Gathering Places
Gathering Places
The American teacher is becoming extinct. There is a nationwide shortage of qualified teachers. It is currently estimated that two million positions needed to be filled for the current school year. Hawaii needed to recruit 1,000 to 1,500 teachers for the current year. I seriously doubt if the state even filled 1 percent of these vacancies. Which students get the "unqualified" teachers or the endless rotation of substitutes for a year? Which schools will have the vacant classrooms? Teachers are
disappearing in AmericaSchool districts are resorting to recruitment in foreign countries to find enough qualified teachers and it doesn't seem as if they are having all that much luck. Teachers are leaving Hawaii not to find better schools but to seek places where their pay (based on the cost of living) will allow them to exist at a reasonable level.
If teaching is such an altruistic and easy profession, where are all of the new teachers? Would you encourage your children to be teachers or do you want them to go to college for six or more years and find jobs whose pay is more commensurate with that education? Teaching is a profession and teachers deserve to be paid a professional wage.
It almost seems that teachers are penalized for enjoying their jobs. The president of the University of Hawaii advocates a seamless K-16 curriculum for the state and others seem to agree. this means a kindergarten teacher should be paid the same as a college professor. I'm sure that every teacher in the state would find this agreeable.
The Hawaii State Teachers Association's goal was to place a qualified teacher in every classroom. The governor effectively negated that goal. We could be seeing the beginning of the end of public education in Hawaii. Some of us will still be around for a while because we are past the point of no return in the current system but who is going to replace us?
Will Hawaii become a place where one either sends their children to private schools (they need teachers too) or parents stay home to teach them or will we put up signs saying "No Kids Allowed." The current "contract" does not address the state's educational responsibility. It does not significantly raise base pay. part of the oft- quoted 16 percent is actually a part of the next contract so it is more like 8 percent for the current contract period. Those are "steps" that we should have gotten a long time ago for years of service. The governor's retention bonus is more like a 1 percent slap in the face. Try leaving your waiter a similar tip and see what happens.
The state contends that in order to fund the contract, monies will be taken from funds for repair and maintenance of facilities. During the last two contract negotiations, HSTA reduced their demands so that there would be monies specifically for these measures. To date very little has been done. Many facilities are badly in need of maintenance and refurbishing. It's nice to have computers but you still need to plug them in. The money is there; recent studies indicate that the state is collecting revenues at an all-time high.
The demand for teachers is growing while the supply continues to dwindle. The state has not demonstrated any success in retaining or recruiting qualified teachers. Many facilities are in a sad state of disrepair. This trend must not continue. Teaching must become an honored profession and teachers must be paid as the professionals they are.
Bill HofMann is a high school teacher on Maui.