Gone, Teachers, Gone
The latest edition of the NEA teachers magazine arrived in today's mail. Its feature article is about teacher retention. It notes that teachers, especially almost 50% of the new-ish teachers, leave prior to spending five years in the classroom. Why, you may wonder?
Lack of administrative support. Administrative folly. Lack of a living wage. Lack of respect. Lack of supplies. The problems with NCLB. Most of this is the usual stuff that the education community has cried about the past 15 or more years. What was not mentioned were the small percentage of new-ish teachers who put in a little bit of time in the classroom on their way to educational administration jobs.
So, same old story. Nothing has changed. Why Not ? My take on it is until the job is respected, until the politicians get out of the educational business, until the huge waste of educational dollars for non-teaching jobs is addressed, until the notion of having an education is valued, not much will change. I wish the federal government would get out of education; what part of the Tenth Amendment do our Federal executive and legislative leaders not understand ?
One thing I noted in the story, was that NEA declares their concern for this issue, and wants you to go to their website to see how well NEA has helped resolve this issue of teacher retention.....Lets see, I doubt it will say anything about NEA muscle forcing legislators to provide automatic COLA adjustments to teachers, just like Congress and Federal employees and many members of real unions get (such as the Correctional Workers Union here in California), or how they have made Congress stop penalizing teachers who also paid into Social Security when they retire ( If you earned a retirement check from a State Teachers Retirement System, you will not be allowed to receive your earned allotment of social security, even if you have paid into the s.s. system. )
Hope you're enjoying your Spring Break !
Thanks for reading my blog. Comments and suggestions for retaining teachers and making life better for us old-ish teachers are welcome.
Lack of administrative support. Administrative folly. Lack of a living wage. Lack of respect. Lack of supplies. The problems with NCLB. Most of this is the usual stuff that the education community has cried about the past 15 or more years. What was not mentioned were the small percentage of new-ish teachers who put in a little bit of time in the classroom on their way to educational administration jobs.
So, same old story. Nothing has changed. Why Not ? My take on it is until the job is respected, until the politicians get out of the educational business, until the huge waste of educational dollars for non-teaching jobs is addressed, until the notion of having an education is valued, not much will change. I wish the federal government would get out of education; what part of the Tenth Amendment do our Federal executive and legislative leaders not understand ?
One thing I noted in the story, was that NEA declares their concern for this issue, and wants you to go to their website to see how well NEA has helped resolve this issue of teacher retention.....Lets see, I doubt it will say anything about NEA muscle forcing legislators to provide automatic COLA adjustments to teachers, just like Congress and Federal employees and many members of real unions get (such as the Correctional Workers Union here in California), or how they have made Congress stop penalizing teachers who also paid into Social Security when they retire ( If you earned a retirement check from a State Teachers Retirement System, you will not be allowed to receive your earned allotment of social security, even if you have paid into the s.s. system. )
Hope you're enjoying your Spring Break !
Thanks for reading my blog. Comments and suggestions for retaining teachers and making life better for us old-ish teachers are welcome.
posted by Dan Edwards | 5:09 PM
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