One of the problems with NYC’s education that I haven’t heard about much is the fact that the more difficult it seems for teachers to hold on to their jobs, the more likely it is that they will not choose to seek careers within the city’s education system in the first place.
My father is a public school special ed teacher, and he has taught in three different schools across Manhattan in the past ten years. Every time he changed location, it was because the school’s budget cuts forced it to decrease its special ed programing, or because the school was shut down entirely. As an aspiring teacher, I am in touch with many people who are either in the process of achieving teacher certification or have recently done so. Of all these people, I do not know a single one who is planning on teaching in a public school. Citing feared budget cuts and the vilification of teachers by the city as their main reasons for not wanting to work for NYC schools as their ideal career, most hope to obtain positions in private schools or in public schools on Long Island.
Bloomberg’s comments that, in a perfect world, he would do away with half of NYC’s teachers can’t be a very good incentive for people to want to join New York’s public schools. These types of policies are driving young, talented, and highly qualified teachers to seek work outside of the city, or at least outside of its public shoals. Is this something New York’s schools can afford to lose?
