Teachers On the Run

Finally, someone is paying attention to the teacher shortage. A series of articles in the NY Times on the teacher crisis finally has everyone, now, talking about how there are not enough teachers and how the good ones get frustrated and leave. Well, yes.

The numbers have showing that we have a crisis for years now. It's like the crisis in the insurance industry---all the signs were there, all the bad tendencies, why did it take a crisis of this proportion before anyone started paying attention? The issues aren't exactly new. Teachers are paid badly, work too hard, and often have intense working conditions, stressful and sometimes dangerous. Add to that the kind of surveillance on which Leave No Child Behind educational policy is based, where school districts are penalized with funding cuts if kids don't score well on standardized tests, and you don't exactly have a lot of incentive for teachers. Sadly, it is the best ones who leave. Is it any wonder that more and more kids are being homeschooled, sent to private school, or drop out? We need an overhaul from the bottom up and (even more important) from the top down. Amen!

NY Times article on recruitment