<< Hmmm. Right now on the west coast of Canada there is a big recruitment drive for elem/high school teachers to work in New York City and Las Vegas, offering 40-60K per annum, signing bonus and time to study for a Masters degree. Is there really a teacher shortage in these districts or are state bureaucrats looking for scabs? What's going on? Leo?
Sam Pawlett >>
The shortage is real, and it is nationwide, although it shows up most dramatically in a differential way. We are also on the upward curve of the shortage, so it will get worse before it gets better.
The basic problem here is that American teaching has a disproportionate number of older, early 'baby boomer' types who are approaching retirement. It also looses a very high percentage of its new recruits -- over 50% during the first five years of teaching. This is because new teachers are very ill-prepared by schools of education, and do not have the skills -- or once they are on the job, the support -- to do a very demanding and difficult job.
The crisis presents itself in a differential way because: (1) some subject areas such as Math and Science face competition from industries with much higher wages and better working conditions, (2) suburban school districts offer better wages and working conditions that urban and poor rural school districts, so they have a competitive advantage in a diminishing pool. (3) the highest drop out rate of new teachers is found in the urban school districts with the lowest pay and worst conditions.
Thus, the shortage is more keen among, for example, math teachers in inner city schools, although it is felt generally. The signing bonuses and such are just school districts trying to maximize their share of that diminishing pool. NYC's situation is particularly desperate because as many as 13,000 active teachers could retire this June, given the failure of Giuliani to move in the contract. That would be an educational disaster. [It takes a minimum of 2 to 3 years for a teacher to become really competent in the craft, and with so many of the older teachers leaving, you have many fewer to mentor the new ones.]
I don't really worry about efforts to hire potential scabs. For one, with a total active workforce of close to 100,000 in the UFT [not only classroom teachers, but also guidance counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals < "teacher assistants">, secretaries and more] , there is no way you could even make a dent on a strike that had strong solidarity. And if you don't have solidarity, scabbing will come from within the ranks. For another, I don't see how the Board will be able to replace the retiring teachers for September, much less recruit potential scab replacements. In a smaller school district, of course, we are talking a very different story.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
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