It means recruiting harder in the traditional pool. It means energetically opening new avenues to enter the teaching profession - through programs for people choosing education as a second career or moving up from such jobs as teacher aides. It means working harder to recruit teachers from minority groups. The schools generally function in an orderly and constructive manner, and the difference between teaching in the city and elsewhere can be overstated - in many ways, kids are kids anywhere. There are intangible rewards to working in an urban school, some of them corresponding to the challenges presented.
Pay is pretty decent, health insurance is great, job security is strong.
But the challenging side of working in MPS is clear. The list goes on, raising issues that schools in quieter, higher-income settings can downplay. Add in that the pay is often lower in MPS than in suburban schools, the facilities are older and often worse, and the classes often larger. Sounds like a bit of a tough sell as a job. And the sell has to be made 600 to 1,000 times a year - that's how many new teachers are hired typically.