If you want to do this then you need to raise teacher pay. When I was at Polk the off-post schools were having a really difficult time finding qualified teachers. Most of the those who did graduate local teaching programs then went elsewhere to teach so that they could get better pay or at least not have to stay in Leesville. That is anecdotal but I doubt that it is an isolated case. My wife looked briefly into teaching until she started making friends with some local teachers. The teaching profession as a whole seems to be caught in a downward spiral. They are overworked and underpaid which, of course, makes teaching and unattractive prospect for young college students which then makes them more shorthanded, which then makes it more difficult, which makes it less attractive to young college students and so on. My daughter's kindergarten teacher was a really good teacher but she was nearing burnout after only about five years. She had too many kids per class, she didn’t make all that much money, but the worst thing, I think, for her was the parents. You can tell when a parent takes the time work with their child at home and when they abrogate their parental responsibility to the school. I could see the frustration when I would talk to her. My son is in third grade and there are children in his class who still cannot write simple sentences. It is easy to blame the teachers for that but you have to consider that that there are WAY too many children in each class and it takes damn near an act of congress to hold a child back, and again if the parent takes the time at home to work with the child then it can alleviate the problem but too many parents would rather abrogate their parental responsibilities to the state and then complain when the state fails to do the job that they should be doing (in fairness I should note that in some households the parents are working two and three jobs to make ends meet and they barely have time to sleep, much less anything else, I understand that, I'm not talking about them. There are plenty who do not fall into that category).
I guess my point at the end of all this ranting is that the state certainly needs to do more to make teaching an attractive career choice but the parents have in equal responsibility to do their jobs as parents and not abrogate all responsibility to the state.
SFC W
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