Can breadlines be far behind?
Immigration bill gets support – Metropolitan – The Washington Times, America’s Newspaper — How about H1B’s and outsourcing some of the Iraq war to India and China? Send them over there to prove their worth.
Local universities and technology alliances have thrown their support behind federal legislation that would make it easier to bring in highly skilled teachers and workers from India and China.
A Senate budget bill on the floor Monday included provisions that would exempt spouses and children of highly skilled immigrant workers from counting toward the annual 140,000 cap on green cards, allowing the government to issue employment-based visas to 90,000 more workers than in the past.
The measure would help fill the demand for technology workers and reduce the backlog of applications from India and China, where those now being accepted applied at least four years ago.
Why would anyone want to teach?
First, the pay is low. Very low. I have a friend who worked at UPS while obtaining his teaching degree. After graduating he realized that he’d have to take a 50% pay cut to work in a public school. He simply could NOT justify it.
Second, teachers get no respect or support from their students, the administration, or from parents. Who could work under such conditions? I once overheard a parent yelling at a teacher over the low grade her daughter received in English: “Why does she need to learn English anyway?”
The main reason private schools succeed where public schools fail is because private schools can remove students who don’t want to learn. Thus, public schools are stuck with students who don’t want to be there, parents who don’t give a damn, and administrators who only want to make the parents happy. These students drag down the system to a point where no one can learn a damn thing.
Can you imagine a system would you could NOT ever fire an employee for any reason AND you had to hire any person who lived in your area?! Of course you’d go out of business pretty quickly. Thus it’s no surprise that our schools are heading in the same direction.
As someone who holds a B.S. in Network Engineering and is almost done with a Masters’ in Technical Eduation I would disagree with “Ima Fish”.
There ARE public school districts where teachers are respected, students want to learn and teachers are supported. Just because this isn’t the case everywhere it doesn’t mean that it exits nowhere. The pay certainly doesn’t equal what you can make in industry but it’s not the lowest you’ll see and job security is really quite high so there’s a tradeoff, whether that’s fair or not is another issue.
Regarding your reasons that private schools succeed because they can remove problem students. It is true to an extent, but any EdPsych class worth much should be teaching you about how to make what we call an “institutional enviornment” workable. it’s never going to be the same as a private school, but it is workable.
You made a comment that said stuff, but I’m still looking for a better, specific and realistic solution to the problems you have described. Eg. teacher pay? It comes from taxes but who wants to raise those? Not usually the people that get elected…
The average teacher salary is about $35 an hour.
“There ARE public school districts where teachers are respected, students want to learn and teachers are supported.”
And I’d guess that those are the schools that will not be insourcing. Expect it to be done initially in poor schools.
“The average teacher salary is about $35 an hour.”
The average means nothing when you consider that the STARTING salary is less than 30 grand a year.
Wow, those number you guys mention are so low. The high school I attend, the starting salary is more like 60,000 and some even make 100,000+ [after tenure]. We have a good school and the students respect the teachers. I guess those numbers are just what a lot of the schools are like.
Ima Fish: “Why would anyone want to teach?”
believe it or not, some teachers actually do it to see children grow confident and start thinking for themselves. to feel like they’re making a positive difference in the world. i’m married to one such teacher, and i’m in awe of her passion.
When the aerospace industry went south back in the late 80s-early 90s, I went in to teaching to feed the family. It was a rural school in Arizona and my starting pay was just shy of $23,000, just about half of what I was making in aeospace. I did it for two years — crap pay, long hours, extracurricular duties, parent conferences, etc. Except for the holidays,it was hell on earth. My marriage failed, we sold the house and I left the country. When I came back in 1999, good jobs were available again and I got one, thank God, because I’d rather live in a cardboard box than go back to teaching.
I’m still trying to find the shortage of IT workers and teachers. Where I live, tech workers and teachers are being laid off, and what few job openings are out there pay less than the old jobs.
Most of the IT jobs I’ve been recruited for in the last month represent anywhere from a 35-40% pay cut. I was complaining about that to a buddy of mine who’s a mechanical engineer, and he said he got the same complaint about an offer he gave an interviewee that week.
Since there’s a surplus of this type of worker in Missouri, why not try bringing Missouri workers in? That would make sense if this were about worker shortages. But it’s not. This isn’t about worker shortages. It’s about wage deflation, period.
AB CD – You’re dead wrong.
Exclude universities and its about $26,000 to $35 ,000 a year, with the southern states being the lowest.
The American Federation of Teachers lists the average salary for 2004 at 46600 per year. For 2003, the starting salaries ranged from 23000 to 37000 in Alaska.
Well, the AFT always cites higher numbers. Their job is to promote teaching and push for higher numbers.
In California, incoming teachers make under $30k and, private schools, try and pay UNDER $24k. There are no shortage of teachers…..even though office receptionists and dog groomers make more money.
I can’t see why we need to import teachers…..makes no sense, unless it’s part of some larger plan to destroy the country.
I am a teacher. And I am just finished with grading papers. So I visited Mr. Dvorak as usualy to “learn” something else. I find this story alarming… only because our government chooses to give incentives to non-Americans to fill American jobs. Outsourcing has led to this. Insourcing. It is outrageous.
As for the comment of: “The main reason private schools succeed where public schools fail is because private schools can remove students who don’t want to learn. Thus, public schools are stuck with students who don’t want to be there, parents who don’t give a damn, and administrators who only want to make the parents happy. These students drag down the system to a point where no one can learn a damn thing.”
I find it very ironic that a former student just visited me and explained that the new private school she is at stinks because there are so many kids there that the public schools kicked out. She said it’s not about the Christian values she and her family thought it would be about – because most of the kids aren’t Christian.
Ironic.
I love public schools and what they stand for. But, they won’t stay standing unless citizens demand that there are improvements made. Give incentives to Americans to teach. Not Indians. Incredible.
AB CD,
My wife has worked as a teacher in NY, Ohio, Colorado and Tennessee in the last 6 years (following me around). She never started higher than 29,000. The highest paid teacher (with tenure) was in NY (which pays the highest), which was 56,000. He had taught for 30 years. The average salary in NYC was 42,000.
In Tennessee (the lowest paid of the sample) starting was ~21,500 and the highest was ~39,000 . Each county had its own starting salaries and salary caps.
The AFT always claims more – its how they get their dues.
The AFT’s numbers agree at least with the Massachusetts Government’s figures. Also, these do not strike me as bad salaries for 9 months work.
Importing from India and China makes sense, because teachers with certain skills are underpaid, since the unions require all teachers to make the same salary, regardless of subjects taught.
Perhaps the French should outsource their firefighters also.
The heading of this post – » Teachers from India and China to Teach Our Children — Apparently More Jobs No Americans Want Dvorak Uncensored: General interest observations and true web-log. – intriqued me, so I came by to have a look. Glad I did. FYI – I also shared this page – http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2005/11/07/teachers-from-india-and-china-to-teach-our-children-apparently-more-jobs-no-americans-want/ – on my Facebook page so others can find it too.