Why American Schools Are Starting To Recruit More Teachers From Foreign Countries
This piece comes to us courtesy of Stateline. Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.
Even with 16 years of teaching experience and two master’s degrees, Nathalia Moreno had a hard time finding a new job in the financially stressed schools where she lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Her prospects brightened when she began considering working in schools on the mainland, where bilingual teachers are in high demand. She got an offer from Florida, but took a job teaching physical education in Las Vegas where recruiters were more persistent.
It’s worth being persistent to hire a good teacher, especially one like Moreno who speaks English and Spanish, said Staci Vesneske, chief human resources officer for Las Vegas’ Clark County school system.
“It’s not uncommon for our recruiters to follow up two or three times to say, ‘Hey, we really want you to finish your application,’ ” Vesneske said.
Growing demand for bilingual teachers, fed by increasing numbers of Spanish-speaking public school students, is forcing local school districts to get creative in their recruiting. A major target for their efforts is Puerto Rico: the teachers, already U.S. citizens, don’t require a visa if they decide to leave the island and its struggling economy to go work on the mainland.
Oklahoma City Public Schools, for instance, started the school year in August with more than a dozen new teachers from Puerto Rico, including Iriana Sanchez, a kindergarten teacher who left because “it’s hard to get a job there, and here I feel very welcome.”
Houston-area schools are organizing recruiting conferences locally and in San Juan. The Dallas Independent School District, which already recruits in Puerto Rico, is this year looking to Mexico and Spain for candidates, while starting a training program for local bilingual professionals to become teachers.
“As bilingual programs in Dallas and across the state continue to grow, the need for bilingual teachers increases exponentially each year,” said Jordan Carlton, who heads a recruiting team for the district.
A smaller share of U.S. college students is getting education degrees. Relatively low pay and declining job benefits can make the profession look less attractive. State certification of teachers varies widely, and states don’t always recognize each other’s teacher certifications.
A 2013 study by the Council of the Great City Schools found that about half of large Why American Schools Are Starting To Recruit More Teachers From Foreign Countries: