Reply #38: Wrong. There has NEVER, EVER been a real "shortage" of teachers nationally

[tonysam]

It is a lie created by the media and fostered by the school districts. School districts have LIED about it for years--THAT'S the issue. Colleges of education have fostered the lie in order to get more money. But what happens is when students graduate after taking on piles of debt, they can't get jobs, and what jobs there are to be had in school districts in their geographical area are invariably given to nepotisms. They are relegated into a slave caste called "substitute teachers" and can do it for ten years or more before getting a position. These substitute "jobs" have rotten pay and no benefits. The years substituting typically don't count at all towards seniority or "teaching experience" on the "step system" for salaries.

Nepotism in public employment is a form of corruption. You have ENTIRE FAMILIES working for a school district, and their jobs are like hereditary titles, with these jobs being passed down from generation to generation. It should fucking ILLEGAL to hire relatives in school districts, but the way to stop this is to convert the entire public education hiring system into a civil service system where hiring is based on test scores and experience--not on "who you know." Our "reformers," however, aren't interested in real reform of the system.

What there has been is a massive problem with oversupply of teachers in most areas of the country and undersupply in a few others. Pension laws and stupid licensure regulations make sure teachers don't relocate to other states where they could be needed. If you are let go from one state, you have to literally start all over again in another, beginning with their stupid licensure laws. Even if you have 20 or 25 years teaching experience, you have to pay--out of your pocket--money to take stupid tests you shouldn't have to take. States like California make you go through a whole series of hoops to get licensed. Furthermore, pensions are not portable.

The bellyaching by school districts of shortages in urban districts is the biggest lie of all. The working conditions for teachers there are abominable, but the worst abuse of teachers by principals is in these very districts where in the past administrators have whined they can't find teachers. Oh, they're there, all right, and principals make sure they shitcan these teachers for bogus reasons or deny them tenure because there are literally hundreds of people standing in line to take their jobs.