Teacher Shortage

For years the public has been bombarded by the negative lip service of politicians eager to use education as an issue. Media coverage perpetuates the myth that we teachers are all a bunch of unskilled, untrained neophytes, the leftovers who can’t get any other job. Now to top it all off, California teachers are ranked below 30 other states in salary (Feb. 9). With all this and the impossible pressure to increase performance, implement state standards and weather grim conditions of overcrowding, poverty, etc., is it any wonder we have a shortage of teachers?

Every day I fight this negativity as I do my seriously important job. I teach the future citizens of my community and the larger world. I choose to brave the “trenches” because I know my effort makes a difference. I do this knowing that my salary is lower than that of many with less education and that Joe Q. Public will make gross generalizations about my abilities to teach and blame low test scores on me and my fellow teachers. No one will give a nod to the policymakers, the state budget or the public’s own indifference to supporting education.

MONICA VILLEGAS

Pasadena