American teachers in red states are walking away for good

In Idaho, they have doubled down that teachers can't hang "Everyone is Welcome Here" signs in their classes. The Boise school district is doing it anyway, lol

Good!  My great nephew is a middle school student in Boise,

Except that their answer will be that every day's lesson should "relate to the values of the Ten Commandments," or some similar sentiment. They're just gross.

Merge do you think things will turn around quickly when (yes, when!) the Repugnants are no longer in power in 183 weeks 03 days 18 hours 22 minutes 27 seconds (not that I'm counting) ? Or do you think it will it take a long time to recover the teaching positions lost? 


And if anyone wants a countdown clock to the inauguration of 48, get it here:
Inauguration Day for President 48

I'd get fired

Interesting I have always wanted to visit Scotland

thank you to each of you who is a teacher.

Oh, no doubt.

There are so many teachers currently with alternative licensures. They cannot find people to complete the teaching licensure programs.

The Republicans are some of the issue but there are A LOT of issues with teaching now, and some of them have been happening for years. I'll start my 32nd year this year and the difference between what it was like my first years and what it is like now are huge. For example, when I started we didn't have a high-stakes test every year that has its results published every year. And they find out (shocking) that test results are better for the schools in the higher socio-economic areas. But does that make the powers that be want to spend more on the less wealthy districts? Nope, we are going to punish these districts. The whole voucher situation being pushed is going to result in the more privileged kids going to private schools, leaving the have nots in public schools. And by have nots, I mean kids that are poor, kids that are not white, kids that have disabilities. So private schools are going to get to pick and choose who they want. So the only students left in public schools will be kids that are struggling with all kinds of situations in their life. So they will require more money to educate to help them with their difficulties. But the public schools are going to have less money because they will be siphoning tax money into private schools. So when the test results are published, it is going to make public schools look really awful. And so the cycle will repeat until the only thing left will be private schools and the "have not" kids will be shit out of luck.

Is a lot of it a Republican problem?Yes, but the high stakes tests have been happening through Democrat and Republican presidencies. A lot of this is a systematic problem, and not just a Republican problem.

My district is VERY Republican. I am very not. It makes me nuts. No matter who is president, however, my district will still be very Republican. It is just the make up of the population.

And I want to add one more thing (actually, I can write you a book about this). Students have changed because parents have changed. It used to be pro-teacher. Now we are often viewed as the enemy. So this also adds to the teacher shortage.

Also, the pay is really poor. My nephew and his best friend just graduated from college and got their first job. My nephew is an engineer and had a $75,000 starting salary. His best friend is a teacher. His starting salary is $45,000. So if you have a choice, which major are you going to choose?

I am so glad I'm retiring after this year. I feel bad though, about the kids that are stuck with this broken system and the teacher shortage.

It astounds me that there are people who hate public schools so much when the majority of students are educated in a public school. I am grateful that for the most part, we still get kids that respect the teacher and are engaged at school.

I would throw out testing. There has to be a better way to measure student learning. Not every student is the same. Many students don't care about the test. They just finish them to be done.

I don't know what the answer is, but the current public school system is floundering.

That wage gap gets exponentially larger with each passing year, too. The “automatic pay raise” scale in most school districts is pathetic. While conservatives like to bitch about teachers unions and how they “take advantage of the system” to raise pay and keep bad teachers employed, the truth is that most teachers are not covered by collective bargaining agreements. So while you might find some districts where veteran teachers are well-paid, I have only lived in one of them. It was a pretty blue district at the time and valued its teachers, but it went conservative several years ago, and teacher salaries have suffered.

In the meantime, the engineer will most likely receive merit-based raises and bonuses based on their own performance (as opposed to the performance of students who have little motivation to pass a test). They will also be able to move up when they change companies because other companies compete for talent. When was the last time you heard of a bidding war for a talented teacher? Or a teacher who could make an evidence-based argument for a raise due to superior performance?