Saturday, December 8, 2007

Educational Issue - Teacher Shortage

I find this issue very interesting. I am still within my first 5 years of teacher and so are many of my friends. We often have the same concerns about our career: it's not what we expected, we put way too much time into our days, the pay is less than other careers with the same education, our expectations keep changing and increasing, etc. Many of us have looked into other options just out of curiosity. We love working with the kids, but sometimes feel unappreciated and not as successful as we would feel in other fields. If it was just about working with the kids we probably wouldn't have these thoughts. I found it interesting that 20% of teachers in their first 5 years leave the profession and 50% of teachers that work in urban areas leave the profession within 5 years. I find this scary, because there are many great young teachers that have a tremendous amount of energy that they put into their job. I fear with all of the add expectations that people will begin to look into other fields. It seems as though this started shifting when No Child Left Behind was introduced?????

Teacher Shortage

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting article!!!
There have been many days I have envied the shelf restockers at Fred Meyers.
I agreed with your comments and the article. We will have a teacher shortage if the expectations and requirements continue to rise while the pay and appreciate diminish. One of my very talented collegues is going to quit before she has to start the pro cert process. After finishing her masters five years ago and still paying for it, she claims she is not about to spend more money and time on another program.

Debbie's said...

It is sad to think about those statistics. When I speak with some of the newer teachers and I hear frustration in their voice I often wonder if they will stay. This is sad that I even think about that. We do have a great work schedule, but if teachers are having to spend time in the evenings, on the weekends, and taking classes, it gets to be too much. In little ol' Woodland I get reimburssed $300 per year for classes. That covers 3 of my 5 elective credits for this program.