To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes • Hacker News Board

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#51

Post by apparent » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 3:46 AM UTC

bonsai_spool wrote: post #49

apparent wrote: post #44

Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately).

> Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately). This is an unhelpful, anti-union sentiment with no actual relevance to the problem of teacher recruiting. How would it be easier to recruit new, potentially-effective teachers if we had inc…

Why do you think it is not relevant to the problem of teacher recruiting? I would be more likely to go into teaching if I thought it could be a good place to work and I would be paid fairly. My impression, from seeing my kids go through public schools, is that the lockstep pay (which can be bumped by getting mostly-useless online degrees) creates bad incentives. There is no way to move up quickly by being an awesome teacher, and mediocre teachers are impossible to get rid of. This hurts morale and drains districts of resources that could be used to pay better-performing teachers.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#52

Post by treis » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 3:55 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #18

AvAn12 wrote: post #3

Could just, you know, pay more…

Teachers in major metro school systems already have quite a good deal. Rural schoolteachers really do have the deal everyone heard about in 1990s politics, but urban schoolteachers are generally economically privileged. (That doesn't mean they aren't impacted by housing scarcity in ways that disrupt the administration of school systems; they are. But the problem isn't compensation, the problem is corrupt regulation w…

The other half of this is that with declining enrollment city school districts are finding themselves with a lot of land. They don't feel any pressure to sell the land. Nor do they feel any pressure to use it for other government services.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#53

Post by tptacek » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 3:58 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #35

jt2190 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the average is around $96,000 https://www.cps.edu/media/community-updates/2025/january/neg...

What are you trying to say by posting this link?

(The commenter responded to me inline in their original post, I think; I now understand why they posted the link.)

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#54

Post by rexpop » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:00 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #40

Loughla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the purpose of what you're saying? Because people lived like serfs and slaves for a lot of history, we should be okay with that? I don't mean to be shitty, and I fully understand that contrary takes are what HN is great at, but I genuinely fail to see what the point of your comment is other than a knee jerk nothing?

The first comment suggests that it was always like this and life has got worse. The second says it has almost never been like this, it was a short-lived condition only. That is in no way a normative statement on how it should be.

The first comment does not suggest "it was always like this", only that it was known, commonly accepted, even declaratively established to be like this.

Truly, though, we did used to own many things in common that are now privately enclosed.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#55

Post by smallerize » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:09 AM UTC

bonsai_spool wrote: post #49

apparent wrote: post #44

Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately).

> Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately). This is an unhelpful, anti-union sentiment with no actual relevance to the problem of teacher recruiting. How would it be easier to recruit new, potentially-effective teachers if we had inc…

You don't have to be anti-union to be anti-teachers-union. I know a guy who worked in private schools for a couple decades, and then couldn't get work in public schools because the union would have required a very high pay rate for someone of his seniority. He said they could hire 3 younger people for the same money. I guess freezing out one old guy and hiring three new ones is an increase in recruiting though, right?

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#56

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:11 AM UTC

apparent wrote: post #51

bonsai_spool wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately). This is an unhelpful, anti-union sentiment with no actual relevance to the problem of teacher recruiting. How would it be easier to recruit new, potentially-effective teachers if we had inc…

Why do you think it is not relevant to the problem of teacher recruiting? I would be more likely to go into teaching if I thought it could be a good place to work and I would be paid fairly. My impression, from seeing my kids go through public schools, is that the lockstep pay (which can be bumped by getting mostly-useless online degrees) creates bad incentives. There is no way to move up quickly by being an awesome…

[deleted]

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#57

Post by smallerize » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:11 AM UTC

fearmerchant wrote: post #46

dpbriggs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not make housing cost less instead?

The only way that works is to build more housing. Austin has shown the way.

You could also cut back on the number of people who own multiple properties.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#58

Post by beepbooptheory » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:13 AM UTC

apparent wrote: post #51

bonsai_spool wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teacher recruiting wouldn't be so hard if pay weren't lockstep, as it is in so many places. Unions demand this, and it keeps some potentially-effective teachers out of the profession (and keeps old lousy ones in, unfortunately). This is an unhelpful, anti-union sentiment with no actual relevance to the problem of teacher recruiting. How would it be easier to recruit new, potentially-effective teachers if we had inc…

Why do you think it is not relevant to the problem of teacher recruiting? I would be more likely to go into teaching if I thought it could be a good place to work and I would be paid fairly. My impression, from seeing my kids go through public schools, is that the lockstep pay (which can be bumped by getting mostly-useless online degrees) creates bad incentives. There is no way to move up quickly by being an awesome…

I too would be more likely to be a public school teacher if it paid more.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#59

Post by linguae » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

AvAn12 wrote: post #3

Could just, you know, pay more…

In some areas like the San Francisco Bay Area, schools would have to pay astronomically more in order for teachers to compete against software engineers. I’m a community college professor in the Bay Area making a low six-figure salary, but even a townhouse in the neighborhood my college is in is easily $1 million for a two-bedroom, and rent for a two-bedroom apartment is easily $3500/mo. A modest salary boost can help me rent a two-bedroom apartment, but if I hope to buy closer to work, my salary would need to double, and there’s still the challenge of saving for the down payment, since there’s no such thing as RSUs in a not-for-profit institution.

At least teacher housing provides a way for teachers to obtain secure housing closer to work without having to directly compete against highly-paid corporate workers with RSUs.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#60

Post by AngryData » Mon, Aug 10, 2026, 4:58 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #39

AngryData wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that not how the 95% of the population of farmers lived before industrialization? The only difference is the job being their own farm or trade.

They didn’t own their own houses.

They owned their homes just as much as you own yours. Oh sure technically the state/king owned their home, but that is just pedantry when our government could also eminent domain our homes at any time and also demands taxes to maintain control. Subsidence farmers built and maintained their own homes and worked the same land usually for their entire lives. If strangers came onto their land and bothered them they could force them off, potentially even legally kill them, and if there is some more complicated dispute they could go to their government/lord and demand a legal ruling on their claim.

Peasant farmers didn't sign up for and get given random plots of land by their lord for temporary holding that gets taken back later. They lived and died in the homes they themselves built on land they managed and worked in basically perpetuity down their family line, provided their family survived or wasn't driven off by or killed by war.