In the month since Pelham Memorial High School in Westchester County advertised seven teaching jobs, it has been flooded with 3,010 applications from candidates as far away as California. The Port Washington District on Long Island is sorting through 3,620 applications for eight positions ”” the largest pool the superintendent has seen in his 41-year career.
Even hard-to-fill specialties are no longer so hard to fill. Jericho, N.Y., has 963 people to choose from for five spots in special education, more than twice as many as in past years. In Connecticut, chemistry and physics jobs in Hartford that normally attract no more than 5 candidates have 110 and 51, respectively.
The recession seems to have penetrated a profession long seen as recession-proof. Superintendents, education professors and people seeking work say teachers are facing the worst job market since the Great Depression. Amid state and local budget cuts, cash-poor urban districts like New York City and Los Angeles, which once hired thousands of young people every spring, have taken down the help-wanted signs.
My alma mater in Pennsylvania has a program by which you can opt-in to assist other alums with career advice and job-seeking. I received an email a couple of months ago from someone in the alumni office, asking if I’d be willing to communicate with an alum who was planning to move here to Texas for a teaching position and wanted some advice.
It wasn’t clear if he had secured a position here already or if he was planning to relocate first and then job-hunt. I told her that I needed to know the situation so I could respond appropriately. I also told her that if he didn’t have a job offer already, then he shouldn’t move here expecting to find a teaching position easily.
Ten years ago, Texas was crying for teachers and made it fairly painless to start a teaching career from another discipline. I know — I did it. What’s more, someone from the College of Education at the local university called and asked me to do it because of an English teacher shortage. They already had a list of principals who needed English teachers and were prepared to send me on interviews, even though I’d never taught or even expressed interest in teaching. I was an editor, and someone apparently suggested to them that I’d be a good candidate. Those days are GONE.
Teaching jobs are hard to come by now, even in Texas. Those in the north who think they’ll have an easier time of it here may be surprised. For starters, Texas has a stringent certification process and they will have to attain Texas certification. While they’re waiting, they could be eligible to teach on a probationary or temporary certificate but that may not make them attractive to schools that have openings. I know an experienced teacher who came here from Oklahoma to teach and, while they did hire her, they gave her just one semester to pass the Texas certification exams. She failed, and they fired her. It’s not enough to know your subject matter — you also have to understand the test biases and the Texas-preferred teaching strategies. She didn’t.
Partly due to the economy, the massive teacher retirements that were projected didn’t happen. People are working longer and marrying their jobs. Enrollment here does continue to increase in many cities but more teachers aren’t needed because class-size limits have been increased due to budget restrictions. Also, teachers are asked to teach more classes. I was teaching seven classes per day and two grade levels, including AP, plus the odd section of speech, if needed. It took an exhausting amount of lesson planning and preparation, let alone grading, but you do what is asked.
I never heard back from the alum who wanted to chat with me about teaching in Texas. My guess is that he didn’t have a job in hand and thought better of moving 2,000 miles before finding one. Smart choice.
I am currently in an Alternative Certification Program in Dallas. I passed my TExES in Business Education and Social Studies 8-12 and I have 6 years teaching experience at the college level and I am having a tough time finding anything. At the job fairs they have very few positions and many can’t post positions until after budget approval. The worst thing is that if I don’t find work by November, I will have to re-take the program! It’s tough out there.
Brian,
Have you done the internship year when you have to be mentored? I’m not sure if they still do it that way, that you don’t get your certificate until you’ve completed the supervised year. If that’s what you need, then try the private schools if you can live on a lower salary. The private schools tend to have more openings and higher turn-over because they pay substantially less. But make sure that they’re willing to provide a teacher mentor who will work with the ACP program.
I’m so sorry that you’re in this situation! Prayers and all best wishes!
“teaching salaries range from $50,000 to $134,000” – Hmm, maybe if they paid salaries more in line with reality instead of what the unions can squeeze out of schools for a 9 months a year job, they could hire more teachers. Cut out the bloated administrative and specialist staffs and you would have more money for classroom teachers. Cut out the ridiculous expenditures for things like electronic whiteboards and big screen TVs in every classroom, and laptops for all students starting in middle school and up and you have even more money available.
Thanks teatime! I do need to do my internship year. I am in Region 10 and will check the private schools. It has to be “program approved” but there are those in the program.
smart boards are pretty awesome for graphing, charts, making learning more interactive.
C’mon, what does a TV cost?
You want to get rid of specialists (special ed)? You have to change the law. It’s a democracy, which makes it your fault.
You’re most welcome, Brian! A good thing about teaching at the private schools is that you pay into Social Security and not the Teacher Retirement System. Frankly, TRS stinks, especially for second-career teachers who are starting to pay into it at an older age. The retirement formula works against that and, because teachers only get a portion of their earned Social Security benefits, you lose that way, too. Something to think about.
I did my internship year at a private school but eventually went on to teach at a public school. The salary difference was substantial, plus I wanted to work on my Master’s degree and the public schools/Educational Service Centers help you with tuition costs toward that endeavor. Still, private school teaching is a good transition into teaching. Just don’t expect smaller class sizes than public schools! Sheesh, they packed about 30 kids into each of my sections!
Hey Brian, I’m in the R10 TPC too, Gen. EC-4/ESL and I’ve been looking for a job for my internship for 2 years now. Most of the charter schools that are program approved are in Oak Cliff, fyi. I’d apply to those in a heartbeat but my husband doesn’t want me to work in that neighborhood and I don’t blame him.
If it’s close to you, check out rural school districts. None in the metroplex are hiring right now. GPISD is actually CLOSING three elementary schools this year and even though I have an “in” due to friends, Hell will probably freeze over by the time I get a job here.
Good luck!
[blockquote]“teaching salaries range from $50,000 to $134,000â€[/blockquote]
Wow, I wish teaching really paid that much…here, at least.
Teaching salaries should be enough to attract people from other disciplines such as medicine, law, and business. For those who think CEOs salaries are justified, the modest salaries of teachers are definitely more so.
I do wonder how many people could handle managing rooms of 30 kids all at once for 7 hours. Try managing 200 different teens.
It might help, however, to look at some of the extreme abuses of the pensions in a variety of places in the public sector, as well as examining the effectiveness of administrative positions.
Teaching salaries should be enough to attract people from other disciplines such as medicine, law, and business. For those who think CEOs salaries are justified, the modest salaries of teachers are definitely more so.
“I do wonder how many people could handle managing rooms of 30 kids all at once for 7 hours. Try managing 200 different teens. ”
Teachers receive more than family physicians and work less than half their hours. They do not buy malpractice insurance. They are overpaid
Excuse me, Clueless? You mean to say that family physicians make less than $38K? That’s what I earned as a teacher, for working 12-hour days. (7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the minimum in school, plus grading papers and lesson-planning when I got home.) You’re also expected to be club and class sponsors, so add in weekends supervising car washes and other fund-raisers, and working the concession stand at evening sporting events.
And don’t EVEN bring up the “teachers only work 9 months out of the year” nonsense. We went back in August before the kids started school and stayed until the first week of June, after they were done. Plus, we were on-call all summer — you had to be reachable. I always got sent to summer workshops, in-services, etc. and was often called in to teach summer sessions, too, or to fill in for a teacher who was ill.
I’m not complaining — I loved teaching and working with young people. I actually took a pay cut to do it. But anyone who thinks it’s easy and a financial bonanza needs a big dose of reality. Teachers in the union-heavy Northeast may get a better deal but most teachers in the rest of the country do not have powerful unions getting them big pay raises and such because collective bargaining is not permitted in their states. I belonged to the Texas Federation of Teachers and paid dues SOLELY for the liability and legal protection, in case someone raised false charges against me. So, yes, in that sense we DO need to have “malpractice insurance.”
Daniel:
RE: “teaching salaries range from $50,000 to $134,000â€.
I supose it is possible that, in wealthy states, salaries may approach your numbers. I have not heard of any. Pray enlighten me.
My sister-in-law retired after 35 years of teaching second grade. I do know that after 29 years her salary did crack $100,000.
In NH where both my wife and I teach/taught. I retired after thirty years of teaching a few years ago and my final years’ sa;ary was about $58,000. That included a stipend for being the Chairman of our Science Department and also included a $1,000 pa longevity stipend. I did not work for nine months -try ten teaching months and add to that a week of meetings and other classroom work at each end of the school year. Additionally, I took enrichment courses most summers.
It is now 6:19 pm here in NH. My wife (who teaches second grade) arrived at school around 7:30 this morning. I expect her to call me to say that she is leaving school in about 30 minutes. She will have worked a 12 hour day -not untypical for her. She also takes courses of one kind or another. This summer she will be taking one, perhaps two courses pertinent to her elementary teaching.
I am not sure where you got your nine months from.
Brian, I wish you all the very best in your job search. 🙂
Excuse me, Clueless? You mean to say that family physicians make less than $38K?
Compensation involves not just gross pay, but costs.
The cost of a family physician (after high school) involves
4 years of college (40,000-80,00 assuming a state school from home)
4 years of medical school (120,000-160,000 again assuming a state school from home (total debt 160,000 to 200,000)
3 years of working what is currently 80 hour weeks at 30,000/year (it was 110 hour at 14,000/year when I went through residency in the eighties)
Upon graduation if one sets up practice, one works 110 hours/week at 20,000 for the first 3 years, then reaching perhaps 50,000 to 80,000.
One takes on more debt to start the practice (usually about 120,000)
If one works for a hospital, starting salary is 60,000-80,000 for 110 hour weeks, however if you aren’t covering costs by 2 years, your salary will drop to zero, or you could end up owing the hospital.
It has been calculated that after subtracting for opportunity costs, and debt, a family physician catches up with the income of a UPS driver after 19 years of practice. (That does not include the costs of never seeing the sun, missing all your children’s games, and being paged every 2 hours every 3rd night, so you never feel rested.
A teacher, by contrast pays
4 years of college (40,000-80,00 assuming a state school from home)
He then receives 20,000/year for (if you say so) a 12 hour x 5 day week = 60 hours.
Teachers do not take call, they are off when their children are off, and the dues they pay are less than our CME costs, let alone our malpractice costs (which run about 10,000 for a family physician (100,000 for a surgeon)
So yes. Family physicians earn less than teachers. They also earn less than UPS drivers. Not to mention most folks with a solid blue collar trade.
Sorry, Clueless, but life is about choices. And to issue the statement that “teachers are overpaid” when most are barely making ends meet, many have to take summer jobs to support their families, and a lot have to hold their breath every year when contracts are issued, waiting to see if they’ll be laid-off or otherwise unemployed at the end of the school year is patently wrong. Any college-educated professional who goes into debt to serve the community/society should be able to expect a decent salary and quality of life. If you’re not, well, then you need to make some changes instead of asserting that other professionals are “overpaid” because you’re unhappy or don’t feel as if you’ve gotten a fair deal.
I’m not going to dispute or crunch numbers with you because it’s rather relative to one’s choices (programs, schools, location, etc.). I will, however, point out that you seem to think that teacher education ends with the initial bachelor’s degree — it doesn’t. I know I was far from alone in being requested to begin a Master’s program so I had more value to the district. So, I taught all day and attended evening classes until 10 p.m. a few nights per week, plus had all of the grading, lesson-planning, school activities, and my own grad. work to complete. You’re not alone in missing your kids’ activities and family time. Most service professions intrude on that.
The problem with the job market for teachers now, which IS the topic, is that it was decimated by the economy and the fact that it partly was created out of a real and projected shortage of teachers. Bright people, particularly in math- and science-related fields, eschewed teaching because of the poor pay and working conditions. These people, and other professionals who were working in the public sector, were recruited vigorously to bring their degrees and real, practical experience to the classroom. College students were steered toward teaching, and programs were created to forgive student loans if the students would be willing to serve for at least two or three years after graduation in rural, impoverished, or otherwise under-performing areas. (Similar programs provide loan forgiveness for students in the medical fields, too, btw.) Plus, in some parts of Texas, the districts were recruiting teachers from the Philippines (nurses, too), and shouldering the costs to bring them here. Then, the economy tanked.
Many good people who were sold on teaching, and who made personal and financial sacrifices to do so, are stuck. Brian and Grace here have weighed in on this. My heart breaks for them. It will be easier for young, recent grads to find a job outside of teaching, if need be, but those who are older, have families, and who were made to believe that a mid-career change to education would be a positive thing are now in limbo. And it’s a COSTLY limbo, too. A decade ago, I paid several thousand dollars to the University of Texas for the courses, books, fees and internship needed for alternative teacher certification, and I took a pay cut (from journalism) to become a first-year teacher. Teaching was rewarding, though, and I put more emphasis on personal happiness than money. But, if I had gone through that whole process and expense and was left unemployed, then I would have been devastated in every way.
And this is why I have a real problem with your snarky comment about teachers being overpaid. I’m sorry you have suffered for your profession but others have, as well, and they are facing some difficult times. They need support, not condescension.
[blockquote]Teachers do not take call, they are off when their children are off[/blockquote]
Not so. As teatime wrote, teachers are on-call (although not necessarily in the same sense, and many other jobs also require being reachable at all hours), and with conferences, lesson planning, in-service, enrichment courses, etc., they do not have the same off time as their children, although they do have more opportunities to spend time with their children than physicians.
I understand that family physicians in comparison may earn less for a time than teachers, but I think what most of us on this thread take issue with is your comment that teachers are overpaid. Physicians may be underpaid (especially with malpractice insurance costs), and to the most extent I would probably agree with that. However, if it weren’t for teachers, there wouldn’t be any physicians in the first place. 😉
darnit, each time I comment, I keep meaning to subscribe. argh.
“Sorry, Clueless, but life is about choices. And to issue the statement that “teachers are overpaid†when most are barely making ends meet, many have to take summer jobs to support their families, and a lot have to hold their breath every year when contracts are issued, waiting to see if they’ll be laid-off or otherwise unemployed at the end of the school year is patently wrong. ”
Well Duh. There are plenty of physicians (the younger ones with big debt) who can’t make ends meet, because not only are they paying on a 300,000 loan, but because if they have kids they need not only daytime babysitting but night time also. Being “on call” as a teacher does not mean that you leave your two year old alone at home while you run in to the shool at 3am to teach some kid how to read. Don’t make me laugh at your “call schedule”.
All docs who work for a hospital (the majority) have annual contracts. I learned 2 weeks before my new contract expired that there was a clause in it that required me to take part ownership of the hospitals 2 million dollar medical office building (the equivalent of taking on 200,000 mortguage). I chose to go without pay for afew months while I found a new job instead of signing, and taking on another debt.
And since everybody other than teachers expect to work during the summer “teachers having to take a summer job” earns no points from most nonteachers.
“Any college-educated professional who goes into debt to serve the community/society should be able to expect a decent salary and quality of life. If you’re not, well, then you need to make some changes instead of asserting that other professionals are “overpaid†because you’re unhappy or don’t feel as if you’ve gotten a fair deal.”
The problem is the debt. College has become a requirement, and college costs have soared far beyond the cost of living. THis is due to the Federal governments loan programs as well as the need for not for profit companies (like universities and hospitals) to not make a profit, which encourages big building programs.
There is no reason why would be teachers/lawyers/doctors/clergy/accountants can’t take examinations in all seat-work courses instead of taking the course itself. Teachers should (after demonstating their understanding of all courses by passing the exams) should do a 1-2 year in classroom apprenciceship. They would then graduate without debt,and they WOULD be able to make ends meet.
Similarly, medical students should be allowed to take exams placing them out of the first two years of medical school. THe last two are apprenticeships anyway (and none of the physicians who teach 3rd and 4th years get paid for it). There is no reason it should cost more than the cost of maintaining records and taking exams.
APprenticeships was how medicine taught her students before the Federal government insisted that everybody needed to go to an approved, medical school with x number of books in the library, who did research and had grants etc.
The federal government interferes with the various professions, because it is dependent on taxes on tuition and other fees to support its gigantic size, and the welfare state that keeps it in power.
The federal governments intereference and its collusion with the universities is what has caused the increase in prices, (and therefore tax revenues). This increase in prices (which translates as DEBT for graduates) is why neither teachers or physicians can “make ends meet”.
It is also why it is easier to import physicians from countries who pay for their own doctors, (or for that matter for their own clergy) etc than to train enough of our own, causing an artificial physician shortage. Folks who have college debt need higher salaries to service that debt. The higher salaries also increase tax revenues, even if they do not increase the recipients standard of living. Again this is why the Federal government prefers the present Byzantine situation.
But nobody has any “right” to expect a “decent quality of life” just because they went into debt with noble intentions. Teachers were suckers and so were physicians. I am encouraging most young people I know to go into the blue collar skilled trades like automechanic or plumber. That is what I would do, if I were 18 today. I’d probably see about getting a job in wastewater management.
[blockquote]Being “on call†as a teacher does not mean that you leave your two year old alone at home while you run in to the shool at 3am to teach some kid how to read. Don’t make me laugh at your “call scheduleâ€.[/blockquote]
I sincerely hope you did not leave a child that young home alone to respond to a call.
As for your attitude, Clueless, I strongly recommend you take teatime’s advice to be supportive of all professions instead of the rudeness you have shown here recently. For all of our sakes and out of respect for your fellow professionals (no matter what field). You have been driving this comment thread far off topic and are antagonizing those of us who are concerned about the original topic.
“I sincerely hope you did not leave a child that young home alone to respond to a call.”
Obviously not. However the cost of nocturnal child care for folks who actually take real call as opposed to telephone call is, like medical malpractice insurance a real cost that really needs to be paid for. It is one of the many hidden costs that teachers and other civil servants don’t have to pay. When my children were very young, I had a college student spend every third night at my home, and when they got older, they got used to doing their homework on my computer and sleeping on a mat in the back of the clinic. On rare occasions they have come in with me in the middle of the night, and slept on an ER gurney. It is one of the reasons that neither of my children wishes to be a physician, despite “really liking medicine”.
“As for your attitude, Clueless, I strongly recommend you take teatime’s advice to be supportive of all professions instead of the rudeness you have shown here recently.”
Ahem. There has been no shortage of attacks on medicine up until the passage of the so called “Health Reform Bill”. Teatime, Wilkins and yourself were cheering that one. I remember that quite clearly. Greedy physicians. Well, greedy teachers earn more by the hour, and work much less hard. I look forward to the “Reform” of the public service sector. It is long overdue.
Even though this thread is old and now WAY off-topic, I feel the need to respond to that charge. I don’t recall commenting on the Health Reform Bill and I am quite sure that I’ve never called physicians “greedy.” You can blame whomever or whatever for your attitude but, ultimately, it’s your own and I hope it’s not inflicted on your patients.
(Sorry, elves. I’m done.)
[blockquote]Ahem. There has been no shortage of attacks on medicine up until the passage of the so called “Health Reform Billâ€. Teatime, Wilkins and yourself were cheering that one. I remember that quite clearly. Greedy physicians. Well, greedy teachers earn more by the hour, and work much less hard. I look forward to the “Reform†of the public service sector. It is long overdue. [/blockquote]
Please, provide a link to the post where I commented as such. Otherwise, please refrain from false accusations, I also do not recall commenting on the Health Reform Bill or calling physicians greedy. In fact, performing several searches for the phrases you used in regards to mine and teatime’s comments yielded absolutely nothing. Your attacks on us are unwarranted, unfounded, and very disrespectful.