Going into this economic downturn with job loss swirling all around us, I feared not. I figured that with a teaching license I would be safe. We are always going to have public schools that need teachers! So this article about teach job loss was a rude awakening for me. It is even more discomforting that most of these job cuts are based on seniority. So I could succeed all the way into my first year of teaching and then be removed simply because I was last guy in.

I completely understand why it would be so hard to move over to a merit based system right now or even in the future. Everyone has got different definitions as to what makes a strong and effective teacher. On top of that problem there is also the idea of who will assess all the teachers when budget cuts rear their ugly head. When will we find time, resources, and the energy to grade on merit? AJ Duffy put it nicely when saying that seniority might just be easier because then their “hands are tied.”

Another topic in this article that began to grind my gears while reading this was Teach for America. I read an article a little while ago discussing how increased numbers of college aged people were going into Teach for America. While I think the whole thing is a great noble concept, it is beginning to become a problem. With our economy being the way it is, many non-education graduates are seeking out programs like Teach for America because the job market in their field is not very strong. They then turn and flood out our own teaching job market. So professionals that have no background in education get to stay on before the ones that do. Sounds pretty backwards to me?

To read more... check the article out on EdWeek.org http://www.edweek.org/ew/news/2009/02/17/22purge.h28.html