If the common worker is going to lose out to H1B’s, why can’t teachers?
May 27, 2015: Provision slipped into budget dilutes teacher license rules "Anyone with a bachelor's degree could be hired and licensed to teach sixth- through 12th-grade English, math, social studies or science in Wisconsin under a provision slipped into the state budget proposal by a Republican lawmaker.
And any person with relevant experience — even a high school dropout — could be licensed to teach in any other non-core academic subject in those grades, according to the provision."....
"Strangely, it all started with No Child Left Behind. School systems everywhere scrambled to find certified teachers in math and science. East Baton Rouge Parish, La., was no exception. Administrators didn’t know where to turn. Then they met Lourdes Navarro, a Filipino-American whose company, Universal Placement International, advertised high-quality teachers from the Philippines.............
It’s been a lucrative business since 2001, when a California-based agency supplied some of the first Filipino teachers to Boston Public Schools. They were considered so important that the late Senator Ted Kennedy intervened to get their visas before the school year began.
Since then, more than 60,000 H-1B visas have been approved for school teachers, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data. There are 600 Filipino teachers who paid up to $8,000 each in fees to work in Baltimore schools. In El Paso, two school administrators were sentenced to probation for their role in a human trafficking case in which 273 Filipinos paid $10,000 apiece for teaching jobs, but arrived to find fewer than 100 positions available.
In East Baton Rouge, at least, the story has a happy ending. With support from the American Federation of Teachers and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cruz and her colleagues sued Navarro and won $4.5 million. Navarro claimed bankruptcy, so they don’t expect the money. But the verdict means they are free. They don’t owe her anymore....."