PLYMOUTH (AP) ¾ It’s not easy finding a foreign language teacher these days.

Just ask John Trovato, the principal at the new South Middle School in Plymouth.  Trovato says he’s been able to fill almost all the teaching positions at the school, but the lack of foreign language teachers has driven him to desperation.

“I ask people who come in and interview for music if they know any Spanish,” he said.

The shortage seems to be linked to greater demand in the increasingly international job market for people who speak more than one language.  That fluency can be rewarded more handsomely in the private sector than in the classroom, where new language teachers with bachelor’s degrees can earn $28,500 to $31,000.

“If you get good and fluent in a language, you could go with a government agency and triple your salary,” Hanover Schools Superin-tendent Kenneth Johnson told The Patriot Ledger of Quincy.

In Milton, language director Gracie Burke says the last newspaper advertisement the town placed for a language teacher drew two candidates.  Previous ads have drawn more than a dozen resumes, Burke said,

Some blame the shortage on the 1980 state law that limited property taxes.  After the passage of Proposition 2 1/2, some communities cut teaching jobs to save money, since they were more restricted in raising property taxes.

Whatever the cause, the shortage in foreign language teachers comes as the state is asking students to be more fluent in foreign languages.

The 1993 Education Reform Act emphasized the state’s commitment to foreign languages but did not provide money for more teachers.

And schools around the state are scrambling to prepare students for 2001, when foreign languages are expected to become part of the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.

Barry Haskell, Plymouth’s assistant superintendent for human resources, said the promise of those tests puts an extra burden on educators.

“It’s very hard to be testing for something when you can’t provide it,” he said.

Haskell said his daughter, a Spanish language teacher, experienced the shortage of foreign language teachers from the other end.

Some schools left job offers on her answering machine without ever meeting her in person.

Salem Evening News, Tuesday Aug. 3, 1999 p. B7