EDUCATION BLUES: A bULATLAT Special Report

‘Pinoy Titsers’ in the USA

With their low wages unable to keep up with the rising cost of living, more and more teachers leave the country to get a higher pay teaching in the U.S. American students are so lucky.

BY MARYA G. SALAMAT
Bulatlat

Teacher Claire, as she was fondly called in an exclusive grade school, didn't plan on teaching abroad. She just planned on teaching, period. Even when her cousins had derided her course, "Sus, educ lang pala." (Oh, it's just Education she's taking). She did her practicum in a congested public elementary school with both normal and special children "because in public schools, teachers have to do everything by themselves," she explained. She wanted to practice her teaching skills and every work that it entails.

After she graduated, the first grade school she applied to immediately hired her even if it didn't usually take graduates from her university. Years later she learned their reasons: they shun unionism and they thought state university graduates are prone to embracing it.

Her dates with her boyfriend then often turned into cooperative grade computation, checking of papers or constructing colorful instructional materials.  Yet she felt fulfilled, specially when her students’ parents would come up to say how much their children loved her and learned easier from her.

But with the country's economy worsening steadily, Teacher Claire and her fellow teachers started feeling its dire effects even in their relatively upscale, private exclusive school. Some parents had transferred their children to public schools. Confronted with dwindling enrolment, the school implemented cost-cutting measures and steadily took in transferees who would normally be rejected in better days.

Those measures meant little or no wage increases, in spite of bigger classes and heavier work load. The school administration decreased the number of teachers, and changed the old system where  a teacher is assigned to only one or two subjects in all sections of a grade level.  The school assigned one teacher to teach all the subjects to just one, enlarged section, which often included miscreant kick-outs from other schools.

Teachers had to prepare lesson plans for at least eight subjects, which, for "quality" maintenance, the school authorities religiously checked. Doing away with specialization limited the teachers' time for thinking up more fun and varied ways of teaching each subject, let alone researching further on it and ensuring that their methods include different learning styles to suit every learning strength of their students.

Teaching is hard, but teachers claimed it became more mechanical and grueling in their "new" system. Classroom management also got tougher with a larger class. The heavier work load didn't come with a commensurate wage hike. Worse, the school forbade teachers from making direct deals with parents who wanted private tutoring for their children.  The school wanted a share of tutorial fees, so they started acting like an agency as well. All these, and a salary that's fast being eroded by rising prices, made Teacher Claire realize why she alone in her college batch was still teaching in the Philippines.  

Impressive caliber

A growing number of experienced Filipino teachers are finding teaching jobs in all corners of the world. Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration show that while a fluctuating number of Filipino teachers leave to teach in countries of Africa, Europe, Asia and in islands of South Pacific, more constantly go to oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Brunei.

A lot more are flocking to the U.S. From 1992 to 1999, an average of 73 teachers per year have gone to teach in the U.S.  From 2000 to 2004 it more than doubled to 221 teachers  per year. They now comprise some of the more than 10,000 foreign teachers being recruited annually to fill the US' gaping demand for teachers especially in crucial subjects such as special education, math and science. Their numbers are expected to rise further as more US public schools begin to recruit foreign teachers and recruitment agencies in the Philippines grow more aggressive.

"The Philippines is attractive because the education is American-based. … We are so impressed with the quality and caliber of teachers there," said a human resources director for the Baltimore County, Maryland Public Schools, Bill Boden, in an infozine report in 2004. Their school officials signed contracts with 120 teachers from the Philippines that year, while Washington Public Schools recruited 15 Filipino special education teachers. They plan to hire more.

Most of the Filipino teachers who went to teach abroad have at least 10 years of teaching experience and units or degrees in master studies. Before school starts, the teachers were usually briefed in the US by the school system that contracted them. They were also required to take a test to see if they were qualified to continue teaching American students. Typical of overseas Filipinos' resilience and with the teachers' experience, they usually pass the American qualification test.  

Low wage is relative

Recruiting Filipino teachers have become brisk business for some recruiting agencies that it can sponsor RP "tripping", or the trips of American school officials to the Philippines so they could select their desired teachers.

"Successful job applicants," Filipino teachers who would land jobs in a U.S. school were the ones who pay for these trips. As a Filipino-American recruiter, Ligaya Avenida, said in a report, "cash-strapped US school systems are provided a valuable service at no expense."

Thousands of candidates in the Philippines are screened before presented to US school districts. By Philippine standards the recruitment fees they pay are enormous– from $3,000 to more than $8,000— depending on the agency, the type of visa they get and the year they applied. As more Filipino teachers apply each year, or as demand rises, the recruitment fees increase as well.  

Teachers get lured to teaching abroad because of the "higher" pay. Even Dr. Josette Biyo, a public school teacher and the first Asian (a Filipino) to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002, was then getting a net pay of less than $300 per month.

A 2002 UNESCO report, however said the average annual pay for a teacher in the Philippines was $10,000.

Still, the amount is way below the $34,000 to $47,000 annual salary of Filipino teachers polled by Bulatlat. 

Most teachers abroad find their salaries and benefits "okay," compared to what they used to receive in the Philippines.  In the US, they spend a good part of their pay for their upkeep, and still strive to send money back home. This is however “not really enough”, a special education teacher told Bulatlat.

Fact is, the growing teacher shortage in the United States is attributed more to "retention problem" than lack of teachers.  Many American teachers leave in less than three years due to low wages, poor working conditions and exhaustion, said the spokeswoman of American National Education Association, Melinda Anderson. She urged the US government to address this, and not just resort to recruiting “cheap labor” from foreign countries.

Band-aid solution

The increased migration of teachers from the Philippines and other impoverished English-speaking countries help the US government fill up its lack of teachers without addressing its underlying cause, which is low pay. In turn, overseas Pinoy teachers help quench the RP government's thirst for foreign remittances. Both governments seem to gain, but the teachers are on the losing end.

"Recruiting foreign teachers is putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound," said Melinda Anderson. In the U.S., the wage problem of American teachers is swept aside. In the Philippines, the wound is far worse. It is losing some of its best teachers amid the country's growing shortage of teachers, now estimated to be 50,000 according to the Alliance  of Concern Teachers (ACT). Their families' poverty is also not really resolved.

Reception to Filipino teachers in the US run the gamut of being appreciated or reviled.

“The parents (here) are happy with (their) children's progress," a Pinoy teacher of nine American autistic kids told Bulatlat. Another who teaches 30 students with "behavior problem" tells of her "smooth relationship with students and teachers, and their constant talks with parents about the kids' performance."

In California, a disturbed student shouted to a Pinoy teacher: "go back to your home, flip!" On the bright side, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana, the entire staff of a school took a break to give a pregnant Filipino teacher a surprise baby shower.

In Ohio, a desperate local reporter urged its residents to contact their local immigration services and demand that these "illegal aliens" be deported. "It's the law and it will save some jobs for Americans who need them," he wrote.

However, the U.S. government is encouraging the importation of these particular "cheap labor." Their Congress even came out with a "Passport to Teaching" program, a national certification option designed to lure professionals to shift into teaching.

Said Norman Gibbs, president of E-Worldstaffing.com, "What is so exciting is the fact that now with our joint venture with the American Board, we are not limited to education graduates. We have a great window of opportunity to place thousands of Filipino professionals as teachers in the United States using this alternate route to teacher certification." 

Gibbs’ is the American principal of a local agency who has deployed 280 teachers in the past two years and targets to send 500 this year, increasing it by 500 every year until 2010:

Just like any other OFWs

Like nurses and doctors, Filipino teachers are some of the most educated who are leaving the country for better job opportunities. But like ordinary OFWs, some become victims of scams. Being complete strangers in the US, some recruiters take advantage of them as they arranged for their lodging, making them pay more than they should.

There have also been reports of American news sparking federal investigations on the practice of recruiting agencies.

In Ohio in 2004, a Jamestown placement service was reported to have duped a dozen Filipino teachers who, in exchange for $8,100 were given U.S. visas based on phony contracts with Dayton Public Schools. Another recruiter was reportedly involved in scams to import foreign teachers into the US.

In Oakland, a California school district recruiter was reported to have charged dozens of teachers $3,000 each for what the teachers thought was a long-term teaching job. The schools however rejected many of the teachers. In Ohio, a similar scam got the ire of Filipinos when the schools dumped the teachers when they couldn't get H-1B visas.

The H-1B or cultural-exchange visas are good for only three years.  Using these, some recruitment agencies have found a way to profit while filling up the need for teachers.

Many Filipino teachers entered the US on H-1B visas, and not on J-1 or work visas, because the U.S. government has placed a limit on work visas. This limit the teachers' working time in the US, so they have to save some to recoup their recruitment expenses within their three years' contract.  If they want to continue teaching in the US, they need to save up for the application process and recruitment fees again. Or, they will have to find schools who'll sponsor their working visas.   When they come to this, cash-strapped US schools will have to choose what's more economical for them: spend on visa processing of their foreign teachers, who have grown accustomed to teaching Americans; or induct a fresh batch of foreign, qualified teachers.  

Teaching in RP is still best, if only the salaries and support are good

"Teaching in the Philippines is still the best," answered many overseas Pinoy teachers when asked if they wish to come back and teach in their own country.  If only there's sufficient salary, and if more support, like trainings and instructional materials, are being given them, they said.

But improving the teacher's working condition, let alone the quality of education, is far from the government's mind, as shown by President Arroyo’s insistence that there is “no shortage” of classroom.

Thus, the scene in teacher Claire's school will still be repeated in many schools: when some parents learned that she's leaving to teach in the US, they sighed and said, "the American students are so lucky." Bulatlat