Employment in Education

It's a hard-knock world, as Orphan Annie once observed. It's doubly hard in education lately.

Due to the downturns in state and local budgets, many schools have had to lay off teachers, and slow plans to hire new teachers. Today, when a teacher leaves, their classes are often re-assigned to other teachers. High school classes are way past the numbers that are optimal, and many have reached the crowded levels that Baby Boomers may remember from their own childhoods - which worked, reasonably well, then. Today's teenagers are different, more distractable, less compliant, and, too often, not prepared for the rigors of academic high schools.

I'd like to say that things will change for the better, but, even in the Age of Obama, I don't believe that it's a likely scenario. Which all means that private, charter, and home-schooling will look even more attractive.