Matt Barrow ) wrote:
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: Unions are there to protect the working class
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: Like teachers?
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:

American teachers may become the next occupational "endangered species":


http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/050826_vfl.htm
VDARE.com: 08/26/05 - View From Lodi, CA:
Look Out Teachers; The H-1B Visa Gang Wants Your Job

"View From Lodi, CA: Look Out Teachers; The H-1B Visa Gang Wants Your Job
By Joe Guzzardi

A recent item in the Las Vegas Review-Journal should raise eyebrows
among my teaching colleagues and parents with school age children.

In his warm and fuzzy story titled Teachers Arrive From Philippines,
Antonio Planas reported that 51 Filipino teachers recruited in
February to work for the Clark County School District have completed
their 7,000-mile journey. They are headed directly to the classroom.
[August 2, 2005]

Clark County is, according to the story, short about 400 teachers
district wide.

But tough, unasked questions remain.

Will the new instructors be able to make the transition from teaching
in rural communities half way around the world--one described her
village as "rice and coconut farmers"--to teaching in the neon lights
of urban Las Vegas?

[snip]

The Filipino teachers are legally in the U.S. on non-immigrant H-1B
visas. And that fact begs a bigger question: did Clark County exhaust
every opportunity to hire an American before traveling to the other
side of the globe?

Rob Sanchez, who tracks non-immigrant visa issues and is the Webmaster
for the invaluable www.zazona.com, says school districts fail to look
at unemployed local professionals. Many laid off software engineers,
for example, have gone back to school to get education degrees.

Wrote Sanchez in his August 3rd newsletter:

"School districts all over the United States are actively recruiting
foreign teachers for our schools. In this case, Filipino math and
science teachers on H-1B visas have just arrived in Nevada.

I have talked to many engineers and programmers that have been unable
to get teaching jobs in math and science, despite the fact that they
went back to school to get education degrees. Despite the growing
number of desperate unemployed high-tech workers states like Nevada
still claim there is a shortage of these types of teachers. This is
just another cruel insult to the growing number of highly educated
professionals that can't find meaningful work."

And when Sanchez says that recruitment of foreign teachers is going on
nationwide, he isn't kidding.

o In 2003, Arizona educators traveled to New Delhi for teachers
even though the local Scottsdale Unified School District cut 175
jobs during the same period. [Teachers Recruited from India, Pat
Kossan, Arizona Republic, March 22, 2003]

o In June 2004, the New York Department of Education, crying
"shortage," added 200 additional teachers from Jamaica to its staff.
The state offered two additional bonuses: free legal advice so that
they could convert their visas into permanent residency status and
free temporary housing.

o In September 2001, Cleveland hired 50 math and special
education teachers from India. This year 500 pink slips are being sent
out in what the Cleveland Plain-Dealer describes as

"The first wave in what will be deep staff cuts in
the school district."

[Nearly 500 Teachers Will Be Cut, Janet Okoben and Ebony Reed,
April 23, 2005]

At the beginning of my column I warned that teachers should be leery
of the trend to hire H-1Bs.

Conservative estimates put the number of teachers with non-immigrant
visas at about 15,000...and growing.

If you wonder why the attraction to H-1Bs is so strong, read the 2004
National Education Association report Trends in Foreign Teacher
Recruitment.

From the NEA report:

"...Some foreign teachers receive lower pay than comparable teachers
in their schools."

And:

"...Some school districts pay their nonimmigrant employees as new
teachers, regardless of their experience and qualifications..."



--Jerry Leslie
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