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Re: Los Angeles hires 115 foreign teachers to fill shortages
Maybe if there were premium pay for teaching some of these subjects,
more Americans would be interested in teaching them and we wouldn't
have to recruit teachers from overseas. Couldn't have that, now, could
we? One size has to fit all, right?
Art
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 5:58 pm
Subject: [arn-l] Los Angeles hires 115 foreign teachers to fill
shortages
<http://www.dailynews.com/ci_6666051>http://www.dailynews.com/ci_6666051
Foreign teachers fill a need at LAUSD
<mailto:naush.boghossian@dailynews.com?subject=LA Daily News:
Foreign teachers fill a need at LAUSD>BY NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN, Staff
Writer
Article Last Updated: 08/19/2007 11:57:01 PM PDT
Four hours after arriving at her Los Angeles hotel from the
Philippines, a jet-lagged Lolita Magno was thrown into a nonstop
schedule of orientations, training sessions, paperwork and getting
documents both for her new life in America and her new job teaching
science at a Los Angeles Unified school.
Despite pangs of homesickness and the uncertainties of a foreign
environment, Magno knows she's begun a three-year journey that will
offer her invaluable experience and knowledge she'll take back to
her students in the Philippines.
She thought it an ideal match: She'd bring her degree in science
where it's needed and gather experience working with a diverse
student population to help achieve her goal of advocating for
multicultural education at home.
"It's mutually beneficial. It's a symbiotic relationship. We share
our knowledge, a little of our positive culture, and they share a
little bit of their culture," Magno, 36, said. "And we make students
academically, globally and socially focused. It makes sense, doesn't
it."
Magno is one of 115 teachers recruited by the LAUSD from abroad for
hard-to-fill positions of math, science and special education -
comprising about one-seventh of the new
hires for the 2007-08 school year.
While LAUSD has recruited from other countries for well over 20
years, this year's is the largest group ever from abroad, fueled by
a national shortage in qualified teachers in the three subject areas.
Aggressive national recruiting, efforts to lure professionals from
business and industry to enter the teaching force and working with
local colleges and universities to attempt to produce more teachers,
have not been enough to fill the district's vacancies.
And with districtwide initiatives to reduce class sizes and offer
more rigorous, college-preparatory classes, LAUSD is looking
anywhere it can to find qualified math and science teachers.
"We are like Baltimore, New York City, Atlanta, Chicago and other
large districts who recruit out-of-country because there are not
enough qualified American teachers who have gone to school to become
math, science and special education teachers," said Deborah Ignagni,
who oversees the recruitment, selection, placement and credentialing
of teachers at LAUSD.
Ignagni doesn't see the district's reliance on foreign teachers
subsiding anytime soon, but she hopes efforts to recruit highly
qualified teachers will translate into lower turnover, reducing the
need to recruit from abroad.
But in addition to the 100 teachers from the Philippines - about the
same number hired from the country last year - LAUSD had to turn to
India this year to fill the need, hiring 15 teachers.
Another 10 teachers came from Spain as well as a handful from
Canada, she said.
The trend of looking abroad for teachers is not likely to ease
anytime soon, said B.J. Bryant, executive director of the American
Association for Employment in Education.
As baby boomers continue to retire, high turnover compared to years
when teaching was a lifelong career, and the 25-year shortage of
math, science and special education teachers persisting, the problem
will not go away soon, Bryant said.
"We see nothing on the horizon that says it will not continue," she
said.
The district turned to international recruitment for the first time
in the 1980s from Mexico and Spain, at a time when their elementary
schools were growing, the need for teachers was rising and it was
the height of the bilingual program.
Now, there is a surplus of elementary school teachers and the focus
has shifted to math, science and special education.
The Philippines, India, Spain and Canada are popular targets for
LAUSD because experience has shown that based on the comparable
nature of programs offered in those countries, the teachers will
have no trouble qualifying for California credentials, Ignagni said.
Also, America's relationships with those governments allows them to
bring in teachers on exchange visas, she said.
But in addition to a rigorous application and hiring process, the
district does not offer perks to foreign teachers.
The only recruitment incentive and reimbursement is up to $7,000 to
teach math, science and special education at low-performing schools
- a sum offered to all credentialed teachers.
Foreign teachers also make the same as American teachers make under
the bargaining unit scale.
Imelda Fruto, foreign recruitment specialist for LAUSD, has already
gone to the Philippines twice to interview prospective teachers in
the past two years and is getting ready for her third trip in October.
"I think the program is very effective because we're able to fill
the vacancies that would otherwise be unfilled," Fruto said. "We
would prefer to hire Americans, but it's not generating enough
interest to fill those positions here.
"The international teachers are highly qualified, and it's a long
process for them."
The process includes being assessed by an independent agency to see
if they're qualified to be interviewed for a job; there's a rigorous
review of their transcripts as well as oral interviews; they must
have three years of teaching experience; they must be fluent in
English; they must have a degree and teaching license in their
country; and they must pass the mini-CBEST with the requirement of
passing the CBEST here within one year of employment.
The California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) was developed
to meet requirements of laws relating to credentialing and employment.
Only then could they get jobs and only in math, science and special
education. Other applicants are turned away.
"Most of these people are graduates from UP or the University of the
Philippines, which is the Harvard of the Philippines, and Ateneo,
which is considered the Stanford. They're from the Ivy League of the
Philippines," Fruto said. "It's not like we're taking any person off
the street. These people are very well educated and they have to
meet our requirements."
But foreign recruitment has raised the ire of some American teachers
applying for the high-demand positions, saying the slots are being
taken by their overseas counterparts.
But district officials insist that they are resorting to overseas
hiring because they simply do not get enough qualified applicants
from the U.S.
Barbara Burnett, LAUSD's assistant director of special education
certificated employment operations, insists Americans with general
teaching credentials are generally not pursuing those options that
will allow them to teach in math, science and special education.
"People get a little indignant, saying why do you hire teachers from
other countries?
"Unfortunately, it's true, there are many qualified Americans having
trouble finding a teaching job," Burnett said, but they are
credentialed as general subject teachers, which is a saturated field.
The key is that those teachers need to go back to school and get
certificated in the shortage-filled areas, "and they'll easily find
a job," she said.
"So there are options, but obviously Americans are not availing
themselves of those opportunities because there are still
vacancies," Burnett said.
Special education teacher Maria Nunag, 33, is about to begin the
second year of the exchange program and shared her experiences with
the newcomers at their orientation at LAUSD headquarters Thursday.
She is hoping to use what she learns at her job at 20th Street
Elementary in South Los Angeles to open her own learning center in
the Philippines.
"I would like to gain more knowledge of my craft since special
education is limited in the Philippines," she said.
It is that future payoff in her career that pushed her through the
challenges of adjusting to a new place and a different culture the
first year.
In a culture where family is very important, some of the newcomers
found themselves crying at the orientation. Most foreign teachers
live together to help ease the adjustment to a new country, a
different culture, different people and the pressures of a new job.
As Magno prepared her green "Pilipinas" passport to show officials
from U.S. Social Security Administration Thursday, she said she is
focusing on the big picture - what she'll learn and how she'll be
able to take her new knowledge to benefit her students and her
country to make them prepared for a global economy.
"We're global. We have to go out of our comfort zone, we have to
reach out. It doesn't matter what race you are - once a teacher,
always a teacher. Anywhere," Magno said. "They move lives, they
inspire, they create change."
naush.boghossian@dailynews.com
(818) 713-3722
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