In this post on The Atlantic, Jason Novak and Adam Bessie pose a question about “teachers who moonlight.” Their post is a graphic commentary on the difficulty that teachers have either renting or buying in the community where they teach, especially if they teach in an urban district like San Francisco, San Diego, or New York City.

Categories Teachers

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Lynn McLean says:

September 16, 2015 at 11:32 am

Over my career of many years in public education (not in California, but in a “nice” suburban community), I rarely have known a primary breadwinner teacher who did not work at least one additional job. Men, primarily, but not exclusively. They gave music lessons, coached, sold plumbing supplies, replaced roofs, built decks, taught summer school, painted lines on parking lots, sold Amway products, worked for driving schools, worked at the Apple store, worked at Home Depot….it been the norm for 30 plus years. Housing prices in SV are, of course, ridiculous, as I have discovered living in the area temporarily (3 br ranch/1500 sf = an easy 1.5 million).

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Marian Cruz says:

September 16, 2015 at 11:59 am

This is happening in many places. Scandalous!

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Susan says:

September 16, 2015 at 12:57 pm

This is true of the vast majority of workers in cities like NYC, San Francisco, etc. Social workers, cops, fire fighters, librarians, professors. Even lawyers, executive directors of non-profits, dentists and general practitioner MDs I know have left NYC after having a kid because all they could afford is a studio or 1 bedroom. It’s a huge problem for lots of people.

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- Tim says:
  
  September 16, 2015 at 1:08 pm
  
  Correction: They left after having a kid because they couldn’t afford to live in the catchment zone of a school that they deemed acceptable (ie, sufficiently small numbers of at-risk kids). The same is true for teachers and city servants–after a few years of service, all are making comfortably more than the median household income in NYC. There are plenty of affordable areas of the Bronx, upper Manhattan, central Brooklyn, southeastern Queens, and so on.
  
  That is a completely different issue than a genuine lack of affordable housing.
  
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  - katranrocks says:
    
    September 17, 2015 at 1:06 am
    
    Here in SF, we can’t afford to move even in the “bad” neighborhoods unless you’re living in a studio with the bathroom down the hall, living with multiple roommates, or in some other weird tenuous situation. If you’re in ok housing already, it’s fine, but new teachers in San Francisco cannot afford to live in the city limits. I’m a native San Franciscan teaching in SF and living with roommates on a radioactive island (mostly section 8 housing) and my neighborhood is getting redeveloped in a few years. I have two master’s degrees. The most depressing realization came when my parents told me I could not afford the rent on their in-law 2-bedroom apartment, which is being rented now to 2 couples. It’s not a question of being in a good school district, but of SF being able to house any teachers who aren’t either married to Google employees or independently wealthy.
    
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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 16, 2015 at 1:12 pm
  
  Susan,
  
  You don’t have to leave NYC to live in an affordable house or apartment. You just have to leave Manhattan. Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island have affordable neighborhoods.
  
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liberalteacher says:

September 16, 2015 at 1:47 pm

I was able to live in the neighborhood where my school was located. However, my wife and I had to live in a tiny two bedroom coop. Twos boys had to share an 8 by 10 foot bedroom. The value of this tiny space is $230,000 in addition to over $700 in maintenance costs. To live here I had to work 4 different per session jobs for the DOE, teach SAT for an agency, and privately tutor at least five kids a week. By the way, for at least 30 out of a 36 year career I worked 7 days a week often to 10 at night. In addition, since the summer of 1980, I have worked full time during July and August. Now tell me about all the free time we teachers have!!!

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West Coast Teacher says:

September 16, 2015 at 3:33 pm

Housing is affordable in Los Angeles IF you are willing to live in gang-controlled neighborhoods or to be the first gentrifier. This in fact seems to be happening. Several successful students have attended schools in gang-controlled, low-scoring schools. The teaching isn’t poor, only the students.

Professionals are nibbling at the edges of these areas and sending their kids to charters.

When magnets began, teachers sent their kids to these, now many send their kids to charters. These two systems mean you can live anywhere and need not send your kid to a public school with wanna be’s if your child is as highly suggestible as mine was.

I think disruptive behavior and the inability to control student behavior on campus because of various regulations, time, and fad strategies has led to the popularity of charters. It is not so much about choice. It is about the school’s being able to choose (like it or not) that attracts most parents.

When teachers at the school in which I taught talked about becoming an authorized charter, the main question was whether we could do our own discipline rather than the district’s.

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undercoverbat says:

September 16, 2015 at 6:11 pm

Blogged about this here: http://wp.me/p5y5uB-46

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Susan Nunes says:

September 17, 2015 at 11:10 am

You aren’t supposed to support yourself on a teacher’s salary. Since it is traditionally women’s work, the assumption is you are married and your husband picks up the slack.

It is a hundred times worse for classified classroom staff, who, because they are mainly female workers, cannot get UI during the summer months and winter and spring breaks while workers in male-dominated industries like logging, construction, and fishing CAN get UI when they are laid off temporarily. Many of them are on public assistance as a result of working in “pin money” jobs.

Sexism is rampant in the public sector.

Housing costs are also a result of greed and sexism. It is now expected that two income earners are in a household. This in effect shuts out any single person from EVER owning a stick house on a lot, a real house. If they ever can afford real estate, it would be manufactured housing or a condo, neither of which are particularly good investments.

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Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

September 17, 2015 at 11:24 am

Sexism. racism, classism—all fueled by greed and arrogance—are well and alive in this country.

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