There appears to be some disagreement whether there is a teacher shortage in New York City. Sure, there is a shortage of ESL, Math, Science, and Special Education teachers, especially in the high poverty communities in the Bronx and Brooklyn. However, in those schools many of these shortages areas are covered by uncertified teachers in that subject and the DOE looks the other way Since its not about what's best for the students.
For the rest of the subjects, like English, Foreign Language, Physical Education, Social Studies, and the Arts (Art, Music, Technology) there is no teacher shortage. New York City is a magnet for newly minted teachers from the rest of the country due to higher salaries, a vibrant City lifestyle, and fringe benefits like a pension and health benefits. For example, come June 16th 2018, the minimum teacher salary is $56,711 for a "newbie", with no classroom experience. Compare that to the average starting teacher salary nationwide is $36, 141 and the maximum is $64,820, compared to New York City's $119,565 and you can see that New York City is a mecca for "newbies"..
Of course, 50% of these "newbies: will be leaving the NYC public schools within 5 years and only 33% will ever last long enough to be vested for a pension and even less for retiree health benefits. Moreover, 80% of these "newbies" will leave their hiring school before they achieve tenure. The numbers I have cited was primarily based on Tier IV teachers and before there was a teacher evaluation system, complete with the punitive Danielson rubric. Therefore, I suspect there will be even less Tier VI teachers making it to their 10-year vesting period for a pension and even less for the 15 years for retiree health benefits.
The DOE policies encourage the recruitment of "newbie" teachers by their "fair student funding" formula, the teacher excess policy, and their encouragement to hire the most inexpensive teachers for schools. What about the children you say? The DOE cares little about high teacher turnover, an unstable school environment, and large class sizes. Their policies are not geared to retention but recruitment and its up to the schools to deal with teacher dissatisfaction and in turn, hurts student academic achievement.
Add to the retention issue the much weakened student discipline policy and low teacher morale and you have the ingredients for failing schools and a transient teaching staff and a major reason for a school system in chaos.
15 comments:
Hey Chaz. Big fan, but as a physical education teacher in NYC since the 1990's there actually is a teacher shortage right now for certified PE teachers. Newbies come to NYC to teach for a year or two and then head off to the subrubs so they don't have to deal with 50-100 students in a class and be rated under the BS new evaluation system. Also, NYC is hiring 500 brand new elementary PE teachers because the DOE wants to put certified PE teachers in all elementary schools. Many of these newly hired elementary PE teacher are being fast tracked right now as I type this via a new program where the city helps get their PE license and they go though an internship that began in April. However, as always, many of these folks will be out of here once they realize the hardcore reality of teaching hundreds of kids per day in the sardine cans that are our NYC public schools.
I think Deblasio and Carmen Farina actually believe that the smiling children sitting at their desks doing work when they visit schools is the reality in most schools in New York City. Truth be told, those are dog and pony shows and real teachers know it. While there are a few 'good' schools filled with white and Asian high achievers, most schools are filled with challenging minorities, immigrants from south of the border who are mostly illiterate and various entitled groups who see education as a secondary concern to their self-esteem grandstanding.
With all the cell phone usage, disrespect, lack of achievement that we have to ignore to pass them anyway and the lack of support from punitive principals who use Danielson's like a cudgel to beat us - this environment just isn't for most nice suburban do-gooders who saw Freedom Writers once and thought that it was a true story. We educators know that it only had a slice of actual truth with a ton of Hollywood license.
Turnover at my first school was 50% per year. In my second we love about 15% of the staff, mostly because (and many teachers have said this) they would rather teach low-skilled immigrants than American minorities who come with violence. I do not know who they will get to teach ten years from now when the schools will be even worse!
Can't wait to see a teacher shortage because they have allowed the targeting of veteran teachers. Now the tables are turning. Our Unuon is si useless and out of touch.
I see kids as kids, some are jerks, some are ok and some are great. Race, ethnicity and all the other bs shouldn't matter to us. Teachers should be color blind. I'm always amazed that some teachers view kids this way. I hope and think it's a small minority, but you guys are giving us a bad reputation. Ten years from now none of this will matter and lots of us will be dead - try to be better people.
How can you say the kids get screwed with inexperienced teachers Thenstudents must be learning as they are passing their classes and graduating in record high numbers. Of course they are completely unprepared for college and life but why would the DOE care about that.
I'll say one thing for sure: IF the NYS Constitutional Convention actually happens and my pension is messed with, I am out of this system faster than sh*t through a goose.
The exorbident cost of living and problems finding decent housing at prices that are affordable to teachers, is also driving people out. If this is their first job, they will get some experience but they are paying top dollar rent and student loans. Many have roommates but this is unsustainable as a long term solution. Housing costs also contribute to retention issues. Once the newbies see that this career is not viable, they leave (and I not blame them.). One interesting fact, twenty years ago, most teachers were in relationships and lived in a purchased house. The home was not in Manhattan but in a commutable place. Now, most of the teachers I meet are single and very few are in relationships. And they all live in rental housing. No one lives in a purchased house. Those who live in some permanent housing are usually from mid 1990's to early 2000's. Thus, housing costs will eventually drive all teachers out of NYC.
The high turnover was the plan of the Bloomberg administration and continues today. Teachers serve for short periods of time and move on. It is somehow linked to saving on medical and pension plans in the future. The problem is that there are many people who have a love for teaching, are talented, and plan on making teaching their career.
The UFT should do all it can to support new teachers by making sure they are fully licensed people in the subject area they are teaching, have mentoring programs, and have practices in place where administration and UFT help new teachers grow and learn best practices.
That would mean we need administrators who have real classroom experience (master teacher), came up through the ranks, know the discipline area they are observing, and recognize the importance of supporting new teachers!
There is only a PE teacher shortage at the elementary level because they never had an elementary school PE license in the city until they just made everyone K-12 to match up with the rest of the state, it used to be either HS or JHS. Many city elementary schools either have a common branch teacher teaching PE, no PE, or the classroom teachers just takes them to the gym once a week. There new PE program is not even needed, there are thousands of PE teachers in the suburbs looking for jobs as well as many ATRs. But, what bothers me the most is that some of these people doing the PE program will get placed at good schools in Queens ahead of people like me who are trying to transfer to a better school. It took me 5 years to get into the system after I graduated because of that infamous hiring freeze.
Chaz I have a great idea for the DOE regarding the ATRs. While most ATRs have been stable at one school this past Spring, term 2, then why not have all ATRs stay at their current schools for next year?? Survey the principals and if they want to retain the ATR they can, if not then reassign.
This would simplify the situation and everyone would be happy. Any thoughts out there from other atrs??
What 6:36 is so true. Most new teachers I see in my school are young, single or dating and unmarried. All of them rent and many have roommates. This is so different from just 20 years ago when many teachers were married and owned their own homes. I wonder if this has an effect on their teaching. I do know that the young newbies all listen to rap music (regardless of race), love to go to bars (they talk about it all the time) and most consider themselves social justice warriors, even though they don't live in the crappy neighborhoods they commute to.
The UFT is useless and corrupt. By agreeing to discriminatory policies against veteran teachers, they are creating a shortage.
They did not target enpugh veteran teachers.
Dwarka likes to hire young teachers, while she ruins the reputation of older teachers and our Union helps her.
The average age of a New York State teacher is 48 years old. The recruitment of prospective teachers by colleges has dropped 40 percent. The state has also relaxed the rules for prospective teachers to be certified because of a looming shortage. One may think that with these facts, departments of education across the State should focus in retaining the teachers they have now, and not getting rid of them.
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