If I were a teacher in public schools today, I would be looking for a landing zone outside the public school business.
Counting down 1 year to retirement :)
I'm a free agent able to sell my labor to the highest bidder. There is a lot of competition among teachers to get a job in the “good” suburban high paying districts so those districts get the most qualified teachers. Most teachers aren't interested in working in an inner city school, the pay would have to be much higher to overcome the metal detector factor.
Good luck getting a higher math or science teacher to go if assigned against their will to Michael Brown's high school. Not that he was taking those classes, he was taking the computer based classes we put kids that can't behave in a regular class or need the really dumbed down computer curriculum because they can't pass regular classes.
“If I were a teacher in public schools today, I would be looking for a landing zone outside the public school business.”
A friend of ours was a public school teacher for over 20 years. She abruptly quit and went to work at a Catholic school. Interesting facts:
She’s not Catholic
She took over a $15k per year pay cut
She has to teach more classes
Why? As she explains it, the answer is simple. At the Catholic school, somebody starts acting up in her class and they are OUT. Gone, bye-bye, adios. In public school it was total chaos in the classroom with nothing that could be done about it. Or as she says, “I’m actually teaching again.”
If a governor had any backbone she or he would respond as follows:
“We will take up this issue as soon as the President, every member of Congress, every cabinet secretary, and every senior administration official has enrolled their children in the local public schools.”