According to new figures from the Teachers Retirement System, 4,145 public school teachers retired in the first six months of calendar year 2001. That figure exceeds the combined total of 3,978 teachers who retired in 1999 and 2000.
In the last week of June, teachers were retiring at the rate of 100 a day. A union leader commented that “uncompetitive pay, oversize classes, shortage of textbooks and supplies, and a general lack of support have taken their toll. Thousands of our most experienced teachers are voting with their feet.”
The mayor may continue to deny that there is a teacher shortage, but other elected officials, along with administrators, parents and kids faced with new and higher academic standards, know the truth. We’ve got to get a new contract in place to stop the teacher exodus and begin attracting the best new candidates. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to solve the problem.
The retirement numbers do not include teachers who leave for other professions or to teach elsewhere. Some 1,700 teachers left to teach elsewhere, including the suburbs where levels of pay are often 20 to 30 per cent higher. Surprisingly, this is not a press release from a UK teacher association, but from one issued in July by the United Federation of Teachers New York branch. Teacher supply issues have become a global problem and US cities are looking around the world to fill vacancies.
John Howson e-mail john.howson@lineone.net
