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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > April > 25 > Entry
Stealing teachers away from kids!
The story I read this weekend that spoke to me the most about education was in the business section of the New York Times and it wasn’t even about schools.
The Times wrote about companies like Starbucks and Quicken Loans and Southwest Airlines — fast growing companies in need of top talent to keep their profitable momentum going.
And they’re eyeing your child’s teacher for their newest coffee shop manager, loan officer or flight attendant.
Unlike the competition, these companies won’t sit back and wait for resumes to roll in. They take action. Here’s an excerpt:
To be sure, “people are our most important asset” is the most ubiquitous platitude in corporate life. But organizations that have spent years reinventing their supply chains and turbocharging their computer systems seem oddly content to keep hiring the old-fashioned way: by posting open positions in newspapers or on Internet job boards, hoping that enough candidates see them, and sorting through the résumés — what Mr. Warner calls the “post and pray” school of recruiting.
The story quotes Michael G. Homula, director of talent acquisition for rapidly growing Quicken Loans, the Internet’s biggest lender, who says the company’s leadership is constantly asking “where is our next great mortgage banker going to come from?” The story continues:
The primary answer, it turns out, isn’t help-wanted ads, Web site postings or job fairs. Mr. Homula and his 34-member department have mastered the art of discovering talented candidates in unlikely places. This month, for example, they organized a “road rally” in which teams of recruiters blitzed a carefully selected group of shopping malls.
They spent hours inside stores like Best Buy and Circuit City and restaurants like T.G.I. Friday’s. They walked the aisles, bought merchandise, ordered meals and hunted for employees and managers who stood out by virtue of their energy, enthusiasm and rapport with customers.
“Too many companies focus on industry experience when they recruit,” Mr. Homula said. “We’re after certain kinds of people, not people from a certain business. We’ve turned waiters and waitresses into great mortgage bankers. We’ve hired soap-opera actors and electricians. We can teach people about finance. We can’t teach passion, urgency and a willingness to go the extra mile.”
It may sound like an exotic strategy, but it’s not without precedent. The free-spirited Southwest Airlines has made it a point to recruit flight attendants, gate agents and baggage handlers from the ranks of, say, schoolteachers and police officers rather than limiting itself to industry veterans.
I was struck by the specific mention of looking at teachers to find energetic, enthusiastic people with passion that can be trained for OTHER jobs!
Isn’t this crazy? Shouldn’t this work just the opposite? Shouldn’t school districts, states or perhaps even the federal government be the ones sending teams into malls and restaurants, looking to steal away potential teachers to a more fruitful and rewarding career?
This put me in mind of a Realtor I met recently. As we rode in her Mercedes, she told me how she used to be a kindergarten teacher. She was Montessori trained, she told me, and she loved it. So why did she leave teaching? Her husband was a mortgage broker and it was his idea, she said. He thought they could grow his business quicker if they worked together and his friends in the business convinced her it was too lucrative an opportunity to pass up.
What would it take for education to begin stealing back Realtors and mortgage bankers?
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Mr. Wendel
April 27, 2006 2:21 PM | Link to this
You get what you pay for…I want my children being taught and brought up by the best…not someone who “just works for nine months”. Teachers are educated and deserve the benefits they receive… getting that college degree. , M.D., or PhD. is not a piece of cake. The cashiers, maids, and waitresses are up and down. I mean haven’t we all have had good and bad service. The job…any job…is what you make of it. You either work your tail off and keep it and move up or you don’t and lose it….waitress or math teacher..and both are probably underpaidBy Mary
April 27, 2006 7:05 AM | Link to this
This discussion reminds me of an article headline this mornnig “DPL focused, execs tell owners”. Are schools focused? I think it is great teachers get 3 months off. I wish everyone did. However, after reading about watiresses, maids, and cashiers in “Nickle and dimed” and serving in the military, I do not particularly think of teachers as being the most overworked and underpaid employees who sacrifice in our society. The constant whining and spinning about pay and money being the root of educational problems is annoying to say the least.By Mr. Wendel
April 26, 2006 2:24 PM | Link to this
I guess I just felt somewhat offended and different when I read the comment that teachers shouldn’t be paid much because we only “work for nine months”. For anyone reading this who has never taught…think of watching, supervising, or teaching your own young children…it can get tough…the good teachers watch around 700 a day…30 at a time for nine months…for nothing it seems like…we do get to get our teeth cleaned for 10 dollars…By Mary
April 26, 2006 1:42 PM | Link to this
Clucking or oinking about pay and benefits all the time does not improve education either. There is more to it.By Mr. Wendel
April 26, 2006 12:16 PM | Link to this
Mary… fistfights are not tolerated at our school by any means. Both students were suspended three days. As for the laughter in the hallway, we have to remember that these are children and we the teachers are adults. How mature are adults if they are offended by comments made by 10-14 year olds. Teaching jobs are not for anyone. It takes a special person to relate to and work with young people. I have 10 years experience coaching and 6 years of teaching. The whole teaching and coaching job is about working with people. That is why sometimes educators cater to such entitlements by the students and parents. It is our job to help our upcoming youth. We need to team up with parents to help kids. And to do this sometimes we have to listen. Classroom takes priority but administrators need and want teachers to take on the challenge of coaching and other extra-curriculars out of the classroom. We have to turn in lesson plans here every week. There are all kinds of incentives here at our school to motivate students who are not involved in athletics. We as teachers bust our tails to motivate and communicate with people to try to better educate the upcoming generations. And we don’t do it for the money obviously..By Oldprof
April 26, 2006 11:15 AM | Link to this
Mary, the comments were “teachers only work so many hours per day and so many months out of the year, and so they don’t deserve more pay.” My analogy to game show hosts, radio announcers, etc. was fair and logical, in the context that hours worked and value to society is not ever a consideration in other lines of work. Bottom line: most teachers leave the profession after only a few years—before they get enough experience to actually excel at it—because it doesn’t pay enough. Clucking about how many hours are worked is not productive if the goal is to improve education.By Mary
April 26, 2006 7:05 AM | Link to this
For coach/teacher Mr. Wendel, why do you and the administration tolerate fist fights in the hallway and laughter from the track team during your pain? Why do you cater to the sense of entitlements for athletes and their parents at your school? That is part of the problem. Also you did not mention your experience level for the $36,000 salary plus $3,500 supplemental. How do you balance the coaching duties and time committment with your obligations in the classroom. We hear all the time about the need for outside classroom preparation by teachers for furthering their education, class plans, grading papers, etc. Which takes priority, the coaching or the classroom? What is being done, what is the value added, for the students not on the sports teams? For old prof, your message about game show hosts does not make sense to me? How many game show hosts does the world have/need? Yes, they are probably overpaid like a lot of CEOs and pro athletes and other entertainers. I resent the money that goes from me as a consumer and shareholder into their pockets. Paying teachers like game show hosts does not solve any of those problems, but adds to the ridiculous.By Oldprof
April 25, 2006 11:38 PM | Link to this
OK, you two people seem to think that 60K to start for a teacher is too much? GAME SHOW HOSTS make millions per year for six weeks of work. Radio announcers don’t work more than 3 hours per day. Pornographers are among the wealthiest Americans. Given time, I could show you how we could afford to pay teachers twice as much with no great increase in taxes or school funding. But here’s a sticking point: it will never happen as long as people like John Husted, who are hostile to public education, are in the halls of government.By Mr. Wendel
April 25, 2006 10:33 PM | Link to this
In response to fenwah and mary, I am a teacher and coach. Sure, I teach nine months out of the year. I also teach summer school classes, coach at three camps, supervise summer open gym activities, coach my team at numerous summer tournaments, in all reality including these extra-curricular and supplemental assignments..it turns into a 12 month, seven day a week, 24 hour day job. My week at my school has gone like this:I have broken up a fist fight in the hall, tried to teach my last period health class how to properly brush and floss and had three girls tell me they have never had a cavity and they refuse to floss and think the whole dental lesson is worthless, stupid and boring. Later,as I was unlocking the locker room for the track team after school, a student burst through from the inside knocking me back five feet head first…result…I split my forehead open, and one of the 25 keys literally got stuck in my hand. Four of the track athletes stood there laughing while another few told me to get out of the way, and one student told me I was stupid and it was my own fault. The next day I had a father call me and ask me what all I had planned for the team this summer in the off-season and that he thought his son didn’t get enough playing time and that he didn’t agree with my philosophy of coaching or style of play. I have to teach out of three different classrooms due to a lack of space. Our bleachers in the gym will not go back so I have to modify my gym class around this. I have cafeteria duty everyday and consatantly sweep up and clean up after the kids everyday. I won’t go on buit I could for days. I get paid 36,000 a year plus my little 3500 dollar coaching check. I make ends meet. The funny thing is…I love every minute if it. I have a stong passion for kids and enjoy helping them. I wouldn’t want to do anything else with my life. Sure we get the benefits in the long run…but when we get there, going through all of the stress over the years, how much life span will we have left to enjoy it?By Mary
April 25, 2006 4:23 PM | Link to this
I guess I agree with fenwah. Supposedly, pay is a dissatisfier, but not a satisfier in most careers. I certainly do not hear of much turnover in my district. Fairly safe schools, 90% of health care benefits paid for by the taxpayers, average salary in the $50-$60,000 range, summers off, no business trips away from home,no involuntary reassignments to another geographical location, job security, no layoffs, good retirement system that suposedly most districts across the nation cannot afford and have not accurately budgeted for. A lot of people in other careers might be envious (except for the retirement system that might be financially unsound like their own careers. However, many in the other careers do not get pensions or health care benefits or supplemental pay for a lot of overtime or union representation.)By fenwah
April 25, 2006 1:33 PM | Link to this
You want to start paying teachers $60k a year right out of college? For crying out loud…they only work nine months of the year…plus they have a terrific retirement. Good luck getting that new tax levy passed to pay those $60k a year, right out of college, teachers.By Oldprof
April 25, 2006 11:35 AM | Link to this
Scott, some of us have known for years that the average time in the teaching career is five years. Enthusiastic new teachers come out of college, and they get drowned in a topheavy school bureaucracy that cares more about comfort and cost than quality; they get buried under stacks of meangingless paperwork; they get blamed for being members of a teacher’s union by bloated elected officials. Want them to stay in the teaching profession—and for it to attract other bright, eager people? PAY THEM. When the starting salary for a teacher begins at, say, 60K, schools will have their choice of applicants, including former Starbucks managers.By Dave
April 25, 2006 11:14 AM | Link to this
Let’s remember that there are also some good reasons for turnover in teaching. A number of folks go into the field with an idealized notion of what teaching is about. When they find out the truth, some of them embrace it, and others need to find a way to use their talents elsewhere. And even in the group who are “born teachers”, there is a high burn-out rate. We need career alternatives for the talented people who are misplaced in teaching and to allow the “burn-outs” to regenerate a few years until they are ready to re-enter the fray with their original passion.By Mary
April 25, 2006 7:15 AM | Link to this
Some of these other jobs sound like snake oil sales to me. There has been a lot of corruption and stupidity along with the get rich schemes in the financial industry. People are roped into risky home mortgage loans abd other debt. Dayton really has problems in that regard. Sometimes I think the whole financial industry is going to crash in along with education and a lot of our other institutions. Customers and employees are being exploited in some of this to enrich a few. Some financial employees are going to jail because of the shadiness of some of the deals. I read recently about one employee (I think he used to be in pro tennis) who supposedly lied about his successes in the financial industry and got promoted several times based on the lies. Apparently, some of the employees incentives inspire inflated reports and trickery for pay and promotions. A lot of these people were hired for their marketing and personality razzle dazzle rather than their financial knowhow. They were probably hired by people with the same qualities. Scary.