Moving to Kalamazoo. I need a teaching job

[M TYPE X]

Originally Posted by jaynarie

The Michigan job market is tough for everyone (except medical!), but it is especially bad for teachers. That is why you hear so much about it. More teachers are being laid off than hired. I don't see that happening in any other field. Plus, for the most part, teachers only get hired once a year for a period of 2-3 months. If you don't get a job, you have to wait a whole year before you can try again. You have it better than you think.

That's why professors don't want to be considered as teachers. You research, you publish, and garner the reputation as expert. Teachers are ultimately expendable; good teachers are priceless, yet no teachers union or school district recognizes them as such. The vast majority of teachers are glorified babysitters, a view I hold that explains why I have never wanted to be a teacher. I am still in contact with some of my old high school teachers from time to time, ones that knew what the job is and do their best at it.

Back to the Michigan economy. There's no new kids to teach and no new products to sell, so the number of education and marketing majors in the state is too high if they wish to stay in Michigan. If they want to leave Michigan, it's a great deal: cheap in-state tuition, visit your family to pilfer their pantries every few weeks, and then get a job elsewhere outside the state after you graduate.

Yes, that's where the theory breaks down: it's extremely difficult to find a job out of state for a new worker. I must say, however, the I enjoyed driving through downtown Cleveland in a rainstorm early one Fall morning. Collapsed on the hotel bed, woke up, took a shower and checked around town, got up the next morning and aced the interview. Of course, it went all downhill after that, but it's Ohio!

My cousin, the one that graduated from Western, has been sitting around for six months, likes North Carolina and needs to find some way of getting work there. It's not easy when all but the most selective firms no longer pay for relocation assistance, or even offer to defray the costs of visiting for an interview. That's because, if everything we're told is true, the national economy is just great, so firms in Charlotte don't need to buy airline tickets for new college grads in Detroit to visit them.

However, there appears to be a national teacher shortage, where Florida and other states pull out new candidates en masse from places like Michigan and Ohio. Professions such as academics and engineers are constantly competitive, so the problem doesn't exist there unless your candidacy profile is really lackluster. The problem lies with the middle of the pack: those economics and marketing graduates that did decently well in school, were promised that their education would 'pay off,' and are courted mostly by Rock Financial and Enterprise Rent-A-Chrysler-Crap-Car.

[JillianS]

I would go somewhere else. I am....but the job fairs and the colleges are helpful, but there's not really jobs in MI for teachers and there is a ton of applicants for them. They also seem to like to pick people without experience so they can pay them less. Kalamazoo is particularly hard since WMU is on of the largest teachers colleges. In the next few years KPS will probably have to higher some teachers because of the Kalamazoo Promise. I would really not recommend taking the time to get into Comstock either since they're firing teachers and talking about closing buildings.


Lots of Luck, it's just a hard area