Foreign Teachers Take Hard-to-Fill School Positions

[Robbien]

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - Last year, Diana Marco taught English in her native Venezuela. This fall, she'll teach Spanish in Hagerstown as one of 10 foreign teachers hired for hard-to-fill positions in Washington County public schools.

In a telephone interview from her home in Maracay, Marco, 32, said she is a little apprehensive about moving alone from a city of nearly 1.3 million to the western Maryland town of 37,000 for a three-year commitment.

"I don't know nobody there," she said. "I don't know how much I have to pay for gas, a car." And she isn't sure how much of her approximately $37,000 salary _ more than 10 times what an experienced teacher earns in Venezuela _ is needed for housing, food and other necessities in the United States, where living costs are much higher.

. . .

With Maryland facing critical teacher shortages in seven subject areas, Washington County has turned with the state's encouragement to the Visiting International Faculty Program, run by a North Carolina firm that places foreign teachers in U.S. classrooms using cultural exchange visas. VIF is the nation's largest single sponsor of nonimmigrant teachers _ those who come to this country on work or cultural exchange visas _ according to a 2003 study by the National Education Association, the nation's biggest teachers union. As many as 10,000 nonimmigrant teachers work in U.S. public primary and secondary schools, according to the report.

http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=316&sid=545455

[MountainLaurel]

1. Fascinating stuff

Raising interesting issues: Next door to Maryland in WV, newly graduating teachers are either leaving the state or moving to the Eastern Panhandle (one of the few areas in the state with a living, breathing economy) to find jobs. Between budget cuts, the plummeting school-age population, and local school board cronyism, leaving is their only hope.

The question to ask is why new teachers in these specific areas just aren't there. Is it because they're not getting the education before college? I'm remembering a grad school classmate talking about how the public in her county was outraged at the idea of creating a bilingual magnet school because "our kids are Americans and don't need to learn no other language." This in an area with a nuclear research lab and thus, you'd think, a more highly educated than average population. In a field like math or science, is it the low standing of teachers or the low pay a contributing factor? And is that an issue anymore now that dot-coms and telecoms have all imploded?

Recommend that you cross-post this to the education forum.

[Robbien]

2. The teacher's union stated

in the article that the reason is the low pay. The article also stated that there will be 6,186 open teaching positions in the state to fill with only 5,783 teachers available to fill them.

A questionable part of this program is that these visiting teachers do not have to pass any certification test. They are just being vetted by the hiring board.

[Mairead]

3. " these visiting teachers do not have to pass any certification test."

Since certification speaks only -and only theoretically- to teaching ability, I bet they've decided that a practicing teacher is ipso facto certified.

I do hope the quoted teacher hasn't been teaching the double negative to her English-language students, though.