NEA wants retirees to solve the teacher exodus.
My art is at Instagram @klonskyart
Public school teachers are too easy a mark.
When Illinois’ crazy tax system (the poorest and the richest pay the same income tax rate) hit a wall, the political leadership manufactured a public pension crisis.
There never was a “crisis”.
Yes. State legislators shorted the pension system by diverting payments to other costs they couldn’t afford.
There were plenty of legitimate ways of paying the pension and their other costs. It was just easier to declare a crisis and make retired teachers give up our cost of living adjustment.
Or make newly hired teachers work until they dropped dead.
Or pay higher health insurance premiums.
Or whatever.
Like I said. We’re an easy mark.
Now after two years of a pandemic and being treated like crap, placed (along with their students) in unsafe working conditions and underpaid (nothing new there), teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers and new ones aren’t exactly taking a number to get in line to sign up.
The downward trend has been consistent. Between the 2008-09 and the 2018-19 academic years, the number of people completing a teacher-education program declined by almost a third. Traditional teacher-preparation programs saw the largest decline—35 percent—but alternative programs experienced drops, too.
Which is why the cover of the latest NEA Today blew me away.
The National Education Association is the largest teacher union in the country. Maybe the largest union.
The NEA solution to the teacher shortage?
Retirees should return to the classroom.
Now, don’t get me wrong. When I retired ten years ago I did return to the classroom as a volunteer.
One day a week for five years I taught kindergarten and first grade students to play the ukulele at a school in Chicago.
For an hour a week. As a volunteer.
I loved it. It’s my favorite student age group.
I have friends who retired and now substitute teach. They don’t do it mainly for the money.
They just like keeping a foot in the door of the profession that they love, without the bullshit of meetings, reports, evaluations, required professional development and the rest.
The parts of the job we all hated when we were teaching full time.
Since we retirees are considered an easy mark, the NEA and others think the solution to the teacher shortage is for retired teachers to go back to work.
Nope.
Even without the Illinois pension bullshit, the anti-public education reformers have been desperately trying to deprofessionalize teaching. They knock teacher preparation programs. They promote TfA and the local variants. They work hard at converting teaching into a 3 years and out sort of gig.
They are succeeding. Wildly. Maybe a little faster and more effectively than they planned. But they want people in there, obedient, subservient, working a 2 - 3 year job at an unsustainable pace, then out on your ass.
I guess the pandemic gives them the chance to see if they can paper over bad hiring seasons with some pressure on retirees. And here's where the pension comes in - because if I were secure with my pension, I wouldn't give it any thought. But maybe if they threaten someone's pension, they can lure them back.
But what the hell is the NEA going along with this for?
Leave it to the NEA leadership (NOT the rank-&-file: you guys are great) to NOT make a silk purse out of a 🐷's ear.
I worry about my retired colleagues who have gone back into the classrooms, where un😷ed kids (&, perhaps, unvaccinated) can get COVID & pass it along. (Although, we're all safe now, right, because if you're vaccinated, it's gonna be mild for sure.)
Sure the NEA leaders aren't subbing.