Posted on 10/07/2019 9:28:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When Joevie Alvarado became a teacher, she never expected to teach American students 7,600 miles away.
But a dire shortage of US teachers means some schools are taking drastic measures -- like hiring teachers from half a world away.
"For the first year, it's a little bit of a struggle because I'm the kind of person who misses family that easily," said Alvarado, who taught for a decade in the Philippines before moving to Arizona.
But "in terms of pay, let's just say my previous pay was multiplied by eight or 10 when I got here," she said. "So having that kind of pay, it enticed me to be here."
Some parents may be surprised to learn their children are now being taught by international teachers.
Tom Trigalet, who was principal at Casa Grand Union High School when Alvarado was hired, said there's not much choice.
"When you really don't have any other applicants, how are you going to fill those spots?" Trigalet said. But hiring teachers from overseas is only a temporary fix to a widespread problem.
A nationwide crisis
Across the US, schools are hemorrhaging teachers while fewer college graduates enter the profession.
In 2018, the US had an estimated shortage of 112,000 teachers, according to the Learning Policy Institute.
Arizona alone had 7,000 teacher vacancies going into this year, said Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association.
Some of those vacancies are filled by people who don't have a standard teaching certificate, he said. Others are being plugged by long-term substitutes, contracted agencies or teachers who must add an additional course to their day.
So schools like Casa Grande Union High have hired several Filipino teachers using J-1 visas. Those visas allow teachers to stay in the US for up to five years.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Import illegals to fill the classrooms, and then import teachers who speak their language. That makes sense in a warped way.
I speak with first hand experience on this particular issue. Schools will hire retired people; however, one still must get a teaching certificate in order to teach. A person can teach in Georgia on a permit for three years, and that permit can be renewed if there is evidence of coursework toward certification. A certificate is equivalent to a master's degree. That represents a great deal of work for a retired person.
At any rate, I taught Embedded Computing (Computer Science) at the local high school for three years. I enjoyed working with the students, and all of mine were actually interested in the course. The trouble is, high schools systems are bound to state standards, which were clearly written by someone who didn't know anything at all about computers, programming languages, or electronics. The schools don't believe what I tell them or are unable to react because most assume that a PhD in Education knows more about computers than someone who made his living actually working projects for 47 years. (It is actually much more complicated than this.) Now get this: Computer Science courses are clumped together with sewing, culinary arts, and marketing rather than physics, math or engineering. I couldn't even have functional peers in a teaching team.
There is no way to teach difficult subjects in high school until the education system is sacked and rebuilt from scratch.
You only imagine that teachers unions have some strength. They don’t. I’ve been there, have you?
We do need that, for sure. Teachers are, however, not really the root of the main problem. The main problems revolve around Federal, state and local content standards; rules regarding discipline, grading, and attendance; and parents who sue the school because their babies can’t make the grades or are somehow made to feel poorly about themselves.
“They could hire retired people from the private sector”
DH is PhD in hard sciences but can’t teach school in TN without getting a special certificate. He does tutor some kids at church in Science and Math, and the stories they tell about their Neanderthal teachers are scary.
I was a college professor for 15 years with an MA and doctoral credits in education, yet I would have to take another two years of rinky dink undergraduate class in order to be certified to teach high school classes. Hardly worth my time.
At my daughter’s high school the best teachers she had were filipinos, who were much more traditional, probably because of being raised Catholic or some such.
I would imagine, in addition to the H1B deal, that many teachers are tiring of the commie curriculum they are required to use. Not all teachers are the devil. One of kids had a math teacher who taught old school math instead of the convoluted crap they’re trying to confuse them with now.
Increasingly, the classrooms are becoming politicized. I imagine there are many teachers who just want to teach and go home instead of dealing with that crap in addition to unruly or violent students they aren’t allowed to kick out of class because “muh racism”.
Well I was trying to be funny when they said they wanted to import teachers from overseas. Guess I have to watch my humor in the future.
TEACHER SHORTAGE!!! I wonder why? unruly students are not arrested after assaulting teachers and other students because of the color of their skin, 3 NYC teachers filed a lawsuit on racial discrimination because they are white. We all know a teacher or two or three in our family and friends and they have similar stories to tell, that’s why the shortage
WTF is the USA not hiring AMERICANS? It is epidemic in the tech industry as it is.
Here in Canada the situation is strange. In BC the starting wage is $48,000 in the public system but $60,000 plus in neighbouring Alberta. Yet, there are more teachers than jobs in BC. Can’t make sense of it. The pay is crap yet people still go to school to train as teachers.
Regardless of anything else, filipinos are generally strong teachers with a good work ethic and they are very creative in the classroom (think decoratively).
And NYC has been on a campaign since Bloombutt to get rid of their veteran teachers in favor of brand new college grads, as the latter cost 1/2 what the former do, and the baby teachers don't have tenure. This includes tossing science and math teachers who had been successful in teaching their subjects for many years, leaving no one around in the science or math departments to mentor the newbies. All the present NYC Bored of Ed is concerned with is diversity, equality, and making sure every school has the PC number of blacks, hispanics, Asians and whites attending, no matter what neighborhood they're in.
excellent perspective, I agree that it’s a hard nut to crack which is why I support school choice with a different management style.
Competition will crack the system wide open, but there needs to be incentives for vouchers. I do not believe reform of public schools is possible.
Yep. It’s on purpose. When you grab a canvas painting and want to put a new painting on it, the first thing you do us use a broad brush to paint the whole thing white, giving your new painting a fresh start.
Different times call for different paradigms. In an age where a country’s strength is in the size of its population, and there were no government handouts, we welcomed all comers with open arms. “Illegal immigration” was not a thing. And in a time when we needed an educated population to compete on the world stage, and books and education could be a challenge, we offered government financed education for the masses.
But we are in a different world now. Both needs have changed drastically. And the latter can be done easily and for free by any parent, while the public schools do it at a cost of five digits per year per student and, often, do a TERRIBLE job of teaching and a WORSE job of socializing.
Tax payer funded schooling needs to be eliminated.
Can just any parent teach calculus, physics, chemistry, or computer science? No. Can they get help? Only if they know how to seek those answers, and then explain their findings to their child.
Most parents cannot handle the heavy stuff.
A canned course is nowhere near the same as having someone who can answer specific answers right on the spot. I know for a fact that teachers of a local online computer course cannot answer certain classes of questions.
Have you tried Khanacademy? It’s not canned in the way we used to see canned. I’ve tried it to learn things myself. It’s quite amazing. And unlike a teacher in a classroom where, sometimes kids have questions but are embarrassed to ask, with Khanacademy you can rewind and replay until you “get it”.
I actually think it is BETTER than a classroom in a public school.
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