4 ms·

Not from USA, is there shortage of teachers in USA? Or government pays too little to have local teachers consider such jobs? Seems like a broken system

nemomarx 4mo ago
Teacher pay is low, but it also requires certification and a degree. And in exchange it will be relatively stressful and lacking in prestige.
- pastel8739 4mo ago
  And long hours!
  - trelane 4mo ago
    My favorite teacher strike was when the teachers stopped doing work when they weren't being paid. The district quickly caved.
TylerE 4mo ago
The "Alaska" bit is very important. Very remote, very cold. Everything is very expensive because almost all of it has to be shipped in by air. Yes, the US teacher pay is generally crap and we're short on teachers everywhere, but Alaska is a rather unique situation. It's 16% of the US's land area, but only 0.2% of the population.
Rebelgecko 4mo ago
Little bit of both. Pay varies drastically from state to state, even taking cost of living into account. By the time you pay for a degree and a credential the ROI isn't great. Jobs in better paying areas exist too but are understandably more competitive
brudgers 4mo ago
Rural Alaska is by and large very very remote. Often small plane is the only practical access and then only in favorable weather. Recruiting teachers to remote villages with extreme weather is hard and if you are at US university training to be a teacher you will probably have other options that are more attractive as a young person.
- lokar 4mo ago
  Even anchorage is pretty bad
  - brudgers 4mo ago
    Yes, I mean there is basically one road to Alaska and from the nearest major US city (Seattle) it is 3600km to Anchorage…about the same distance as Barcelona to Moscow but entirely through sparsely or unpopulated wilderness. And Seattle is a long way from most of the US…another 3300km from Chicago.
trelane 4mo ago
> is there shortage of teachers in USA? No, there is a steady stream of teachers being fed into the maw of public education. The pay is low and job security is terrible until you get tenure. My wife was a teacher; I have heard horror stories. You get paid based on a combination of how much money you earn your employer and how easy you are to replace. Schools get paid by taxes, and there are a ton of them produced every year. So, the pay is abysmal.
- throwawaytea 4mo ago
  My gf makes about $90k a year, tons of time off, at 35 years old in a California public school. If she wasn't a teacher, she admits she'd probably be a cop or 911 dispatcher, because government gigs are what her entire extended family recommends. She has trouble adding 50 cents to 75 cents, but luckily she only teaches English and social studies to middle schoolers.
  - bijowo1676 4mo ago
    I have a kid who just graduated elementary and is about to enter Middle school. Your post actually explains why every single classmate of my daughter has enrolled in private middle school ($50k+ tuition), despite being in the best school district (Palo Alto School District). Apparently public middle schools are really bad in California, but you can still find decent high and elementary schools All top private middle schools in the bay are oversubscribed and cannot accomodate everyone, and require ridiculous exams and admission process that rivals Ivy League, situation is really bad, and demand for good teachers is infinite
    - saltyoldman 4mo ago
      What happened was there were a lot of boomers that taught my generation in the bay area. So when I was in high school around 94-98 the teachers were typically 40-50ish year old boomer generation. These people were pretty good at teaching. Mostly white. As generation X started getting into the game, and bureaucratic processes the introduced "core" and "new math". Both pretty bad. I was in the middle of the transition so I did get pre-new-math as well. What happened next? Well pretty much all of us got jobs at Google, Apple and other places. The only way for any of us to have stayed in teaching would have been major compromises. We decimated the teaching industry because it didn't realize the salaries these companies were waiting to pay us. They had no chance.
JohnTHaller 4mo ago
Teachers are paid less than they should be and and must complete specific undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as additional ongoing certifications. They are, unfortunately, not well respected by many groups. And right-wing folks have been making noise about augmenting and replacing teachers with AI. I have multiple friends who have left teaching due to lack of respect and support from student parents. I still have two teachers in my family.

nemomarx 4mo ago

Teacher pay is low, but it also requires certification and a degree. And in exchange it will be relatively stressful and lacking in prestige.

pastel8739 4mo ago
And long hours!
- trelane 4mo ago
  My favorite teacher strike was when the teachers stopped doing work when they weren't being paid. The district quickly caved.

TylerE 4mo ago

The "Alaska" bit is very important. Very remote, very cold. Everything is very expensive because almost all of it has to be shipped in by air. Yes, the US teacher pay is generally crap and we're short on teachers everywhere, but Alaska is a rather unique situation. It's 16% of the US's land area, but only 0.2% of the population.

Rebelgecko 4mo ago

Little bit of both. Pay varies drastically from state to state, even taking cost of living into account. By the time you pay for a degree and a credential the ROI isn't great. Jobs in better paying areas exist too but are understandably more competitive

brudgers 4mo ago

Rural Alaska is by and large very very remote. Often small plane is the only practical access and then only in favorable weather. Recruiting teachers to remote villages with extreme weather is hard and if you are at US university training to be a teacher you will probably have other options that are more attractive as a young person.

lokar 4mo ago
Even anchorage is pretty bad
- brudgers 4mo ago
  Yes, I mean there is basically one road to Alaska and from the nearest major US city (Seattle) it is 3600km to Anchorage…about the same distance as Barcelona to Moscow but entirely through sparsely or unpopulated wilderness. And Seattle is a long way from most of the US…another 3300km from Chicago.

trelane 4mo ago

> is there shortage of teachers in USA? No, there is a steady stream of teachers being fed into the maw of public education. The pay is low and job security is terrible until you get tenure. My wife was a teacher; I have heard horror stories. You get paid based on a combination of how much money you earn your employer and how easy you are to replace. Schools get paid by taxes, and there are a ton of them produced every year. So, the pay is abysmal.

throwawaytea 4mo ago
My gf makes about $90k a year, tons of time off, at 35 years old in a California public school. If she wasn't a teacher, she admits she'd probably be a cop or 911 dispatcher, because government gigs are what her entire extended family recommends. She has trouble adding 50 cents to 75 cents, but luckily she only teaches English and social studies to middle schoolers.
- bijowo1676 4mo ago
  I have a kid who just graduated elementary and is about to enter Middle school. Your post actually explains why every single classmate of my daughter has enrolled in private middle school ($50k+ tuition), despite being in the best school district (Palo Alto School District). Apparently public middle schools are really bad in California, but you can still find decent high and elementary schools All top private middle schools in the bay are oversubscribed and cannot accomodate everyone, and require ridiculous exams and admission process that rivals Ivy League, situation is really bad, and demand for good teachers is infinite
  - saltyoldman 4mo ago
    What happened was there were a lot of boomers that taught my generation in the bay area. So when I was in high school around 94-98 the teachers were typically 40-50ish year old boomer generation. These people were pretty good at teaching. Mostly white. As generation X started getting into the game, and bureaucratic processes the introduced "core" and "new math". Both pretty bad. I was in the middle of the transition so I did get pre-new-math as well. What happened next? Well pretty much all of us got jobs at Google, Apple and other places. The only way for any of us to have stayed in teaching would have been major compromises. We decimated the teaching industry because it didn't realize the salaries these companies were waiting to pay us. They had no chance.

JohnTHaller 4mo ago

Teachers are paid less than they should be and and must complete specific undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as additional ongoing certifications. They are, unfortunately, not well respected by many groups. And right-wing folks have been making noise about augmenting and replacing teachers with AI. I have multiple friends who have left teaching due to lack of respect and support from student parents. I still have two teachers in my family.