4 ms·

Teacher quota? Wut? This off-the-wall shit is part of why people leave teaching. Being constantly criticized by people living in a fictional world, and blamed

by bamfly 3y ago

Teacher quota? Wut? This off-the-wall shit is part of why people leave teaching. Being constantly criticized by people living in a fictional world, and blamed for tons of things that are simply made-up or that you had no say in, gets old. Teachers are getting to be in short supply because people aren't choosing the job, because it's kinda shit in much of the country (and it's extremely shit in a whole lot of districts). It's not as if there's a strictly limited set of residency slots strangling supply, like in medicine. Not enough people want to do it, given the offer on the table. That's the whole story. > Stands to reason that where there is more freedom for anyone to be a teacher that the pay would trend lower. Supply and demand, as usual. Some of the places with very lax standards for becoming a teacher are nonetheless struggling to fill positions. The standards aren't the problem, the overall deal—work conditions, stress, pay, seeing the profession demonized by talking heads on TV and your own neighbors—is just not good enough to get people to sign on the dotted line. You're not going to get more people signing up to teach who you'd like to have teaching without making the deal better—it's got nothing to do with quotas or whatever.

randomdata 3y ago
> Teacher quota? Wut? Yes, much like the dairy quota system. The government anticipates how many teachers will be needed and only blesses that many to practice. For sure, it sometimes gets things wrong. Quotas were reduced considerably a few years back because there were too many teachers being produced, which was impacting pay. For what $60-100k is worth, it is actually less than teachers were making before that mistake (or "mistake"; some government assemblies are less friendly towards teachers than others). > This off-the-wall shit is part of why people leave teaching. Being constantly criticized by people living in a fictional world, and blamed for tons of things that are simply made-up or that you had no say in, gets old. Okay. What off-the-wall shit might that be? > Some of the places with very lax standards for becoming a teacher are nonetheless struggling to fill positions. Struggling to fill positions, or there isn't demand for the positions? Saying "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had more teachers" is no more demand than a 14 year old kid with $100 to his name and a poster of a Ferrari on his wall imaging having one of his own sitting in the family's garage. That's merely dreaming. Very much not the same thing as demand. Only demand is significant here. > it's got nothing to do with quotas or whatever. It doesn't sound like you have a teacher quota system in place in the part of the world you exist in, so that goes without saying. Obviously there is no universal standard here. Different jurisdictions are going to have different rules. But it is clear that supply management does artificially increase wages, and teachers here (not the world over) leverage it. Why do you think that virtually everyone agrees that monopolies/monopsonies are bad for buyers? Why do you think tech companies want to build "moats"? Exactly, because constraint in participation is how excess money is made.
- bamfly 3y ago
  Sorry, didn't realize you're not in the US (the article's about US scores, so I made some assumptions—my bad, as they say). I'm not aware, and can find no evidence with a couple searches, of limits on annual count of issued teacher licenses or total active licenses in any US states, but that might be A Thing in other countries. > Struggling to fill positions, or there isn't demand for the positions? Saying "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had more teachers." is no more demand than a 14 year old kid with $100 to his name and a poster of a Ferrari on his wall imaging having one in his family's garage. That's merely dreaming. Very much not the same thing as demand. They're cutting electives, dropping 20% of school days, and increasing class sizes because they're having trouble finding teachers. Regardless, vacancies remain, and schools rarely open positions they don't need—education quality and workload for the teachers they do have just get worse, typically, when positions aren't filled. I don't think that's "I wish I had a Ferrari" levels of need, but actual need. Inflation, the hangover from Covid stress that's been the final straw for a lot of teachers already on the fence about staying (it was not a happy, kick-back-and-relax time for most teachers—quite the opposite) and the current political winds have hit the profession hard.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > I'm not aware, and can find no evidence with a couple searches, of limits on annual count of issued teacher licenses or total active licenses in any US states I understand the pay is dismal, so that tracks. Pay would be dismal here too if there weren't the artificial constraints propping up incomes. Teaching isn't unpleasant enough to see some kind of natural supply constraint emerge. It is a job a large segment of the population is willing to do. > They're cutting electives, dropping 20% of school days, and increasing class sizes because they're having trouble finding teachers. That doesn't mean there is demand. If I start eating more rice and beans, that doesn't mean I'm in the market for steak. Class sizes are a hot topic here too. It is not because we can't come up with enough teachers, it is because the current government doesn't want to hire more teachers. Are you sure that is not what is going on there too?
    - bamfly 3y ago

by bamfly 3y ago

randomdata 3y ago

> Teacher quota? Wut? Yes, much like the dairy quota system. The government anticipates how many teachers will be needed and only blesses that many to practice. For sure, it sometimes gets things wrong. Quotas were reduced considerably a few years back because there were too many teachers being produced, which was impacting pay. For what $60-100k is worth, it is actually less than teachers were making before that mistake (or "mistake"; some government assemblies are less friendly towards teachers than others). > This off-the-wall shit is part of why people leave teaching. Being constantly criticized by people living in a fictional world, and blamed for tons of things that are simply made-up or that you had no say in, gets old. Okay. What off-the-wall shit might that be? > Some of the places with very lax standards for becoming a teacher are nonetheless struggling to fill positions. Struggling to fill positions, or there isn't demand for the positions? Saying "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had more teachers" is no more demand than a 14 year old kid with $100 to his name and a poster of a Ferrari on his wall imaging having one of his own sitting in the family's garage. That's merely dreaming. Very much not the same thing as demand. Only demand is significant here. > it's got nothing to do with quotas or whatever. It doesn't sound like you have a teacher quota system in place in the part of the world you exist in, so that goes without saying. Obviously there is no universal standard here. Different jurisdictions are going to have different rules. But it is clear that supply management does artificially increase wages, and teachers here (not the world over) leverage it. Why do you think that virtually everyone agrees that monopolies/monopsonies are bad for buyers? Why do you think tech companies want to build "moats"? Exactly, because constraint in participation is how excess money is made.

bamfly 3y ago
Sorry, didn't realize you're not in the US (the article's about US scores, so I made some assumptions—my bad, as they say). I'm not aware, and can find no evidence with a couple searches, of limits on annual count of issued teacher licenses or total active licenses in any US states, but that might be A Thing in other countries. > Struggling to fill positions, or there isn't demand for the positions? Saying "Boy, it sure would be nice if we had more teachers." is no more demand than a 14 year old kid with $100 to his name and a poster of a Ferrari on his wall imaging having one in his family's garage. That's merely dreaming. Very much not the same thing as demand. They're cutting electives, dropping 20% of school days, and increasing class sizes because they're having trouble finding teachers. Regardless, vacancies remain, and schools rarely open positions they don't need—education quality and workload for the teachers they do have just get worse, typically, when positions aren't filled. I don't think that's "I wish I had a Ferrari" levels of need, but actual need. Inflation, the hangover from Covid stress that's been the final straw for a lot of teachers already on the fence about staying (it was not a happy, kick-back-and-relax time for most teachers—quite the opposite) and the current political winds have hit the profession hard.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > I'm not aware, and can find no evidence with a couple searches, of limits on annual count of issued teacher licenses or total active licenses in any US states I understand the pay is dismal, so that tracks. Pay would be dismal here too if there weren't the artificial constraints propping up incomes. Teaching isn't unpleasant enough to see some kind of natural supply constraint emerge. It is a job a large segment of the population is willing to do. > They're cutting electives, dropping 20% of school days, and increasing class sizes because they're having trouble finding teachers. That doesn't mean there is demand. If I start eating more rice and beans, that doesn't mean I'm in the market for steak. Class sizes are a hot topic here too. It is not because we can't come up with enough teachers, it is because the current government doesn't want to hire more teachers. Are you sure that is not what is going on there too?
  - bamfly 3y ago