Midwest Teacher

Posted on 8/04/09

8/4/09

"Did you know that 55% of teachers leave the profession
before 5 years of teaching"

"Tenure protects teachers and the students. If there was no
tenure, the school districts would fire teachers who began
to make too much on the pay scale to help save money,
regardless if they were excellent teachers or not."

Thank you for standing up for teachers. I am a young beginning
teacher, fresh out of college, licensed, who has been
substituting the past year. I do want to bring up my point of
view regardless of what Glenn Beck has said.

In my town, not a small one at that (300,000-400,000), friends
and families are already being hired and are working. There is
so much competition for teaching positions that unless you have
an "in", you will rarely get even an interview. And that is in
my city, not some small country town. An acquaintance of mine,
would've made a great teacher-very much into hands on lessons,
was hired only for a temp position when someone was pregnant. I
later learned that a daughter of a neighbor of a school board
member got a permanent position over my friend. The "buddy
system" or "good old boy" system is already greatly in effect!
Reminds me of the Jackson "Kitchen Cabinet" or of Grant
employing all his buddies.

We were always told the figure of 55% before five years.
However, no one can say with any accuracy why those teachers
really left the profession, or even if they did so permanently.
Lets be honest, the teaching profession is hard, very hard. It
is not something that anyone can just do and do well. You have
to "have the heart of a teacher" and a thick skin will help.
However, it may be wise for schools to want to get younger,
fresh, hands into the pot. If you think of a school as a
business, experience is great as long as they still bring
results. Unfortunately, I have met many who seem to be teaching
the same way as they did in 1975. With competition for openings
ever increasing, and demand for results increasing, schools may
want to energize their workforce. Not to mention a lot of the
time first year teachers are give the "worst" classes and
locations. That may have something to do with the number 55%.

I would never call anyone bad at their job without knowing the
details first. But I do know that I would make a great teacher
but I can not seem to find a permanent job. I want to get a
masters; however, if I do so I will most likely hurt my chances
of being hired right away (not to mention I can't afford it
because I'm not making a good salary). Maybe not, I've been
told both ways. I do know it's a struggle. Like any work force,
there are great, average, and bad. Either way it means you're
employed and I'm not. I think I would like to be considered
even a bad teacher if it meant I was teaching. And, lets be
honest again, Unions make it real easy to be bad at something
and still get paid.

The last point you made about pay and the summers. Teachers, at
least in my state and districts, get the choice of receiving a
paycheck monthly or in lump sums. Not only that, its is a
salaried amount which is supposed to reflect hours worked on
the job. So if you earn 50,000/yr and you have summers off, you
divide by 9 months not 12. Your 50,000 just became more
valuable because anyone else earning the same salary/yr would
most likely be working 12 months. Ive known many teachers who
had summer jobs, if they had time. To be honest, many teachers
have sports or other school functions that they participate in
during summer. However, most are paid extra for that work. It
just was not a strong point for you to bring up. However, I did
not hear/see what Beck said, so I may not know all the details
of your argument.

Thank you though for standing up for the profession anyways!
Teachers work hard and do more for society than we get credit
for. But if one can do great good, than it must be possible to
do great harm. That is why "good" teachers should be praised,
"bad" ones should be replaced.

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