Talent Competition

There is a limited pool of talent in the United States. In an expanding economy, recruiters are competing with each other for that talent. In most companies, these recruiters are savvy, experienced talent scouts who are trained for this role and know the tools that help them succeed. They have only one role – recruit the best possible talent for the company.

In our school districts, the recruiter is usually a former teacher who is not trained in these tools and usually has many other jobs on top of recruitment such as mentoring coordinator, professional development coordinator etc.

Yet they are both competing for the same people. This may explain why our schools do not have the math and science teachers they need.

One part of the solution – go where the technical types are to find the talent for our schools – the web:

• Web site: most district/state websites are way too hard to figure out. Here is a great test – invite your non-teaching friends over and have them go to your website and try to find out how to become a teacher. Odds are they will leave your house in frustration before figuring it out – just like some potential teachers.
• Web seminars: cheap, easy and you can run them whenever you want. Potential teachers can watch from the comfort of their own homes.
• Google Ads: can be focused to your state and can be pretty cost effective. If a math/science person is looking to teach – their first stop is going to be a search engine.
• Capture their interest: have a spot on your website for people to request more information. Becoming a teacher is a big decision – sending more information might get them to finally take the step. You can then send email updates to people about upcoming web seminars as well.

We have had over 60,000 people inquire about the ABCTE program – top search words that have attracte people to our website: jobs, teaching, teacher, school, become a teacher, teacher certification, teachers and teaching jobs. Bid for those google ad words and you are on your way to recruiting more teachers.

Disconnected

We are from Washington and we are here to help - that line always gets a chuckle out in the various state leaders I visit. The chuckle comes from a belief that people in Washington couldn't possibly know what is needed in their state.

Yet their I sit confronted by the people who approve certification programs and they are totally disconnected from the reality of what is going on in the classrooms. In Nevada last week, they are trying to uphold the absolute highest standards of teacher certification by keeping things the same. And just a few miles away, Clark County was SHORT 1,163 teachers in June and had to bring over 50 teachers from the Philippines and were still woefully short.

They are keeping out people like Martin Jones, 51, who just completed our program in rural Idaho and is now qualified to teach General Science, Biology and Physics. He is teaching at a public high school that graduated 19 last year - without him, these students don't have a high school science teacher. His knowledge and experience in the sciences have created an amazing classroom experience for his students.

They are keeping out Randolph Messineo of Alabama, 52, an Air Force veteran who is going to retire from the military and teach elementary school. He is going to move to a state that accepts ABCTE because the program worked best for him as he was getting out of the military. Alabama just lost a great male teacher - something very rare in today's elementary schools.

If you don't have enough teachers applying for jobs - the quality you are willing to accept to have a person teaching that class drops significantly.

The rules and regulations designed to raise quality are keeping people like Martin and Randolph out of most classrooms and replace them with teachers from other countries and long term substitutes.

Rome in burning - put down the fiddle and find a plan that works.