Teacher Shortage – What a surprise!

Greatest news for teachers and the teaching profession! Shortage of teachers! Are you kidding me?

I completed my Single Subject teaching credentials ten years ago; a second career after losing technical job in early 2000. Math teaching should be safe, I was told…

I, since, was one of many teaching applicants at the district that could not find a permanent job. A year after year I took the long, trying, drive to the headquarters, paying application fees and parking fees, carrying all the precious original papers (Nope! No copies), arguing to no avail that they already have all these docs in their system, as well as my health records, finger prints and picture, just to get ‘oh, we already have those in the system’ (dah!), and then never to hear from them again!

Then there were years of long-term sub assignments in the hope of turning to full-time jobs. At one school, doing some impossible assignments, administrators, at last, felt guilty enough to promise me a permanent job. They almost fulfilled it, but three weeks into the school year, after an early than usual norm-day, and before registration ended, I was let go. A year later, I helped train a new, young, teacher at that school, just to see her let go few weeks later. Poor girl! Her first teaching job!

During the four plus years of long-term assignments at that school, I have seen tens of teachers being riffed every single year. Some were re-instituted, but most not. They either retired or shoved to the sub pool. On the following years, I would meet them in every school I worked, some reassigned, but most working as substitute teachers, trying to hold to their tenure for several more years before retirement.

Many of the young energetic new teachers who came to the system full of hope and enthusiasm, left, disappointed and frustrated. Most are lost forever to the teaching profession. They learned, during their short experience, how frustrating, unfair and even abusive the system is, on top of grueling job with nominal reward. Many friends and siblings of those young people, who planned to be teachers, changed their mind too; watching their peers’ frustration decided not to bother.

And those ‘lucky’ teachers who were not riffed, not reassigned, not relocated, not reprimanded for something that they did not do… They had to deal with No Child Left Behind, Standardized Tests, California Standards, Core Standards, Budget cuts, shortage of discipline deans, shortage of counselors, shortage in janitorial services, Breakfast in Class, Technology ‘progress’ that works only sometimes … to name just a few... Add to that the ever-growing population of ‘entitled’ students and parents, fueled by media and politicians’ agenda…

Funny or sad? I can’t decide…