The state of teaching worldwide and the fact is, it's getting worse and no one truly cares
Teaching is the only career field where your experience is not only not valued or compensated, but is actually used against you.
"That's great you do things that way, but it's not (enter district's name) way. Adjust or we'll find someone who does."
This is how administrators think and feel. Every teacher needs to prove they can do the job and tow the school's line without question. Dissent is disloyalty in administrator's eyes.
“Yes, you've been a teacher for X number of years, but we need to see if you would be a good fit here, so show us how you teach.”
Every teacher that comes in is worthless and needs to prove themselves. Every teacher is only as good as their last five minutes. It's the only profession that does through this.
No one tells a surgeon "do a demo surgery to prove your skill, then you can operate on my heart."
No one tells a chef "do a free demo meal, then I'll decide if I want to eat here."
No one tells a principal or superintendent of a school "do a demo leadership for a while and then we'll decide if we want to hire you."
Doctors, lawyers, engineers, even taxi drivers, don't get this. But teachers need to prove themselves every moment of every day.
Auditions work for actors. You have to earn the part. Teachers are supposed to be highly educated professionals. For the paltry sum teachers are paid, it isn't worth the constant scrutiny.
The best teacher for most districts is a younger than 25 year old kid right out of university with just a bachelor's degree, no experience, that can be molded and browbeaten into what a district and society wants from them.
Added to that, experience means nothing. Advanced degrees mean nothing. All that matters is a certification from the State. You could be a PhD, have books published, and loads of accomplishments in your field, but, without that certification, you school district will even look at you.
It is time to change the way we view teaching and teachers. A state certification means NOTHING. Never has, never will. Experience, knowledge, and understanding that teaching is an art and not a science is most important.
But, state education bureaucrats, school administrators, school boards, and the public don't care. We have a nationwide, actually a worldwide teacher shortage, but instead of making it easier to become and stay a teacher by incentivizing people to get into and stay in the profession, we double down on the idiocy and make it harder with worse conditions, more unfunded mandates, and more insanity.
And don't be a teacher from one state trying to transfer your certification to another state. Full faith and credit applies to every license, except a teaching certification.
Add to this the fact that most people consider teaching "the best part time job anyone could have," and all we get is lip service from politicians without actual, meaningful improvements on standards, practices, compensation, benefits, and conditions, and there's a reason the entire system is about to collapse. Include into the equation those parasitical charter school systems that go into with the notion the public school system is terrible because "govimint" and it's amazing that children can function. Also include that parents pawn their responsibilities off on schools when it comes to parenting because we "don't have time" due to "job, career, and other commitments," and there's a reason we're down 10-15% of full employment in education and most don't last more than five years.
Every that has run for president, governor, Congress, or state lege in my lifetime has vowed to fix education. Let's see the results:
1970s - The self-esteem movement. Because the problem with education is that children don't feel good about themselves. However, studies have repeatedly shown that high self-esteem does not improve grades or achievement, does not quell the use of drugs or alcohol, and does not end instances of violence in schools because highly aggressive people think really highly of themselves. Who would have thought narcissists and sociopaths have high self-esteem?
1983 - A Nation At Risk equalled "teachers are terrible and we must hold them accountable." Society, parents, and even students needed not apply for accountability, neither did school administrators.
1994 - Goals 2000: FAILED due to lack of funding.
2002 - NCLB: Let's test our kids into insanity and make everything based on a test since it works so well in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and most of Asia. Which is why Japan, China, and Korea are the three countries with the highest teen suicide rates in the world.
2005 - School choice movement via charter schools: Let's drain the schools of finite funding by setting up schools run like businesses. That will raise the cream of education to the top. It didn't. It created even more problems.
2010 - Common Core: Let's make everything focused on math and science and take the fun out of writing so students can do the work and write ups, but can't think, create, or be imaginative since art and humanities are worthless in the economy (well, teach economics because it's all about making money anyway). Look at the art that comes out now. It sucks and all we do is cover old songs, remake old movies and TV shows, adapt books and comic books because they "already have a built in fan base" (more business than art since nothing is truly being created), or rehash things already done.
2014 - Sec of State Arne Duncan, at a forum stated that our "teachers come from the bottom of the academic barrel ((paragraphs 7 and 8).
2021 - Let's get people to vote in voucher systems so students at "failing schools" can go to best private schools with state money. Look how it is bankrupting Arizona.
Now, there is total focus on social-emotional development in schools, in which it doesn't matter if the student does well, learns, progresses, or advances, so long as they feel good about themselves and are happy. What's most important is if the child is happy, not if the child learns.
All of these changes were done WITHOUT input from those of us teaching. We don't matter in education. Never have, never will. This system "works" in spite of itself and not because of itself. Until teachers are valued and Ed-bizz (like Houghton Miffin, Pearson, etc), school administrators, and parents are held accountable, there will be no change and it will get worse. We will continue to see shortages in education increase and we will look to the terrible policies of places like Korea (where I lived and taught) and China (where I lived and worked) to solutions. While their students can't create and think school is just for job placement, at least they are fantastic test takers.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Nobody will care until we don't show up. 
