrees and certificates. He says they are still unemployed. Cleveland went to India to hire teachers. Guess what. The Cleveland Plain Dealer just announced recently that the city is cutting 500 teacher positions. You might want to bone up on the topic then come to post.
I will concede that Nevada is not doing all they could to reduce the teacher shortage. http://www.teach-now.org/dispstateform.cfm?statepageid=528&state=NV
And you pretty clearly have limited teaching experience. I say again: Not every talented person includes teaching ability in their pool of talents. Taking an education class is not going to change that. This is not Europe where the professor can stand in front of the class and simply read the text (mostly ). Every semester I work with highly talented people who want to "try out" teaching as an adjunct - usually in the evening after their regualr job. Most do it for one semester. Teaching well - in front of todays' post-secondary students - is tough. Ironically, it gets easier as the subjects become more complex (300 & 400 level vs. 100 & 200 level).
Re: Re: H-1bs hired due to "Teacher Shortage" in Nevada We are talking high school and grade school students here. Not college. That's another subject, though. (and they say there is a shortage of college professors, too) And...a person teaching college is not necessarily cut out for teaching high schoolers. Same with a high school teacher teaching grade schoolers. So, are you saying that the U.S. is doing such a crappy job of educating educators that they have to import them then? You say that in Europe educators just read the text. Much of the rest of the world follows the European educational methods. So, then if what you say is true we are importing these kinds of teachers here...and you further state it won't work here.
Re: Re: Re: H-1bs hired due to "Teacher Shortage" in Nevada When you are done putting words in other peoples mouths...we're back to: "And you pretty clearly have limited teaching experience."
Re: Re: Re: Re: H-1bs hired due to "Teacher Shortage" in Nevada It's you that are saying how the Europeans do it. And you say that that method won't work here. I then inform you that the the countries we are importing the H-1B's from are modeled after the European educational systems. Thus, if European methods won't work here then the H-1B's aren't going to work out here. While I am not a certified public school teacher by profession, I do teach many classes in my position, and have taught both undergrad and grad courses. My wife is a licensed public school teacher, as well as many in my family(you might say I come from a teacher family). So, I do feel that I am close enough to the topic to make informed comments. However, one does not need to be a certified teacher to comment on this. And, this area is much more than a teacher issue. It is a labor issue. So, then is your teaching experience in the college rank or the grade school/high school rank? You seem to feel that my teacher experience makes me unable to comment on the topic. If your experience is in the college ranks then maybe yours is, too.
As a former Las Vegas resident and someone that holds a state certified teaching license for secondary mathematics, I would love nothing more than to return to Las Vegas as a high school math teacher. The bottom line is Las Vegas has a lousy public school reputation and is notorious for hiring long-term substitute teachers as a way to get around paying benefits. While I lived in Las Vegas I sent my kids to private school just to avoid the public school system. The teachers aren’t the problem. My next door neighbor in Las Vegas was a high school English teacher at Silverado High School and I know she cared about the students and did her best to educate them. The problem is the city invests way too little in the public education system and why should they? The prevailing attitude in Las Vegas is you don’t need a college degree to park cars or deal cards and make $60 to $80K per year. Personally I haven’t used my teaching certificate once since graduating from college; the pay is too low.
With all due respect...we're back to: "And you pretty clearly have limited teaching experience." I would not expect anyone who has never used their certificate since college to represent themselves as an SME - OTOH - opinions are welcome.
If you read my post, without reading into it, you’ll clearly see that no where do I make the claim of being an SME. However, as someone who has personally seen the education system crumbling in Las Vegas, my opinions are posted.
And as someone who was appalled by the language used by the teachers in the Indianapolis Public School system - my children go to a private school - and getting smacked for misbehavior is on the agenda
Whoa...please explain this situation. As for my statement about being a certified teacher, I was just making a statement to the effect that I would like to move back to Las Vegas as a teacher but that the low pay, lack of benefits, and low support for public education in that area would never allow me to do so.
