The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Chicago has more teachers looking for work then it does teaching positions. Which is frustrating to me because I’m a teacher who is looking for a teaching position (check the resume). But finding out that there is little to no demand for my elementary/middle school teaching skills is only half the frustration.

I worked on the west side for a year and a half before leaving the school. It was too stressful to teach every subject to a room of 33-38 8th grade students. I worked hard and got some great results, but paid for it with my sanity and blood pressure.

This is the other half of my frustration. I’m hearing that there are no teaching jobs available in Chicago, but I substitute teach in classrooms that can have 30+ kids in it. With all these eager, young, qualified teaching candidates wandering about the city, why are classrooms still over crowded? Why not work to drop class size to 20, and/or hire teaching assistants? I know, I know. Money. But can you imagine the future graduates of Chicago public schools if the students were in a classroom where a teacher could spend tons of time and attention on their learning?

So teachers, what are we doing for work these days? Those teach English in [insert foreign country here] ads are looking alluring, and McHammer, and Ed McMahon seem eager to give me cash 4 gold (don’t tell them I have no gold). Anybody want to go in on a teacher squatter commune?

(photo from Dequella Manera)

David Kurtz at the Talking Points Memo blog gives us some insight into how former Chicago public school’s CEO Arne Duncan is settling in on his first days as Secretary of Education from the employees perspective:

I work at the Department of Education headquarters in DC. Today completed our 2-day introduction to Arne Duncan. Yesterday he had lunch in our cafeteria (Edibles, ha ha), with his wife and children. His wife wore jeans and a sweater and Arne looked like an average joe in khaki dress pants, white shirt and tie. They stood in all of the lines and talked to anyone who approached them. They probably stayed 90 minutes. It was definitely the highest cafeteria attendance ever.

Yesterday afternoon he visited every floor of our building and introduced himself to everyone. We all came out into the hall and he shook everyone’s hand with a “Hi, I’m Arne.”

By the end of the day yesterday, everyone was aglow, since this was already more attention than we’d received from Spellings or Paige. Today, however, was the all-staff meeting, and I can say that the morale in the building increased ten-fold by the end of it.

Our auditorium was beyond packed, with people standing in the aisles. I myself snagged a seat on the floor next to the stage kindergarten-style. Arne stood in front of a blue screen that read “Call me Arne!” in bright yellow letters. He insisted that we call him Arne, rather than Mr. Secretary or anything like that, saying his name was Arne before he got this job and it would be 8 years from now.

…

I know this isn’t anything earthshattering, but the change in the atmosphere at the Department over the last week has been really astounding. In the past, we all knew that the Secretary had an agenda that she was going to follow, and that we were only there to affirm that her way was best. We really feel that Arne wants to know the truth, whether it fits with his agenda or not.

(photo from Obama-Biden Transition Project)