Other areas with shortages include secondary math and science teachers. Differential pay for those qualified to teach those subjects has been proposed, and 60 percent of principals recently surveyed by Peter Harris Research Group Inc. said higher pay would attract more qualified teachers for those subjects. However, in the same survey, roughly the same percentage of principals said they opposed extra pay for those teachers.
The principals favor a different strategy. About 60 percent of those surveyed in the Harris poll, which was released last month by the nonprofit group Recruiting New Teachers Inc., said that better in-school teacher support, such as mentoring programs, would be the most effective way to build up and retain a qualified workforce.
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One former teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while a low salary was part of why she left teaching, it wasn't the primary reason. Instead, the long hours and the lack of respect from some parents led to her decision to quit after 10 years, she said.
Her second -- and last -- teaching job was at a well-known private school in the Washington area, she said. "The parents expected you to be at their beck and call at any hour of the day or night -- after all, that's what they were 'paying good money for.' "
The last straw came, she said, when she called in sick after a miscarriage, and a student's mother called her at home to chastise her for missing work. "She said, 'I don't know what you're doing, but there's no way it's as important as helping my son.' "
The ex-teacher doesn't consider the experience an anomaly. "I have heard that the same thing is true in a lot of other private schools -- the parents assume that they are paying for all of your time," she said.
And yet, by the look of the numbers, they don't want to pay much.
Join Mary Ellen Slayter for Career Track Live, an online discussion of issues affecting young workers, at 11 a.m. Oct. 8 at www.washingtonpost.com. E-mail her at slayterme@washpost.com.
