Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 1: Teacher shortages

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sherlockj
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School teacher, pre-COVID. What was that? 20 years ago?

by James C. Sherlock

A great deal of the increase in demand for full-time virtual K-12 (FTVK12) education is driven by rising teacher shortages in the brick-and-mortar schools.

I am not talking about COVID quarantine or other illnesses, but rather endemic shortages. Jobs that cannot be filled. And may never be.

We have well-founded fears that we will never have the number of young people going into teaching that we have seen in the past because of the two-track attacks on the reputation and attractiveness of the profession over the past few years.

  • The job actions of teachers unions that are featured on the nightly news continue to trash the reputation of the profession;
  • Ed-school-trained Torquemadas sit on the state Board of Education and some local School Boards and occupy too many of the division superintendent and principal’s offices. They are relentless in their attacks on the consciences of teachers with traditional values. It is driving teachers away in droves.

Those wounds will leave ugly scars that will not go away.

Add to that the unpredictability and chaos that characterize many public schools in the time of COVID.

Did I mention that we don’t pay them enough?

Good luck filling those brick-and-mortar public school teaching jobs.
I am not going to write in this series about teacher licensing, but that too is broken. Someone should write that story.

We can certainly open the doors more widely to people who are well-educated but have not gone through the ed school gauntlet. And we can ensure teachers are not forced to go to graduate ed school for indoctrination in order to advance both in position and in pay as is the case today.

American education would inexorably improve over time if we closed every graduate school of education in America, but that is not going to happen.

So here we are, looking for options in virtual education.

Next chapter: follow the money in FTVK12 in Virginia.

See here for the prologue to this series. 

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36 responses to “Government Attacks on Parental Choice in Virtual K-12 Public Education in Virginia – Chapter 1: Teacher shortages”

  1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    I recall reading many a conservative comment complaining about teachers only working 9 months out of the year and pulling full retirements on the back of the taxpayer. Might that have something to do with what you cite?

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      I had that argument with many on this blog years ago. One must live in a household with a dedicated teacher to understand the hours and the stress. The standard work week in the private sector is 2080 hours, including paid vacations and holidays (40 hours per week.) Teachers put in far more, if they do the jobs well, in the 10 c0ntract months. Many then work a summer semester for the income or go off to take classes.

      My wife never got an overtime payment. Ever. In 39 years.
      Neither of our children followed my wife into the profession.

      1. Matt Hurt Avatar
        Matt Hurt

        Amen!

      2. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        Nobody who is on salary ever gets paid overtime.

        1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
          Eric the half a troll

          Yes, not time and a half overtime but many of today’s young professionals get paid for every hour they work over 40/week – straight time.

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            And there are still many people who get paid the same no matter how many hours they work. This has traditionally been called a “salary”.

          2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
            Eric the half a troll

            Traditionally, yes, but that definition is changing to benefit the employee vs employer. Salary now means (in many companies) straight time for every hour worked with a minimum of 40 hours/week.

            https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2005/01/24/focus9.html

          3. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            And then you get things like this:

            https://www.informationweek.com/it-life/ibm-responds-to-overtime-lawsuits-with-15-salary-cuts

          4. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            ” … but also the novel practice of offering overtime to exempt employees, when there is no legal obligation to do so.”

            Novel practice.

          5. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            Very few professionals get paid overtime – straight line or time and a half.

        2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
          James Wyatt Whitehead

          School teachers are paid by the hour. I can think of plenty former colleagues who simply worked to the rule and probably came out ahead with sanity intact. A teacher of conscience will work until the job is done the right way no matter the cost.

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            I was under the impression that teachers were paid a fixed amount per year per their contract, which sounds more like a salary than an hourly employee.

          2. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            In Loudoun I was paid 88 grand a year my last year. 197 contract days. 7 and half hour paid work day which included a free 30 minute lunch that I never used. Works out to about 59 bucks an hour. Anything beyond 7 hours is pro bono work. Thats how it works…couldn’t resist.
            https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/files/BANL5X54E333/$file/7030.pdf

        3. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          Not true. I worked in state government jobs my whole career. When I was required to work on weekends or on holidays, I got paid for those hours. Because I was in a “professional” class, I got paid straight time, not time and a half. But, those not in a professional classification get paid time and a half. For example, correctional officers, who are on salary, get paid time and a half for overtime.

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            Most of us in the private sector don’t get these nice perks of getting paid overtime while on salary.

          2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
            Dick Hall-Sizemore

            I worked a lot of hours after normal hours on my own without additional pay. It was only on days that we were directed to come in that I got paid

          3. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            At best, in the private sector, we get “comp time”. That means if I had to work 4 hours on a weekend I could take 4 hours off the next week. There may be employers who actually pay overtime to salaried employees, but it is NOT the norm.

          4. Matt Adams Avatar
            Matt Adams

            Only if it stipulated in your contract or working agreement. Most salaried individuals do not earn and hourly wage to be given OT.

          5. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            Gub’mint logic. The vast majority of private business professionals get paid a salary regardless of the number of hours worked. The fact that the gub’mint treats white collar professionals like school crossing guards doesn’t mean that is typical.

      3. John Martin Avatar
        John Martin

        You are correct. My wife teaches first grade and works 2300-2500 hours per year. I type this as, is usually the case, my wife starts her work week by putting in a full day’s work every Sunday

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Name the “conservative commentator” and ask him.

      My wife was a school counselor. My grandmother and lots of the rest of my extended family were career teachers. I would never write such a thing because it is simply not a true characterization.

  2. VaNavVet Avatar
    VaNavVet

    Not sure that I could point to any evidence of the two track attacks but they may surely play a part. Will be watching for the chapter on parental choice in virtual public education. I say this because Chesapeake Public Schools just moved 6 schools to all virtual as a result of Covid outbreaks after the holiday break as students returned to the lifting of the mask mandate. An outbreak is defined as documented transmission within the school. Prior to the break the district had 840 individuals in quarantine but this number has not yet been updated. Seems to be quite an introduction to Omicron.

  3. beachguy Avatar
    beachguy

    I never heard of FTVK12. Is it interactive distance learning using public television? When I Googled it your article was at the top of the list!

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I made it up to keep from having to repeat the words in every other sentence.

  4. John Martin Avatar
    John Martin

    a writer who is clueless about public education

    1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      You couldn’t be more wrong. Mr. Sherlock has been posting a number of informative articles for a good while now. You just don’t like what truth reveals.

  5. tmtfairfax Avatar
    tmtfairfax

    And the alternative is Dominion Energy. Its distribution network is so bad that last week’s storm still has customers out of service. My block experienced its 9th and 10th outages since October 2020. We do not have the network reliability needed for an expanded EV fleet nor all-electric heating.

    Last week’s storm just wasn’t that bad. But when you don’t clear your rights of way from tree limbs or bury locations that have consistently high levels of outages, service is plan %%%%.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Dominion sucks. Their only core competency is making political contributions to state pols. They’ll show you state wide reliability numbers but never put forth the outliers. We can only hope Governor-elect Younkin has the backbone to slap those crony capitalists.

    2. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      Recently, one of the local electric utilities in the area has been replacing 60-year old poles and transformers.

      No, it wasn’t Dominion.

  6. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    5 year high school math teaching daughter. Did the extra year to apparent Ed School indoctrination – seems like a racket to me with half of it being an unpaid intern in a public school. When she graduated, it was all VEA line. Then 3 years in public school and she switched to private and I don’t think for a pay raise. But, the expectations and the support of the admin are night and day. She very much saw the pathologies in the public school. Besides the principal caving to the parents and pressure on her to pass students along, I think the thing that really got to her was there was no punishment for doing a crappy job and she felt punished for doing a good job. One teacher administered SOLs with no following of procedures. She was by the book. Her reward – more SOL and other duties! Slacker? Less work!
    There is a lot of work to do – including at the school board level…

  7. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    A primary reason for the decrease in the number of college graduates going into teaching, compared to the past, is the expanded opportunity that women have to enter other fields. For example, in 1970, 4.8 percent of the lawyers and judges in the U.S. were women. Now, women make up about a third of all lawyers. The two reasons that you suggest are subjective, at best, and not documented at all.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I accept your reason as additive. Mine are everywhere if you read the literature.

    2. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      Dick, Do you really think that teachers, most of whom want to keep their options open, are going to say on an exit interview that they are tired of the bullshit? Of the constant challenges to their own ethics and world view?

    3. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead

      So true Mr. Dick. I remember at Briar Woods some of my top performing students, kids enrolled at the Loudoun Academy of Science, took the early elementary education classes and helped to supervise the pre K program. They would have made excellent teachers but were too good at math and science so off in another direction they went. Today, becoming a school teacher is truly a calling.

  8. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    From my limited exposure to public school teachers, one of the main complaints has been the large amount of paper work–lesson plans, reports, etc. that consume so much of the time that could be spent on actually preparing for classes.

    1. James C. Sherlock Avatar
      James C. Sherlock

      I accept that reason as well. Another log on the fire.

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