GTRR Morrow owned by Dr. Paddy Sharma under investigation. Company to be sold soon according to insiders.

Maureen Downey

@AJCGetSchooled

Importing foreign teachers in DeKalb and other places: Exploitation or good business?

January 26, 2015 | Filed in: DeKalb Schools, Ethics, School funding, Students, Teachers.

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Shaheen Begum (right), a science teacher recruited from India to teach at Chamblee High School, gets a hug from one of her students. To get such talented teachers, the districts go through recruiting firms that sponsor the immigrants’ special H-1B visas, the largest of which is Morrow-based Global Teachers Research and Resources. Global already has been cited by the U.S. Labor Department for forcing teachers to pay fees the company should pay. JONATHAN PHILLIPS / SPECIAL

AJC reporter Chris Joyner has done a great investigation on foreign teachers being imported to Georgia to fill voids, especially in DeKalb.
 
Orson told the AJC: “I am concerned that we default to finding an outside agency to find us teachers on a temporary basis. It has to be about how we build our permanent teaching corps.”

This report is on MyAJC.com, Here is a short excerpt: Joyner writes:

The international market for teacher talent is a good deal for school districts, which get needed skilled instructors without paying for their benefits.
But human rights groups say the practice comes close to human trafficking and treats teachers like a commodity — traded between school districts with little care given to their situation and with virtually no representation.
Lawsuits and federal investigations show the system can lead to abuses. In 2011, Global was fined more than $75,000 for failing to properly pay its employees and is under a new U.S. Department of Labor investigation for similar claims. Some employees say Global continues to violate the law and is erratic in how it pays its teachers.
The chief operating officer of the company is state Rep. Mike Glanton, D-Jonesboro, a member of the House Education Committee. “If it were not a need, then this H-1B teacher process would not be in place,” he said. “We’ve recognized at the highest level that this is something we don’t have a handle on and we have to bring people in from other places to do it.”
One teacher, who asked not to be named out of fear for her job and immigration status, told the AJC that the company made her pay her own immigration costs and the costs of renewing her H-1B visa once she was here.
By far, the district relying the most of recruiting firms for immigrant teachers is DeKalb County, which has spent $16.3 million on such contracts since 2010, according to Open Georgia, an online database run by the state that tracks government spending.
Tekshia Ward-Smith, personnel director for the DeKalb County schools, said she would prefer American teachers, but there are not enough. In the meantime, hiring immigrant teachers through the recruiting firms provides DeKalb with “the best bang for our buck.”
“They save us because we don’t have to pay teacher’s retirement on them nor benefits,” she said. Ward-Smith said the district does not involve itself in the details of how the recruiting firms operate.
“They provide training, lodging, moving expenses. Is that taken out of the salary that the district pays? I can’t say,” she said.