The Houston Independent School District is taking advantage of abysmal salaries in North Carolina. HISD is holding a job fair today in Raleigh, hoping to poach some of NC’s terrific but underpaid teachers.
“HISD is promising a starting salary of $46,805.
“In a response to the ad posted on Facebook, North Carolina state Representative Graig Meyer (D-District 50) notes the average salary for teachers in North Carolina is $45,737, and the starting salary is much lower.”
NC salaries are 46th in the nation.
The free market at work.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NC teachers need to do their homework on Terry Grier, HISD superintendent before moving to Texas for a “raise.”
http://forwardtimesonline.com/2013/index.php/state-local/item/911-terry-grier-has-to-go-hisd-is-choking-the-life-out-of-our-community
“In his rebuke of Grier, Sen. Gallegos highlighted the following pattern of Grier:
-He convinces the board that changes will be hard, the community will push back and they must stay the course.
-He demands that the board give him the authority to make the change he prescribes regardless of the lack of buy-in from a community that has been removed from meaningful input.
-When the parents and community begin to voice their concerns about his changes he uses the media to make his case and to pressure the school board; too often, the school board learns about his programs when they open their morning newspaper.
-He attempts to publicly marginalize political, business, or community figures who question his approach by labeling them as against school reform — he has used this to marginalize every school board that has ever employed him.
-When the fire gets hot like it did in San Diego, Amarillo and Sacramento, he leaves for greener pastures with a buy-out that has been pre-negotiated. If that doesn’t work — he sues the board, like he did in Sacramento.
Well, I don’t know what evaluation systems are like in NC, but with his 50% is determined by student test scores-all teachers including Pre-K, PE, etc.No one can explain how the growth will be calculated for those teachers who don’t have value-added scores-we are just told to wait and see. That one week of testing is worth more than the instructional practice that is observed throughout the year. He also just took away extra pay for Master’s degrees. It doesn’t surprise me that he has to recruit elsewhere. I know it’s bad in NC now, but it might be like choosing the lesser of two evils.
Well Texas is experiencing a huge surge in hiring across the board so they will need lots of teachers for all those new employees’ children! I wouldn’t mind Fredericksburg…beautiful country out there!
It is the market at work. If school districts in North Carolina have to increase the salaries enough to attract and retain teachers some other, presumably more deserving, state will be the 46th in the nation.
That’s laughable, TE. It’s not the market at work — the market is too skewed with favorable legislation, political cronies and supporters, and a monopolized by reformers.
In a true free market teachers and parents could choose a school that supported unionized, tenured teaching positions that acknowledged the professional teacher, and that selected its own methods of assessment and accountability. That animal does not exist thanks to the manipulation of the “market”.
Schools are not a “market”. They are not selling anything. They are offering a service, true, but not for profit and they do not charge for the service.
The HISD has decimated the ranks of its own teachers. Fewer and fewer people are choosing education as a career because of the poor pay, the lousy treatment, and the uncertainty of employment which makes planning for the future and starting a family a highly risky operation. They are simply taking advantage of the worse conditions in NC to poach teachers.
This will happen around the country as veteran, experienced teachers are driven out of the profession by VAM. We already have several states recruiting here in Florida because we have such low pay and such horrible working conditions. It’s been going on for years but now they are investing much more money because teachers are getting harder to come by.
Funny how the supposed gospel of truth about supply/demand isn’t playing out here — teacher salaries are not rising in response to the shortage. They are being cut or frozen around the country.
The next step is the total de-professionalisation of teaching which is already underway in current legislation around the country which allows unlicensed, untrained, even non-degreed individuals to “teach” in charter and voucher schools.
In your market there would be actual choices including traditional public schools which would have a level playing field with their competitors but they do not. There is a tightly-controlled menu of charter/voucher/strangled, limited by law, and severely underfunded public schools which are constrained from making any kind of choices.
I get more and more former charter students mid-year coming into my class whose parents tell me: “I fell for the shiny new building, the promises of computers, smaller classes, and individual attention. They didn’t care about my kids, they didn’t listen to me when I raised concerns. They didn’t deliver on their promises. They change teachers constantly. They are a hoax.”
Even with the “market” tilted to favor charter schools public schools accept all comers without receiving the funding lost to their “competition”. How is that a fair or free market? The money goes to the charters and private schools and stays there even when the children leave. The public schools lose the money whenever their students leave and it’s gone permanently. No market forces there; simple cheating the system.
Public school education was, for quite a long time, considered a service for the public good. Monetizing and opening it up to market forces, the Friedman delusion, is not succeeding or opening up choices anywhere. It is simply lining the pockets of supporters and punishing opponents, business as usual. It is becoming as corrupt as the other markets that benefit from government favoritism and a tilted playing field.
Nothing to celebrate in my book.
Chris,
I try to keep posts fairly short, so perhaps we could work this out a point at a time. You say that ” Schools are not a “market”. They are not selling anything. They are offering a service, true, but not for profit and they do not charge for the service.”
Schools are not markets, they are participants in markets. Schools buy the resources necessary to educate students and they sell those services to the community at the tax price.
Private schools certainly sell something, public schools will sell access to folks outside the catchment area ( Here is a story about that: http://www.businessinsider.com/public-school-outrageous-tuition-compete-private-schools-2013-7). Property owners sell access to schools inside the catchment area. Do you think I have these sales wrong?
Thanks for the reply. I don’t know that I would consider a small number (there are only 4 listed in the article, I believe) of extremely wealthy school districts selling open seats as anything more than a very, very small niche for those who can’t afford property in the catchment area but want their kids to have the same benefits as the wealthy students.
That’s more of a condemnation of how we fund and underfund public schools than anything else.
(Full disclosure: I used to work in Westchester County; I couldn’t afford to live there either).
My point was that Houston trying to hire away NC teachers is not simply the market at work but rather yet another symptom of how sick and skewed our public school system has become under NCLB and RTTT, along with CCSS now.
For generations locales produced enough (and sometimes more than enough) teachers to provide for their own needs. Now that is no longer true and the reformers have tried to institute the idea, borrowed from some short-sighted business managers, that inexperienced outsiders are better than local experienced people because change! disruption! new! It hasn’t proved to be beneficial for business and, as I understand it, even Microsoft abandoned the lame idea of disruption after it produced disastrous consequences.
So, along with disproven ideas like merit pay, VAM, school grades, and standardized testing, among others, continue unabated despite being disproven. That’s not market forces. That’s market manipulations, isn’t it?
Someone is selling seats in schools. If it is not the school or school district directly, it is the property owner in the catchment area. Seats in any given school are what economists call a club good, something that an individual can be excluded from, and exclusion is socially desirable because of congestion in a given school.
The fact that other school districts are trying to raid North Carolina is a good thing. It will force the citizens to pay teachers what they are worth. This happens all the time in post secondary education. Faculty at my institution are offered positions and the institution chooses to respond and counteroffer or not. The faculty at my institution look out and ask who we might be able to hire away from their institutions. Sometimes my institution gets raided, sometimes we are the raider.
You overlooked my point that North Carolina’s state legislature just cut teacher salaries across the board and quite severely at that. It is not going to result in higher salaries. It is going to result in the loss of the profession of public school teaching.
I would bet that the legislature will soon have an “emergency” certification law in committee, drafted by ALEC, that will dissolve the requirement to have a degree in education and open certification to all comers. Several states already allow this; Florida’s charters and voucher schools do not require their “teachers” to be certified or to have any training whatsoever.
TFA has ensured that this kind of certification is widely available, as have all the other alternative certification groups that argue for the expertise of practitioners in other fields while they denigrate the expertise of teachers. The hypocrisy is mind-numbing.
Market forces aren’t working for teachers. Period.
I did not ignore that point at all. That is why other school districts think they have the opportunity to hire North Carolina public school teachers away. If North Carolina teachers find these offers attractive, all things considered, they should leave.
It is likely that North Carolina will end up with poorly trained ineffective teachers. That is the way that labor markets work. Effective teachers will leave the state for places where their skills are are more valued. Potential teachers will do something else.
Thanks for the conversation te. You did say, however, “The fact that other school districts are trying to raid North Carolina is a good thing. It will force the citizens to pay teachers what they are worth.” That’s what I meant. Have a good evening!
Texas districts love to recruit out of state candidates. Typically, our new hire staff has as many out of state new teachers as in-state.
NC teachers also need to know that Houston ISD already uses a VAM style evaluation system and the ever failing our students STAAR tests.
Here is a editorial in the Houston Chronicle to shows what kind of support public schools face in Texas not to mention the unpleasant prospect that Dan Patrick will be elected the Lt. Governor of Texas next fall. He has an agenda to kill public education. He is all about vouchers.
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Tumminello-Innovative-schools-push-education-s-5517343.php#comments
Houston ISD has to hire from out of state because Texas teachers know that if you work in an urban district, you will be harassed and blamed for everything.
As Boomers in the suburban districts retire, many teachers from the urban districts fill their spots.
I would not move to Texas to work in Houston ISD. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Here are the medians, from the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the US Dept of Labor Statistics. Figures are for 2012:
High-school: $55,050
Middle school: $53,400
Kindergarten and elementary: $53,090
For comparison:
Sales Manager: $105,260Human Resources Manager: $99,720
Postsecondary Education Administrator: $86,490
Dental Hygienist: $70,210
Auto Damage Appraiser: $59,850
Cost Estimator: $58,860
Boilermaker: $56,560
Librarian: $55,370
Dietician: $55,240
Building inspector: $53,450
Mail Carrier: $53,100
Mortician: $51,600
Electrical equipment installers: $51,220
Plumber: $49,140
Millwright/Industrial Machinery Mechanic: $45,840
Brickmason: $44,950
Sheet metal worker: $43,290
Chef/head cook: $42,480
Diesel mechanic: $42,320
Person trainer: $41,600
Construction equipment operator: $40,980
Machinist: $40,910
Correctional officer: $38,970
So, teachers make SLIGHTLY more than typical blue-collar workers do and significantly less than dental hygienists do.
To clarify: these are the NATIONAL medians for 2012.
So, teachers make about what mail carriers do.
I wonder how many other occupations spend as much of their personal money on suppies for their job? Other than desks and chairs, most everything in a classroom was paid for out of the teacher’s own pocket. When school supplies run out, teachers too often fill in the gap. If teachers were paid for the endless hours they give before and after their contarct hours and for the time spent at home doing endless tasks, then they would be making closer to an adequate salary. These days it seems teachers are expected to do everything while being credited for knowing nothing.
As well as having to have degrees from a university, and classed beyond to get salary increases. Many of the above jobs don’t require that at all. Teachers often spend their weekends and summers taking classes so they can get a salary increase.
Having to get more education to move lanes is not an inherent aspect of teaching, it is what has been negotiated.
spintop: in this instance, I will only speak from my own limited personal experience. I have worked a number of jobs (blue- and white-collar, different parts of the country) and in answer to your question:
“I wonder how many other occupations spend as much of their personal money on supp[l]ies for their job?” [brackets mine]—
None that I worked at. In addition, to broaden this a bit, talking with people of many other different sorts of jobs, I found nothing comparable.
Typically, teacher bashers small and large have thrown this at me—“They just get them big gubmint tax write-offs! And they lie too! Nobody would really spend much money of their own on OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN! I know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout ‘cause my sister’s cousin’s youngest niece I haven’t seen for twenty years taught for a month and the stories I heard. So don’t be tellin’ me no lies!”
Yawn.
A point I want to emphasize. The elementary school and high school teachers I worked with (in the dozens) spent all kinds of money on all kinds of things, including buying clothes for students, paying for school lunches, helping out with prom expenses, etc.
But I found out almost all of this only because some cafeteria worker might mention something to me, or a student would cue me in, or after working with a teacher for years we might have a conversation in which their financial contributions for the good of others were a casual part of the conversation. Again, simply from my personal experience, teachers did not feel that helping OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN was something you should brag about; you just did it, quietly and without fanfare.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
They had 760 openings at one point, I know about ten people who have left the profession or the district from my former campus. I’m one of them. The ones who will suffer the most under district policies will wind up being the students who don’t have the resources to seek other options or help create change within.
The charter movement reminds me of the mortgage backed securities movement, whether or not it should. For the first time. . .the promise of home ownership! For the first time. .. the promise of feeling like you go to a private school.
We all know how the first one turned out.
Great analogy, Joanna! I predict the same outcome. It’s largely the same players manipulating the game, after all.
The house next door to us just sold after sitting vacant for four years, having been abandoned by the previous owners simply because they knew Bank of America could not prove who held the note and therefore could not foreclose on them. It was a zombie for four years. Complete with bears and lots of vines growing into our yard, and a few trees.
I suppose in a decade we will sit and watch some of the same type casualties. . .abandoned strip mall “schools” etc. I think the key is, as parents, to steer clear (in areas where we didn’t need charters to begin with), and give all we can to our public schools to keep them up and looking good and sparkly and shiny and special for the children.
I remember, as a fourth grader, walking the halls of my elementary school on the last day, teary and nostalgic. I want that for my kiddos. That specialness of place, that comes from belonging and from seeing those you trust around you investing their time and energy into the same efforts you participate in daily. . .from the flowers planted outside to the breakfast and lunch shared in the cafeteria, to the art projects hanging on the bulletin boards in the hall—it shapes who we are and for many it is all they have, save the trailer they go home to at night, until April when the tax return comes and mama gets her own apartment for her and the children for a while, and then they’re back at Grandma’s trailer. . .but their school is still there for them. Or at least, it should be.
Which, that Houston is poaching, or that NC’s low salaries are evidence of free market failures?
Houston ISD has to recruit far and wide to fill the numerous vacancies. Despite decent wages, the atmosphere can be toxic in schools led by administrators who just turn on the pressure and fail to acknowledge the contributions of dedicated educators. Terry Grier, the superintendent, is from North Carolina and has tried to import educators from that state since he arrived in Houston. Applicants should be able to say yes to whatever is asked. That seems to be the key to success.
And here is why teachers will be leaving our state even faster that before. This is an outline of the new senate proposal for NC education.
https://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=621kev6m4h45m#7079425271
I live in NC and I’m embarrassed by McCrory’s shenanigans. Something’s wrong when we place our most precious natural resources in the hands of some of the nations most poorly paid teachers with politicians working hard to vilify them day in and day out.
Don’t fret, the Lt. Gov. has a plan.
http://www.wral.com/forest-proposes-endowment-fund-to-raise-teacher-salaries/13626480/