The International Schools Review Forum

Headline on April 2008 "The International Educator" at Tieonline.com

"AAIE & AISH To Tackle Recruitment Crisis.
Task Force Being Formed to Address Candidate Shortages."

This article covers a Sunday meeting in New York of the heads to discuss reasons for crisis and solutions. Remarks had to do with job fairs: fighting over candidates, not being able to have 3 or 4 interviews with teachers the heads are interested in, not having time to go over the resumes and info, leaving without having filled their positions, etc.

The reasons given, particularly for the acute shortage of American teachers, but all teachers as well were given as lack of advertising and lack of knowledge concerning intl teaching. Only one woman brought up salary saying, in my words, not hers, teachers want to have the salary they deserve sooner rather than after completion of 20 years of teaching.

When discussing what needs to be done about this shortage, it was felt primarily that informative advertising needs to be done as most teachers in their home countries know nothing about international teaching. It was even suggested that they go on Oprah to talk about it. They felt if they could just get 1% of the 3.5 million American teachers to recruit it would give them what they need. No mention of improving salaries, benefits, retirement, etc. in the article at all. Hmmmm.

There is also a reply to the prior editorials about ISR and some other articles about recruiting in this edition. You all need to read it yourselves.

Took poster's advice and downloaded April edition of TIE - enjoyed the effect of the article mentioned regarding difficulties of recruiting featured on the same page with an article about a new charter school opening in New York offering teachers salaries of $125,000 per year, with additional bonuses promised for performance. One suspects that school will have no problem recruiting in spite of the increased duties teachers will assume, which appear to be what most of us do on a regular basis anyway (such as our own discipline.)
Reading the article, one discovers that the principal of this new school will start at a salary of $90,000. A revolutionary idea, actually paying the teacher in the classroom more for doing what most concede is the most important job in education. The school, which is perhaps not surprisingly being started by a teacher--not an administrator--states as its first premise that the teacher is "the determining factor in promoting student learning" and as a second premise, "dramatically higher salaries will attract the most able teachers available."
Reading that article and then the few pieces on the recruiting difficulties faced by overseas administrators when looking for American teachers, the disconnect is apparent. International school adminstrators need to read this article on the NYC school - right to the very last paragraph where it broadens its scope to add that "As is evident today, those wealthier districts with significantly higher salary packages do attract and hold superior teachers..." Likewise, the overseas schools who do the same as these districts have far fewer of the difficulties than those described in the recruitment articles on TIE; one can't help but notice none of the heads at these upper echelon international schools are mentioned or quoted.

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From the sound of this thread the majority of teachers are working at international schools. Think for a second about everyone you work with. I'm not really in agreement with the good senator (although those types exist but I have know a lot more of the middle of the road in my years) but there are different types of people who work at every school.

The "lifers"
The "Two and outs"
The "why did I leave my beautiful homes?"
The "I hate I it here but am scared to leave"
The "Might break contract"
The "My family is comfortable so we stay"

And on and on...

The truth is that the right school for you might not be the right one for me. As the one I am in now is not good for the 20 people who are leaving this year. These reviews just give a glimpse into what one person thought about a school at a particular moment. If this site could get 10 reviews each year from each school that would make it a lot more relevant. It can't so look at this as a piece of a puzzle. If there is overwhelming negativity and you are not sure about a school then ask them about what you have read. That is better then spending two years in Timbuktu educating goats. There are really bad schools out there and that is the reason I like this site.



"Jakarta IS, or Vienna IS, or Southbank in London or the American School in London, or Anglo-American in Moscow" IStraveller IMO these are not top-tier schools... maybe JIS and ASL (have heard they have things together) but the other 3 no way and because Jakarta is a cesspool and London is uberexpensive I am not so sure about them as places to live... there is another thread for this but you should wonder about Caracas, Graded in Brazil, Bangkok, Brussels, Frankfurt, The Hague, Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Singapore and Muscat... missing a bunch... I have worked at a few of these schools and I can tell you some people loved them and others hated them.

The best thing about living in a few different countries is you eventually know someone who has worked at most IS schools and can get first hand info.