Am I really screwed when im older?Follow

The turnover rate among teachers is very high in the US. See, for example:
http://www.abss.k12.nc.us/system/news/turnover.html
If 12-14% of your teachers are leaving every year (and I don't know if they subtracted out retirement - which could be a few percent, too, but I can't imagine more than, say, 5%) then you aren't going to have many for very long.

Once they hang around for a few years they do tend to stay a while, but it means there are *tons* of new faces coming and going - which could easily wind up being the majority. I don't know whether it is or not, but we have to admit it is sizable, and in some areas at least they should be the majority.

Moebius, perhaps when and where you were in school most teachers were older.

I know where I live the schools are basically perminantly hiring emergency (non-credential) teachers.

Just to clarify, I am hoping you are using the collective you to refer to the possessors of righteous indignation further up in the thread. My only beef was with the "It's all Bush's fault" post. ****, I slept through damn near all of my senior year. It was largely because my econ teacher was a twit who couldn't be bothered to accept the possibility that her Fly By Nite U. night school degree didn't make her qualified to critique fed monetary policy.

In the Midwest(See here), where I currently find myself trapped, it is between 30 and 40 % over 5 years leaving their positions. That still maintains a majority of teachers with over 5 years on the job, ergo a majority of teachers it is VERY tough to get rid of. Now, I went to school in Napa, California. Rich town, 2 very good high schools which had, for the most part, very able teachers. Oddly enough, most of them were pretty conservative, too, but back then it wasn't really an issue for me. You are correct, though, most of my reachers were over the age of 40 I believe.

i got a chance to meet a real life high school english teacher a couple years ago. around 30 years old, looking at him he fit the image you would assume one to be. what bothered me was that i did many drugs with him (DISCLAIMER: this is at a point in my life when i thought statistics didn't apply to me and before medical evals and treatment showed me that people who said "drugs are bad" were right).

My concern is, I can count the number of times on both hands and at least one foot that I have heard of or seen with my own eyes a teacher doing things that made you wonder what exactly is left in our educational systems (provided there was something there in the first place, iono).

IMO education is in more trouble than can be easily fixed...couple this with all the OTHER areas of our system that are polluted and the phrase "hell in a handbasket" comes to mind. (keep in mind I'm far from a doomsday prophet)

Arrrrgh, that'd be painful, LOL, but ya, that's the kind of bet I'd like to make. I like the way you think, Death.

:D

Totem