Public Schools Recruiting Overseas

According to a recent article published in the New York Times, some American school districts have turned their attention to foreign countries in order to recruit their public school teachers. Hard to staff schools are finding it increasingly difficult to attract teachers to their classrooms.

The report estimates that 19,000 foreign teachers were working in the United States on temporary visas in 2007, and that the number was rising steadily. There are more than three million teachers in American public schools.

Baltimore hired 108 teachers from the Philippines in 2005, but four years later has more than 600 Filipino teachers working in city classrooms, where they make up more than 10 percent of the teaching force.

Foreign instructors usually must show English proficiency to be hired, but sometimes districts inadequately assess them, and in such cases should offer help in improving fluency, the report said.

“Rather than attending job fairs throughout the Mid-Atlantic, trying to persuade reluctant American teachers to accept positions in troubled inner-city schools, H.R. officials can meet all their hiring needs in one trip,” the report says. “At a single career fair in Manila, they can interview hundreds of prescreened applicants, each of whom is eager to pay for the opportunity to work in Baltimore city schools.”

You can read the full article here.