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Billions Wasted on Teacher
Attrition |
 November
23, 2004
- I wonder how many people remember the commercial
where, in the beginning, children are shown talking about what they want to
be when they grow up. In the second half, a drug addicted adult is shown
while a voiceover questions how many of these children thought they’d grow
up to be a junkie. One has to wonder how many teachers ever envisioned
leaving their chosen profession because an administration would make it
completely unbearable to remain intact and true to oneself.
Most teachers enter the profession with a basic understanding that their
role is to get into the trenches and work with the kids six hours a day,
five days a week. Most teacher candidates assume that there will be some fun
in working with children and that there will be gratification in preparing
those children for their future. Those who look at teaching as a lifelong
career realize that teachers don’t move up in their profession unless they
actually leave the classroom. As a result, lifelong teachers are the
perpetual foot soldiers in a profession that has an overabundance of
officers leading the ranks.
Surprisingly, teachers who have accumulated many years of experience are not
seen as sources of good information about what works and what doesn’t.
Teachers can’t tell administrators what to do. Instead, administrators rely
on unsubstantiated studies published by those sitting in "ivory towers”
(these are the same institutions that show Michael Moore films and kindly
refer to his blatant propaganda as documentary). Much of the left leaning
pedagogy touted by
these university professors is about as far fetched as
Fahrenheit 9/11, yet teachers are supposed to implement their ideas without
question,
despite an infinite wisdom accumulated through years of lesson planning and
real world practice.
There are many qualified, though currently unemployed, teachers who could
probably fill some of the estimated 2.2 million teaching openings between
2000 and 2010. There shouldn’t be a need for so many school districts to do
so much recruiting at university job fairs. Evidently, teacher attrition is
becoming a big problem, though. School districts simply aren’t holding onto
their teachers. Therefore, funds that should be used to teach our children
are used to recruit and further educate teachers who keep leaving the school
districts at a cost of around $2.6 billion annually.
Schools of education blame the school districts for poor work conditions.
Others cite schools of education, who are graduating these eventual
failure/quitters, as the problem. These schools receive funding based on how
many students are enrolled and graduate, not based on how long these
graduates stay in their profession. It is suggested they are not screening
teacher candidates appropriately.
Neither of these scenarios is close to correct in outlining the reasons for
attrition. Many school districts are simply letting their teachers go –even
though it’s expensive to do so. True, schools of education are churning out
graduates and there are probably some who should not ever go into a
classroom. But school districts look for reasons to get rid of experienced
teachers. They cost more money. They get set in their ways because after
they figure out what works, they want to keep doing it. They don’t want to
be micromanaged. Now there is evidence.
There is a guidebook, drafted by the Department of Labor and sent to
principals, that "provides a step-by-step outline for rating teachers as
unsatisfactory, firing tenured teachers and school aides, and preventing
administrators' decisions from being overruled by a judge.” The NY
Department of Education doesn’t want any teacher to see this 61 page manual
that tells how to dismiss teachers without violating union rules.
No wonder the public school system perpetually needs more money. It is
expensive to recruit, hire and train new teachers every year. Eventually the
new recruits catch on. They leave on their own or they are dismissed. I
can’t imagine too many private industries could survive if they recruited
and trained their employees, only to let them go every few years. How can a
public school system?
Where The Public Schools Can Find $2.6 Billion
More-- Every Year.
http://www.educationnews.org/where-the-public-schools-can-fin.htm
NYC'S Secret Guide on Firing Teachers
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/34286.htm
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