One of the biggest challenges I have participated in is hiring people, usually engineers. When you are looking for specific skill sets it can be difficult to find enough candidates and even harder to find not only qualified but the best candidates. At no company I worked for did we ever say “well we’re having trouble finding and keeping the best engineers, so we better find a way to fire who we have easier”.

But that is what proposed reform in California that failed would have done. The reform was started with a valid premise that we need to ensure the best teachers are educating our children. However the reform also assumed it was possible to eliminate bad teachers and replace them from a pool of good teachers. However, currently we have a shortage, of qualified teachers. So there is no “magic” pool of high quality teachers.

We need to attract qualified and quality teachers. Today schools attract people that are very motivated to be teachers. Despite lower salaries there are people out there that really enjoy teaching. But to put this in perspective it would easy enough to find people that really enjoy playing football, and would play for say $20,000 per year. But the odds of that team winning, well, not so good… Currently we have trouble getting enough qualified teachers, and yet we want only the best teachers in the classroom.

For those that say the best teachers are the ones that want to teach anyhow. Yes motivation to teach is important, but the best teachers have skills and interests that take them far in other areas as well. And yes we do have some excellent teachers out there, but we need more. If we want the best teachers for our children we have to step up and offer pay and a work environment that attracts the best.

A Madman has spoken…