This article argues to that effect.
What say you?
I’d have tried teaching school after retirement, but too many hoops for an old guy to jump through to get a job in HISD, etc., plus pay the fees to take the alternative teaching certification programs. They range from $3100 to $4500 according to a quick search.
I’m not particularly interested in $90 per day to sub at a charter school. The school districts could have a “boot camp” in the summer for all with college degrees and give them probationary certification or something similar while experienced teachers help develop teaching skills. If this exists, it doesn’t show up on the internet.
So this is for teachers, but do you mean in general for other trades?
I’m against it. In other countries people can go to a trades school and or normal highschool to get degrees. Eventually the saturation of people getting that trade makes the labor cheap because there’s a lot.
I also feel it would make college look bad because why would you go to college when you can make money while on the job.
It wouldn’t be good for our population in the long term. We need more people who want to contribute to all sorts of fields. Not necessarily incentivise only one field. Or maybe incentivise college also.
What we need are robot teachers. That’s the answer to everything.
If I have a bucket that I am trying to fill, it will never fill if I don’t first patch the hole in the bottom.
ie. Fix why teachers are leaving first. Then see about methods for training even higher numbers.
The system is full of hoops to jump through, teaching the wrong things with testings being hte only goal, overwork/burnout. Pain to get the certification, so this might help there. The system as it is now that if someone in Texas has a PhD in education, they still are not qualified to teach in public K-12 schools.
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I think Elon’s working on that next.
ill add on to endlesspurple, its the same with Truck drivers, theres no shortage of CDL holders burnout is high because the conditions are horrid especially for OTR drivers
Or take the Texas approach and go get a bigger hose 
Fix why teachers are leaving first.
- I would think low pay is one factor.
- Stress/burnout - need to dig into specifics here
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Contributing to stress is that lots of kids that should be failed and held back a year are pushed through. Schools at the elementary level can only fail so many kids per year. This leads to a huge burden being put on the next grade levels teacher, how can you honestly expect a 3rd or 4th grader to pass a standardized test if they are reading at a first grade level.
In order to get kids with learning disabilities help it requires tons of paperwork and hoops to jump through which is another headache. Many parents don’t want to believe that there is anything wrong with their kids and will put all the blame on the teacher.
Some parents would rather put all the blame on the teacher and use the school as a daycare while expecting for the teacher to do the parenting.
(Both of my parents are teachers)
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Teacher salary is more than ok. Summers off plus all holidays
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People who want to be teachers understand the pay going in. I have a middle schooler in FBISD. What I see is that the teachers get no support from administration. Teachers will leave their job for the same reason other people leave theirs. They need to feel heard, understood, and supported. Not so fun fact…they don’t.
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I disagree that pay is okay. Is teachers retirement benefits comparable to private sector ?
Why do you think teachers leave the profession ?
Other jobs ? To be full time at home parents ?
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What looks good at 22 may not look so good at 32 or 42. Generally speaking, teaching seems to be a low pay profession.
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The pay is not bad, but what are you comparing it to? They will make more than a hourly employee yes, but what about if they worked in the corporate world? Then they might be underpaid by their other options. Unless you only want people that are qualified for retail jobs to be your children’s teachers.
As far as summers off. From what I understand there is a lot of continuous training and professional development that goes on during the summers. Plus if you add up the hours in the classroom plus the nights spent grading all school year, they probably put in more annual hours than a person on a standard 40 hour week for 48-50 weeks. Not to mention they can never take a vacation during the school year when all the kids are away from the resorts.
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I saw a cartoon picture somewhere. The first frame said schools 30 years ago, and it showed the kid on one side of the desk his head down as the teacher was on the other side talking to him with the parents standing behind the teacher. The next frame, labeled now, show the teacher on one side of the desk, with the parents on the other yelling at the teacher and the kid behind the parents looking very smug.
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Here’s that picture:
Good point about the time teachers put in. Besides having to spend time “away from the office” preparing lessons and grading papers, we have to go to numerous professional development workshops. And we end up doing a lot of stuff we don’t get paid for doing, such as professional development. Average salary for an attorney in Texas with 10 or more years of experience is $113k. For a teacher it’s c. 58k. IMO, we should get that up to about $75k. If we don’t, we eventually won’t have any teachers left. I’m getting out as soon as I can.
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Shop classes used to be part of high school, including home economics. Now finding a woman who can cook is challenging.
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Teachers have a retirement plan that is guaranteed and the option is they can take it once done or social sec. In the private sector, most only have a 401 which is not guaranteed but they have to contribute way more money than the teacher’s retirement plan. I’m not sure whether teachers contribute to their retirement plan or if it’s just a benefit but it has to be way less than than the 401 contributions.
Way more time off in summers if they want plus plenty of holidays. Thanksgiving and spring break give them a week off for each where as private you only get 2 days for thanksgiving. Plus they get other days off we don’t get.
They generally don’t get fired and their pay keeps going up with yrs of service then by the time the reg guy changes jobs etc, they end up with good pay if they stick to it.
Also the reason some might quit working is bc it is a female dominated industry and they have husbands who allow them to quit bc of kids just like in the private sector. My wife quit for 8 yrs then did part time for a few more. Women quit sometimes bc they have options where as the guy keeps working bc it’s still socially not acceptable for the guy to be at home raising the kids while the wife works.
I guess I’m blessed in that regard. I get the best home cookin’ EVER!!!
No, teachers cannot choose between TRS and Social Security. We can only be in TRS. We do not get Social Security plus TRS. With professional development, we typically only get about six or so weeks off in summer, which isn’t that much different from a degreed, private employee with a lot of time invested in the company. As mentioned, we put in a lot of work after hours. Pay generally increases a few hundred bucks a year, and it’s mostly eaten up by taxes and TRS.
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