<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER  No. 1980 -- 2/19/2009 >>>>>

Lexington, Kentucky just hired a bunch of H-1B school teachers in Kentucky
to teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) classes.
Importing Filipino teachers is nothing new as this newsletter has been
reporting about it for years. The article below calls what is going on a
trend:

   Recruiting foreign teachers to fill critical shortage areas has been
   a trend in American elementary and secondary education for about a
decade.

Of course as we all know there are many unemployed and underemployed STEMs
in the U.S. that are qualified and willing to teach these subjects in
school. The problem is that the schools won't hire them, even if they get
certified to teach. Schools want teachers that are young, cheap, compliant,
and of course multi-lingual.

The news article below contains a contradiction that can be difficult to
catch if you don't pay attention. Read this paragraph in the front part of
the article that says they can't find "certified teachers".

   Home, for Dacles, is Manila, the Philippines. Now, however, he is
   one of 16 Filipino teachers working in the Fayette County Public
   Schools, all recruited from overseas to teach in subject areas
   such as math, science and special education, where certified
   teachers often are hard to find.

Later in the article it says the Filipinos aren't certified to teach those
subjects either! In other words, they are no more qualified than Americans
to teach the subject. In most cases the Filipinos are less qualified
because they got their educations in substandard schools and diploma mills
in the Philippines.

Kentucky shuns American teachers but it is more than happy to give
Filipinos fast track certifications so that they can get into the
classrooms quickly.

   As a result, the school system sometimes had to get emergency
   certifications for people to teach STEM classes even though
   they lacked background in those subjects, he said.

For those of you that think Indian when you hear the word "bodyshop",
perhaps this will broaden your outlook because many countries besides India
have set up shop here to import foreign labor. The bodyshop Kentucky hired
to import the teachers is called "Avenida International Consultants", which
supposedly covers the cost of getting the teachers certified in Kentucky
and it pays for the other expenses related to travel and moving. What the
article forgot to mention is that this bodyshop is infamous for taking
training money and visa fees out of the pockets of their Filipino
employees. That company has had lawsuits against their blatant indentured
labor policies but it hasn't put them out of business -- in fact it appears
that they are doing better than ever.

Avenida International Consultants is owned by a slaver named Ligaya
Avenida. Her clients include West Contra Costa Unified, San Jose Unified,
Oakland Unified School District, West Palm Beach, Florida, Ravenswood
Unified, California, Memphis Unified, Columbia Public Schools, and
Baltimore.

Here is Avenida's website, and if you want to read more about her look up
these newsletters in the archive:

http://www.ligayaavenida.com/

2005-01-10 Baltimore Schools Circumvent H-1B limits

2005-01-11 Ligaya Avenida imports Filipino teachers for California

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/700367.html

Posted on Thu, Feb. 19, 2009
Filipino teachers recruited for hard-to-fill jobs in Lexington
By Jim Warren
jwarren@herald-leader.com
Arnold Dacles has had to make some adjustments during his first year of
teaching science at Leestown Middle School, particularly during the recent
wintry weather.

"I had never seen snow before," Dacles said. "Back home we only have two
seasons - wet and dry."

Home, for Dacles, is Manila, the Philippines. Now, however, he is one of 16
Filipino teachers working in the Fayette County Public Schools, all
recruited from overseas to teach in subject areas such as math, science and
special education, where certified teachers often are hard to find.

Recruiters from the Fayette schools went to Philippines in late 2007 to
interview several dozen job applicants, all of whom had experience teaching
in schools there. From that pool, they ultimately selected Dacles and 15
others to teach in Lexington schools for the 2008-2009 school year.

The Filipinos arrived here late last summer and have been on the job since
classes began last August. They are working on visas, sponsored by the
county schools, that will allow them to stay in the United States up to
three years.

They have master's degrees and are certified to teach in Kentucky, said
Fayette County School Superintendent Stu Silberman.

Recruiting foreign teachers to fill critical shortage areas has been a
trend in American elementary and secondary education for about a decade. In
Kentucky, the Jefferson County Public Schools have hired teachers from both
the Philippines and Barbados in recent years.

Fayette County previously has hired teachers from other countries to teach
foreign languages, but this is the first time the district has directly
recruited a block of teachers from overseas.

Silberman says school officials took the step because Fayette County, like
many other districts, has been struggling to fill teaching slots for
so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) classes. As a
result, the school system sometimes had to get emergency certifications for
people to teach STEM classes even though they lacked background in those
subjects, he said.

Educators blame the problem -- which extends nationwide -- on the
relatively small number of prospective teachers who graduate from U.S.
colleges today with training in STEM subjects. Most who have such training
go into private business or industry because the pay is better.

"We've had some very serious shortage areas where we just can't find people
in these particular certifications," Silberman said. "You have to be
innovative to find ways of meeting these needs."

Silberman stressed that the county schools have not recruited foreign
teachers when qualified people were available locally. "We weren't keeping
anybody out of jobs," he said.

Other school districts that have recruited teachers from the Philippines
say they generally have worked out well.

"Our experience was that they were very, very good educators," said Tim
Wilhite, a spokesman for the Baldwin County, Ala., Public Schools, which
signed about a dozen Filipino teachers in 2007. "If we had the need for
additional teachers, and couldn't fill the positions locally, we'd consider
recruiting from the Philippines again."

However, there have been some problems.

Two Filipino teachers who were working in the Baltimore City Schools
committed suicide in 2007, apparently despondent at being far from theirs
homes and loved ones.

The Roanoke, Va., Public Schools recruited six Filipino teachers in 2007
but they didn't show up on time. The schools later decided not to recruit
more.

In El Paso, Texas, recruiters allegedly tricked Filipino teachers into
paying them fees of $10,000 each to secure jobs in Texas schools that never
materialized. Federal charges, including conspiracy to smuggle aliens into
the United States, were filed against several people.

Nevertheless, Filipino teachers still seek jobs in U.S. schools because
salaries here typically run two or three times the levels back home. And
American recruiters like Filipino teachers because the Philippines'
educational system closely resembles the U.S. system.

Each of the Filipino teachers who came to Lexington paid fees of several
thousand dollars to a California-based firm that worked with the Fayette
schools to facilitate the recruiting process.

The firm, Avenida International Consultants, in turn covered the cost of
getting the teachers certified in Kentucky, paid for their travel here and
other related expenses.

The Fayette schools' only expense is paying the teachers' salaries, which
equal the amounts American teachers with the same training and experience
would receive.

The time and expense are worth it, the Lexington teachers say, even if it
sometimes means leaving family and friends back in the Philippines.

Fatima Dela Pena, 33, who is teaching at Winburn Middle School this year,
said Lexington was "an opportunity I couldn't pass up," even though it
meant a long separation from her husband. He's on a three-year tour as a
school administrator and teacher in Indonesia.

This is Dela Pena's second U.S. tour. She taught in Palo Alto, Calif., from
2001 to 2004.

"I had a wonderful experience there, and I wanted to come back," she said.
"The first time it was more of an adventure. This time, it was something I
just wanted to do."

Dela Pena said she and her husband, who will visit her here this summer,
eventually might settle in the United States.

Esmeralda Agustin, 38, said she dreamed of teaching in the United States
for years before becoming a special education teacher at Deep Springs
Elementary.

"My parents didn't want me to come because I am the youngest in the
family," she said. "But when my father passed away a few years ago, I
encouraged my brothers to allow me to come here and work."

Early in the school year, Fayette County assigned six of the Filipino
teachers to "release-time" teams, which move from school to school to free
up in-house teachers for professional development sessions. The teams are
generally made up of retired teachers who work part-time.

According to Silberman, the situation developed because Fayette County
recruiters had to estimate how many teachers to bring over from the
Philippines before knowing exactly what the need would be. Since the
Christmas break, however, almost all of the Filipino teachers have been
assigned to specific schools, officials said.

All of the teachers speak English, but Melodee Parker, the Fayette schools'
human resources director, said she's heard some complaints that some are
hard to understand.

Silberman said he heard similar complaints early in the school year, but
that they've faded in recent months.

"All of the teachers had to be able to speak English coming in, and some
were stronger than others," he said. "With any new program there are
growing pains. But I think that for the most part it has gone well."

The program gets high marks from some administrators and teachers in the
county system who have worked with the Filipinos.

Winburn Middle School science teacher Ron Chi says that collaborating with
Katrina Frias, one of the Filipino teachers, has enhanced his efforts to
create a "mini science museum" in his classroom."

"I wouldn't be able to even attempt this if I didn't have Katrina here,"
Chi said.




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