DC Public Schools is feeling the crunch this morning, having had to rehire all the uncertified teachers they let go over the summer, and add a hundred more, to fill all the vacancies within the District’s school system. Therein lies a siginificant difficult: if you can’t find enough certified teachers, what do you do? You can’t just increase class size, or you’ll drive out the teachers you have already. You can’t leave uncertified teachers in place because it tends to be against the law and bad for public opinion of the schools. You can’t remove the certification clauses because the teachers’ unions and parent associations freak out.
There’s really no good solution to the teacher crisis, so what can be done to help DC’s schools? Neither Linda Cropp’s education plan, nor Adrian Fenty’s White Paper on Education mention anything about the teacher shortage in the District, just a generalized plan to move forward with better schools despite the lack of certified teachers.
How do we handle this? Is it even a problem?
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
