Reply to Have you notice the shortage of teachers in your school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have noticed that the academic background of the recent hires is very weak. On the contrary older teachers are much better at teaching and dealing with kids at school.

For instance the recent math teacher in my kid school comes from a public school where none the kids are proficient in math according to state evaluations. Also every month 1 teacher is leaving. [b]So the shortage is very disruptive and it seems that the school is not raising salaries to retain top talent. This in spite of setting the tuition at 50+k. [/b]Do you experience something similar? [/quote]

[url]Even if your school raises salaries, they won't match the salary/job security/benefits of a public, and that should concern you.  If you want truly "top" talent, you need to EXCEED [/url]what the public is offering.  Publics in good areas have decent working conditions, and the job security and benefits mean a lot.  Sure, some good teachers have their reasons for choosing your private, but the majority of the "top" won't or can't take that financial hit.

In what other industry would you expect lower pay, limited benefits, and no job security to attract top talent when other employers down the road are all offering higher pay, job security, and benefits?  [/quote]

You're not just competing with publics. You're competing with every other job that talented and knowledgeable person could take. All my life people have looked at my academic credentials and told me I'm wasting my life as a "teacher." There's no question that I could be making more money in another career. I 'd likely even be happy in another career. But for me teaching was a calling and my middle class upbringing and employed and supportive spouse make it possible for me to follow that calling. Not everyone has that luxury or support. I think we lose male teachers because there's greater pressure to have the higher paycheck on them.

Over the 25 years I've been teaching, I've seen us lose so many talented and devoted teachers due to burn out, poor treatment, poor pay, etc. public and private. COVID hit the teachers of young students very hard, but it's not just covid and it's not just those teachers of young kids. Teaching needs to be one of the highest paid professions with competitive hiring. [b]Instead because of sexism[/b] and corporate greed, it is one of the lowest paid, despite the qualifications and experience that most of us have.[/quote]

I think you unraveled the knot we’ve all been picking at.

Most people posting here probably came up through schools in the 80s and 90s, when they were staffed primarily by women who graduated college anywhere between the 50s and 70s. My mom was a teacher, and although there were a handful of women in her age cohort and our neighborhood who were ad execs or doctors or research scientists, the vast majority of her peers were teachers (or admins who had started as teachers), executive assistants, feds, or in nursing. We had such talented teachers because women had far more limited options.

At my large public school, we had teachers all the way through HS when I graduated in 2000 who had been chemists, corporate execs, etc. before they had their children and could never get back into the workforce (this was before FMLA). We were really fortunate to have such a variety of talent in the classroom. But it was also taken advantage of and expected, and it set a terrible precedent for current teachers.

There are also plenty of unqualified teachers in the profession, and unfortunately they taint the reputation of those teachers who excel.[/quote]

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