With a spouse who’s about ready to enter the teaching profession (and as the son of two retired educators and the parent of a city middle-school student), I’ve been following the adventures of Epiphany in Baltimore with some interest. His recently-deleted diatribe about how bad things are getting for Baltimore City teachers has convinced Paula that perhaps she should look elsewhere for a job. Too bad for the city.
But the city schools apparently have a solution to that problem. Yesterday, I was glancing at the Baltimore Sun and spotted a dual-byline story about how the city is using a recruiter to import as many as 45 teachers from the Philippines. Amused, I alerted Paula to it when she got home from student teaching. She looked at it online, and did a quick Google on the recruiter’s name–something they still can’t do, apparently, in the Sun’s bullpen, because the results were interesting.
Last November, KGO-TV in California reported on how the same recruiter was charging Filippino teachers $3,000 each for placement–and then Oakland was firing them, and going back to her for more teachers, after only a few months. Some of the recruited teachers were left stranded, without enough money to return home to the Philippines, because they had paid their way to the US on assurances that the jobs were long-term.
This article from a Georgia paper from last June suggests that the recruiter was under investigation by the FBI, and a school district in Georgia had severed its ties to her as a result.
Then there’s this article from SF Weekly, published four years ago. While still an employee of the the San Francisco Unified School District, Ligaya Avenida had apparently violated a number of Filipino laws and US labor regulations.
But, no matter. Just think about how those highly-qualified Filipino teachers will feel when they show up for their first day of school in an uncontrollable classroom in West Baltimore somewhere…that alone will be enough for them to file a human rights abuse.
Sean M. Gallagher 
interesting well research read that is easily harder hitting then the sun article. I find this particularly interesting because my wife is filipino, and her family moved to the states due to her mom being imported for nursing work in the 80’s and myself being an ex baltimore city school teacher. The idea seems good / short sited. The phillipines is a perfectly place to outsource to / import from because they have a highly education englisg proficient population to pull from, and an eagerness to move up and out. As far as culture, its not that much of a stretch asside from the old joke about pinoy time and such… but the short sitedness comes from not fixing the root problem… which is quality of life. When I was teaching in the city I never fealt like quiting because of the kids, I fealt like quiting because of the system and the realities of the system… uncontrolables and the such…
on a personal positive note… this will bring alot more filipinos to baltimore and me more excuse to con my wifes family into opening a filipino resturaunt…
also if your wife is becoming a teacher and still wanting to teach in the city, but fears the “system” maybe she should look into one of the charter schools opening in the fall like city neighbors or paterson park elementary… im involved in the later if she wants any info…
in short good post
as a BCPSS teacher, I find it odd that they need to import teachers when current teachers are denied transfers and discouraged from changing postions, unless of course they randomly reassign you. maybe they have to go over seas because no one from the area is stupid enough to work in the city any more.
I pity these poor filipino teachers, FBI should also investigate most of the filipino based agencies who are bringing filipino teachers in the U.S., these poor teachers are charged $5,000 to $10,000.