Last spring I completed my 25th year of teaching. After a quarter of a century in this business I've seen the comings and goings, and one of the most persistent of stories in this field is that of the coming teacher shortage. It's always coming, but it never quite happens:
While pundits caution that schools are facing catastrophic teacher shortages — the result of substantial exit from the profession during the chaos of COVID — new research indicates that those warnings could be overstated.
Teacher turnover rates are actually about the same as they were before the pandemic, according to a working paper released this month through the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Flush with pandemic relief money and faced with the generational challenge of fostering learning recovery, school districts are hiring for more positions and leaving vacancies open for longer.
Even after the 'rona, we're not flocking to the exits. I have 5 years until I flock. Then, like a mother goose in Kansas, I'm getting the flock out of Dodge.
They have been predicting the Federal Retirement Tsunami for years too. Started predicting it back in the 90's. However, still never happened. From my perspective for Fed civilians at least, we get a large number of new employees who come in mid-career, like me. So, a lot of our employees are older who still need to work for a while to get full retirement. And when they do retire, the replacement often doesn't have long until they are 'eligible' to retire even though they have no plans to do so. You would be amazed the number of folks that come in in their late '50's and 60's to work five years and get lifetime medical coverage.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I only have 5 years left, maybe I could...
ReplyDeleteBut the problem is that these new "teachers" are being churned out by the leftist "education" schools. We don't WANT a thousand new progressive travellers and activists infesting the schools.
ReplyDeleteSeriously Darren, you could, and many do. Heck, you come in as a administrative assistant, stand on your head for five years and poof, lifetime medical. Note: your fifth year must be completed when you are 62 or older. So if you join Fed service at age 55, you would have to work seven years to your 62nd birthday. If you came at age 60, you would have to work until 65.
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