As a 35th year teacher with students who live in poverty and often speak a language other than English, I see that young teachers get hired in poor districts, because most of the jobs are there. They get good training and learn quickly because they have to in order to survive. They work long hours because underperforming schools have to do extra intervention programs to meet the criteria of NCLB. After two or three years, they are hired by a suburban middle class school and email back to tell us how much easier it is there - and they get more pay because the school is meeting all the performance criteria. And we start training another round of new teachers who will almost certainly leave us in a few years. The baby boomers will be gone soon, and there will be a shortage of mentors with significant experience to bring new teachers along. Meanwhile, the stakes are continually raised until we meet the goal of 100% of our students passing standardized tests in 2014. Is it any wonder there is a teacher shortage?

Good points all.

You point to a phenomenon that really must be examined. The TFA model and public opinion point to Princeton grads as heroes or even martyrs of U.S. education, but a problem emerges from the model. A brilliant student is not always a brilliant teacher. Some of the best teachers of struggling students that I’ve ever seen are teachers who themselves struggled through school. Students for whom life outside of school is an overwhelming distraction or for whom basic skills are the immediate aim usually get infinitely better help from wise, experienced adults with basic knowledge and strong, supportive personalities than they do from enthusiastic, over-achieving “martyr” teachers—especially when the former have experienced similar circumstances and the latter, those “martyrs,” are most likely moving on and may not have a long-term investment in the communities they are serving. Certainly I agree that we want high-achieving, intelligent professionals to teach and mentor our young citizens (and I disagree with Hulbert’s characterization of teachers as the “bottom third”—most I know were top graduates), but we also need adults who understand what the students are up against in a practical sense—not in an idealist’s dream—and can bring them through it to success.

Marge:

C'mon Marge. As a veteran teacher you know that the trouble with retaining teachers,etc. started long before NCLB and the Bush admin.

As for your point about teachers migrating to cushier suburban jobs, I agree.

Most of the trouble began when certain groups who made the decisions and controlled the purse strings started turning schools into social service agencies instead of educational institutions.

I for one believe teachers should receive much better salaries and the bad ones gotten rid of. And since so many are hellbent on comparing our systems to other countries, we too should strip down the curriculum and tighten the pedagogy. We need to stop having Drug Awareness , Peace Weeks, Black History Month (I'm Black by the way) and all that other crap that other countries with better systems realize are counterproductive.

We stopped having assemblies and special events years ago. We don't teach drug awareness or AIDS awareness or any of those things. We don't have celebrations of Halloween, Christmas, Cinco de MAYO or Black History. NCLB has focused us on only the things that are tested.

Marge, do you remember the really good old days when big city teachers were paid more than suburban teachers because their jobs were harder?

Many big city school districts still spend more per child than their suburban communities do, but now I think the money is spent on things other than salaries.

When my colleague traveled to schools in other countries to learn about their educational systems, she was happy to see that U.S. students ARE excelling as critical thinkers. She observed students in Japan who may be more quickly to respond to the "Who? What? When?" questions, but in her view were not nearly as adept as U.S. students in answering the "Why?" questions. The "why" questions are critical deep-though questions, and it may be "all that crap" that keeps us answering them. It is also difficult to say that other countries are more successful than we are at educating their students. People who sift through those statistics find that in many cases two things are happening that lead to the U.S.'s "weak" comparative results: 1. We are reporting the results of students year younger than those taking the tests in other nations, and 2. Given our lofty goals of educating ALL citizens, we are reporting the results of 100% of our students, while in other countries less academically gifted students have already been separated from those tested. We should take pride in the fact that, for the first time in perhaps the history of the world, we are are trying to equally educated every citizen. We are trying to acheive the promise of a democracy. I know we are falling short in many ways. But, overall, we are not doing as poorly as we tell ourselves we are. And the things we do well--enhance our students' understanding of facts by exposing them to creativity, culture, and critical thinking--we should hold on to most dearly.

Marge:

And isn't that as it should be? What is the problem with standards...that are high? One doesn't need an influx of dollars to teach phonics-based reading and the multiplication tables. You all are just whiney.

Additionally, I'm not sure who you are supporting for Pres. next round, but don't think for a second it would be much different with Hillary in charge.

The grand scheme for which she takes credit in her "Arkansas Days" consisted of unfunded mandates, state-wide testing, and higher standards for teachers. NCLB - Lite.

Pay teachers 100,000/year. I think they deserve it. You are probably one of the ones who does. Many don't and should be fired right now, but the unions won't allow this. What possible appeal could a teaching career hold but for a committed few, when the job is so low paying and a college graduate has to join what is generally a non-professional construct like a union?

And the things we do well -- enhance our students' understanding of facts by exposing them to creativity, culture, and critical thinking--we should hold on to most dearly.

Funny you should say this, KAC, because when people in this country criticize our schools, they say the schools don't do a good job of exposing kids to creativity, culture and critical thinking.

And I agree.

Even before No Child Left Behind, American kids scored poorly on tests measuring critical thinking skills. And have you read My Space lately?! No creativity, culture or critical thinking there either.

I will make about $34,000 this year because I changed districts. Once you go beyond five years, most districts limit the experience that they count toward salaries to five years.