250,000 teachers run away from kids

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=OL5KCC4PQFX2NQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/28/nteacher128.xml

More than a quarter of a million qualified teachers are no longer working in schools, according to data unearthed by the Conservatives.


Nearly 100,000 school staff switched careers between 2000 and 2005 - more than double the number that quit teaching in the preceding five-year period.

The Tories said growing numbers of students who trained as teachers never entered the classroom, while more were working part-time and retiring early.

The Government insisted the figures reflected the fact that record numbers of teachers were working in schools.

But Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said: "Not only are our children not achieving as they should, talented teachers are not where they should be - in the classroom…"

Between 2000 and 2005 about 95,500 teachers under 60 left the profession; between 1995 and 1999, 40,600 did so. In total, 269,800 are classed as "out of service".

Some 7,900 graduate teachers who qualified in 2005 never worked in the classroom, compared with 2,100 in 2000.

An analysis by the Tories showed teachers retiring early almost doubled from 8,500 in 1998-99 to 16,850 last year, and numbers choosing to work part-time rose from 6,910 in 1997 to 11,830 in 2007.

Mr Gove said: "A combination of classroom bureaucracy, Government micro-management and poor discipline in too many schools has encouraged a drift away from teaching."

Jim Knight, the schools minister, disagreed. "Recruitment into the profession has never been more buoyant, and teaching is now the career of choice for many highly qualified, talented individuals," he said.

"Early retirement and churn in teaching is good compared with equivalent professions," he added, pointing to a survey of 22,500 British workers by Bath University that found teaching to be the 11th happiest profession in 2007, against 54th in 1999.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools said the data did not acknowledge that up to 30,000 teachers returned to teaching later on.

Teachers last night accused the Tories of "seeking to manipulate statistics".

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said. "The number of inactive teachers is probably correct. The reasons given… are, however, overly simplistic and fly in the face of the evidence."

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

My SO is a teacher and has been to hell and back, thanks to his ill-behaved, ungrateful shithead students. They got him in trouble for doing something that any one of us would have done (basically, he told them to "shut up" because he was at his wit's end with them.) In today's schools, not only do the student have ALL the power, they KNOW IT, and use this fact to their full advantage. I feel so sorry for teachers. They are totally at the evil students' mercy... And the illiteracy goes on... We are raising a generation of malicious, entitlement-minded numbskulls. Luckily, I should be dead in another 50 years, and will not have to witness the full effect of the disaster we're creating.

My mom keeps whining at me that I need to go into teaching with the degree I'm going to get in the next couple of years. I keep hearing about how teachers make upwards of $40K starting out, but I don't have the patience to deal with kids of any age and she can't seem to understand that. Yes, I need to pay off my student loans, but I'm not losing my sanity to a room full of bratty teens/adults to do so.

I've heard many horror stories of what teachers endure from students of all ages - from pre-k tp college, and it's shit I don't ever want to deal with.

I don't blame teachers for not staying in the profession - kids are assholes, and no longer is it that the parents believe the teacher always and punishes the kid. Now the parents believe Snookums no matter what and bitch the teacher out. It's not worth it, and the teachers who do stay end up with enormous classes they usually cannot handle, resulting in a reduced quality of education all around. It fuckin' sucks.

I think I'd rather clean public toilets with a toothbrush than become a teacher.

You couldn't pay me enough to teach the school-aged vermin of today. Their despicable behavior, busy-body parents and general related bullshit, somebody would end up dead.