I work in foreign language, school starts in a couple of weeks, and a cursory search this morning showed over 40 Spanish teacher positions still advertised throughout the state, both urban and rural districts.

It’s at crisis levels in Colorado this year. It’s not getting better. (BTW that marijuana funding cannot go to teacher pay.)

There’s nothing unintentional about it. It’s an attempt to move to a corporate model where you pay workers less, and skim more profit (off the taxpayers’ backs) at the top, usually at dubious “management” companies.

Expect teaching positions to be farmed out to low-paid, often uncertified, and/or foreign contracted workers more and more to meet that profit objective. If I still had kids at school age, I’d be scared, frankly.

Is this still true as of this time the teachers shortage.

I wish I knew. I haven’t re-visited the subject.

Respect the professionals on the job. Trust in their work. Stop dictating from consultants who wrote the Common Core.

If you don’t do that, you’ll drive most of the qualified people out of one of the top three most important profession in the world.

I love that you are addressing this issue. It was really interesting to see what different states are doing, or not doing to address the teacher shortage.

I can only speak of my current experience as a newly graduated student teacher but CU Boulder has some incredible programs that bring undergraduates into the teaching profession. I cannot comment on what it is like being a novice/veteran teacher in Colorado.

CU Teach is a program for secondary math and science education and from the first semester I was working hands on in public schools. Kim Bunning was the fearless leader of the math section until recently she has retired. Once the program is completed, undergrads log around 500+ hours working with teachers in local schools. The networking is amazing and I get to observe and learn from excellent teachers.

Also, I take part in a program called Noyce Scholars which is funded by the Robert Noyce Foundation. I’ve recieved around $30,000 over the last four years to be part of a teacher research team that is composed of one novice teacher, a veteran teacher, and an undergraduate researcher. We have been researching growth mindset for the past three years (sidenote: we attended the MSM Conference in Santa Fe in the Spring and we won the train challenge and got props from you! Go Team Percy!! Go Carol Dweck!). With the money I was awarded, I committed to teaching five years in a “high needs low income” district. Which means a variety of things, especially in Colorado. Essentially, I get paid to conduct educational research and network with incredible educators and go to conferences all over the country. Pretty sweet.

Just wanted to add my perspective on what is going on in Boulder Colorado. I am lucky enough to be supported and surrounded with highly qualified teachers! Keep doing what you’re doing!

Something else I noticed: Edsource reported that San Jose Unified is removing the “years worked” cap from their salary scale. That’s a potential game changer. Lots of teachers are chained to their district because they’d have to take a huge paycut to move closer to home, or leave for a school with “easier” students–or move to a higher paying district.

If more districts remove the “years worked” capped, they’ve taken away a huge disincentive for teachers to change jobs. But what I anticipate in this case is a tremendous vacuum effect as the richer districts suck up all the experienced teachers who would otherwise stay put at low income districts. This could also be a big issue when schools start changing discipline policies (restorative justice, zero suspensions, etc). Freeing up teachers to move is a big deal.

They will lose tenure, but that again just means the teachers moving will be the strongest with the least to risk.

Loan forgiveness: I’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of $30K forgiven, with another $17.5K forgiven soon, so they tell me. It’s not a scam.

“A related issue that I’ve been wondering about is the effect of charter school expansion on teacher pay.”

The more interesting question I never see addressed is the effect of charter school expansion on teacher *scarcity.* Charters can cap. If a district has X students with z teachers at Y schools, then charters create Y + a schools, meaning z+b teachers. I made those letters up.

And you’re absolutely right this is H1B abuse. Barry Garelick wasn’t able to get a job. Lots of second career teachers have a tough time getting hired.

Go nationalism.

Driverless cars are likely to put millions out of work, for example. While I want a stronger safety net for the unemployed drivers, I welcome the technological progress.

But teaching isn’t a market like transportation is a market. The customer is unclear. (Is it the parents, the student, the administration?) What constitutes a gain is also unclear. With transportation, it’s easy: did I get from Point A to Point B, safely, at low cost.

In my view, the gain from these Filipinx teachers is compliance for administrators and depressed wages for parents (whose taxes pay the teachers). The students suffer and need legal protection.