“We’re still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the great depression.”
That’s how Obama’s latest TV ad begins. It opens with a portion of a speech President Obama delivered on the economy last week, where he called on Congress to pass his jobs plan and reminded Americans that, despite weak recent jobs numbers, the economy has added nearly 4.3 million private sector jobs over the last 27 consecutive months of private sector job growth. It also knocks Mitt Romney’s comments on Friday that we need less firefighters, less policemen, less teachers and less construction workers in America.
This ad makes clear that the Obama campaign will run against Congressional Republican’s obstruction. Indeed, Moody’s Analytics confirmed in September that if fully implemented, Obama’s American Jobs Act would have added 1.9 million jobs and would have grown the economy by 2%. Wouldn’t that have been nice right now?
Unfortunately for them, every Republican Senator opposed or abstained from voting on the American Jobs Act. The Republican House never took up the bill. So if the economy is stalling right now, guess who you blame? Those who had no plan but to obstruct President Obama’s plans. The ad will be airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It will also be airing on national cable starting next week.
It occurs to me that if Republicans succeed in cutting teacher pay and generally making their jobs miserable in enough states, when and if the economy comes back there will be a roaring teacher shortage like we have never seen as teachers abandon the classroom for private-sector jobs.
Actually, puck, in Delaware it has been the Obama administration’s Race to the Top that is both driving teachers out of the classroom (by demanding extra work for no pay; by implementing a bogus evaluation system; by proposing a divisive incentive system; by forcing wholesale involuntary transfers of teachers) and is causing much of the disruption. We already had a shortage of qualified teachers in our classrooms; we will have no shortage of warm bodies to put in those classrooms because teacher education programs yearly turn out thousands more graduates than there are positions, and the nature of those degrees is that they are only qualified to be a teacher or an assistant manager at a McDonalds.
Besides, what does it matter if the class size goes from 22 to 29 if the teacher is not competent in either case?
in Delaware it has been the Obama administration’s Race to the Top that is both driving teachers out of the classroom
Are teachers actually leaving? They may want to, but I’m not sure anybody can afford to leave a paying job right now.
Anyway, eliminating collective bargaining takes it to the next level. Republican governors are actually slashing teacher pay.
At least Delaware teachers still have a union, which has plenty of room left to increase its advocacy against unfair rules, if teachers want it to.
Teachers leaving the classroom in droves well pre-dates RTTT. It is fair to say that RTTT certainly exacerbates the problems — as did NCLB, the explosion of charter schools and all kinds of other policies (federal and local)designed to let politicians look like they are doing something about education without doing something about education.
My dad — a teacher in Baltimore — certainly wasn’t paid for all of the hours he put in, there were shortages of what they’d call highly qualified teachers, and class size struggles were persistent. There’s alot about the public education problem that isn’t exactly new. It also isn’t new that political solutions don’t help.
puck
You are living in a dream world. Yes teachers are leaving Delaware–we are bleeding experienced teachers every single year. You don’t see it because you look at the total numbers of people employed and don’t look at average years of experience.
In Delaware the Obama administration helped neuter the DSEA by requiring it to sign on to RTTT to get the money. Wake up and look at what happened in Cape Henlopen when the union voted to exercise their right to sunset additional work for no pay–the State took away all their elementary math specialists and told them if they didn’t come back on the reservation they’d dock the district $1.6 million. Look at what happened in Christina last year when the state violated its own MOU and forcibly transferred over a dozen teachers. When the School Board and the local union balked, the State Education Secretary called them racist in public and threatened $18 million in funding.
DSEA spent over $1 million in campaign contributions over the past five years, and the pols in the GA they contributed to turned around and approved a new SecEd they opposed in . . . 45 minutes with only one dissenting vote.
Obama’s approach to public education is fundamentally no improvement over NCLB, and may in fact be worse. So before you go preaching the partisanship of the education debate you need to educate yourself by reading the massive amounts of well-researched blogging done by pandora, John Young, Kilroy, Elizabeth Scheinberg, and me over the past two years.
Then you will be qualified to comment.
Steve, all I asked was whether teachers were leaving or not. I honestly didn’t know. But now I do know because I checked, thanks to you.
Actually Steve, it looks like teachers are STAYING in droves, compared with the previous reported year. From the Delaware Teacher and Administrator Supply and Demand Survey Analysis for 2010-2011:
The reasons for leaving are broken down in the report. I guess the 2012 report is due out next month.
And who the hell is Kilroy? 🙂
kilroy’s delaware? THE education blog in this state?
What you cite is very deceptive. Many of the vacancies will not show up until later in the summer, as these folks find other jobs. One of the reasons they are staying is because a higher percentage than ever of these folks are first and second year teachers at the bottom of the pay scale who are not vested in the retirement system. Examine the figures on teachers taking early retirements, or teachers with 20+ years leaving the system; there is a difference between warm bodies and experienced teachers.
By the way, it was Democratic Governor Jack Markell and a Democratically controlled legislature in DE that cut teachers’ salaries over the past three years by increasing the percentage new teacher have to pay into the retirement system, by increasing the cost of health care, and by eliminating the state share for public employees. This all comes across as a cut in take-home salary for teachers no matter how you slice it, and then the RTTT grant demands that many of these teachers work an extra 90 minutes per week with no additional pay.
What cassandra says is spot on–political answers to education problems (no matter whose politics) are generally not effective.
Steve, where are you getting your numbers from? From the link I posted above:
I know some teachers are mightily annoyed about RTTT and other policies, but there is no evidence of a mad rush to the exits, nor of experienced teachers bailing out. Maybe the next survey will tell a different story, who knows.
It’s really an interesting document, and there are several of them going back go back a few years. You ought to look at it.
And by the way – the actual numbers support my original comment, that disgruntled teachers are hanging onto their jobs because there are no other jobs to be had. When and if the private jobs come back, then your teacher exodus will become real.
All of you are partially correct. Republicans hardly corner the market on cutting teacher pay, and making their jobs miserable. RTTT certainly ushered in the next chapter of educator exit, for those nearing retirement. Economically, all jobs have seen a decrease in benefits either by contribution or perk package so public employees (teachers) aren’t alone. Personally, I haven’t seen a raise in 3 years, and my new high deductible health insurance has no prescription plan.
The RTTT $, with the 90 minute PLCs was agreed to by the union. The implementation of the time should have been a local union matter. If they’re not being reimbursed, or it accounted for in their jobtime, that’s an issue members need to be addressing w/ their elected/appointed local rep.
I would agree–there are no mad rushes or exits from positions. Having and keeping a job in this economy is more paramount, to most folks rather than job satisfaction. Sad, but reality. If anything, we have seen a HUGE uptick in applicants from New Jersey, who did do a big “housecleaning” w/ educator jobs over there last year.
And yes, classroom teacher attrition has always been high at the 3-5 year mark. However, my bet is the economy, not RTTT is more impetus to stay in teaching than get out and be unemployed. RTTT is just darn lucky the economy is where it is to keep teachers in the classroom–cause it sure isn’t great ideas!
Lastly, government/political answers to education should be clear, common standards at the top, w/ funding attached regardless of implementation strategy. End result is target. Not all this side show, bait and switch, carpetbagger, revivalist mentality they have introduced. States misses end game targets, THEN there are sanctions–but not economic to funding. Economic to job status. Starting at the top–just like a fish fries.
More local control of teaching implementation is what I trust. Isn’t that why we moved to communities, and isn’t it the teacher we ultimately turn our child over to for a year?
“The implementation of the time should have been a local union matter.”
Exactly. RTTT requires the PLCs, but it is incorrect to say RTTT requires them to be extra unpaid time.
The teacher representatives had (and still have) every opportunity to say “Fine, we will meet the 90-minute requirement, but now show us 90 minutes of other work you will take away. Otherwise let’s talk about additional compensation.”
You are correct puck. And RTTT still sucks. Voted NO then–have to live with it now. I’ll probably come back and help clean it up in about 3 years. Scheduling my rest now :).
Joanne – I agree RTTT is horrible……exactly how much of that money has actually filtered down into teachers’ classes?????? As an educator who is very involved in teacher professional development, I hear it all the time……”all we want to do is teach…..but we can’t because we have all of this other BS to do”