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To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

nytimes.com

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Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#61

Post by bonsai_spool »

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…

> Why do you think it is not relevant to the problem of teacher recruiting?

First, the issue with teacher pay is that it is low. OP and you would instead say that the issue is that it's not low enough for some low performers, and that such a correction would lead new teachers to enter the market. Is there an economics study that shows a similar phenomenon occurring?

> 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.

I doubt this, because if you cared you would get enough of the mostly-useless degrees in order to get to a pay level that makes sense for you.

Anyway, there are private institutions you could go teach for; instead I hear you saying that you could do better than these unionized public school teachers if your assured brilliance were recognized monetarily.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#62

Post by Auracle »

crooked-v wrote: post #12
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #11

The core fabric of society - the deal that was offered by society to the people - to work in a job, own a house, raise a family, have a retirement - has decayed away entirely for many people.

The housing part never 'decayed', it was actively blocked by the people who already had homes. That's why you see things now like California actively overriding local zoning.

There are plenty of places without zoning issues that have that same housing problems.

More people. Same amount of land, and features people want to live by - cities (which in the past often meant rivers but always meant jobs)/in my area, lakes. It’s really that simple. Everything else is missing for forest for the trees.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#63

Post by Auracle »

analog31 wrote: post #47
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).

Maybe we could use college teaching as a model. College teachers are for the most part non-unionized. Disclosure: I was one of those teachers for a semester, many years ago. Also, teacher pay is not as rigid as it seems. In my state, the good teachers advance by moving to better paying districts. Very few teachers stay in rural districts for more than a year or two.

That’s funny, at least in my neck of the woods a lot of teachers prefer the rural jobs.

I’m not sure if the pay increase of moving the city balances out anyways with the increase in housing costs.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#64

Post by apparent »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #61
apparent wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why do you think it is not relevant to the problem of teacher recruiting? First, the issue with teacher pay is that it is low. OP and you would instead say that the issue is that it's not low enough for some low performers, and that such a correction would lead new teachers to enter the market. Is there an economics study that shows a similar phenomenon occurring? > I would be more likely to go into teaching if I t…

I would be more likely to teach in a private school than a public one, for sure. But I have a different job for now so am not pursuing it. That doesn't negate the point I made (and which a sibling commenter has said also applies to his/her case).

I'm not sure the point of your last comment. Of course everyone wants to be paid fairly for what they accomplish, which is not just based on intelligence, but also hard work. I have done a very good job educating my own children and have seen enough laziness in our public schools that I'm certain I would be more effective than a great many of the teachers.

But more importantly, if the incentives were aligned then even better teachers would enter, perhaps leaving me in the bottom part of the distribution. Nothing would make me happier than if schools were filled with teachers who were so effective!

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#65

Post by cucumber3732842 »

tptacek wrote: post #16
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, it was actively blocked by the people who already had homes. You're not wrong but this is too simplistic and avoids holding up a mirror that really ought to be held up. Zoning was the "we're gonna regulate our way into utopia" of their time. The class of useful idiots who made it happen and the class of useful idiots who will go to bat for it's continuance because they make a buck on it is far broader than that.

It's not simplistic. It is literally the core problem with housing. Zoning had a first objective of preventing Black families from moving into white neighborhoods, and then, in the 1980s, assumed a new role of driving scarcity (and thus the price of houses in areas of opportunity, to the benefit of existing homeowners).

You're missing the point. If the states come along and override it and say houses can go anywhere they'll find another thing to use. They'll block the ancillary services (food and basic commerce) or they'll block the jobs. If not via zoning the same useful idiots will find some other avenue by which to micro manage. Environment is a common one, but not the only one.

Once again, the race thing is a distraction because it lets the useful idiots who are peddling stuff that's just as short sighted claim that it'll work out simply because they're not peddling racist policies this time.

Nobody has the balls to put their foot down and say that your neighbors have the right to build stuff you don't like and you can move if you don't like it.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#66

Post by kasey_junk »

treis wrote: post #52
tptacek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Chicago at least land use and closing of schools is extremely contentious.

The areas losing the most students are also the areas that have historically been underserved or down right biased against by local governments.

So when it becomes time to consolidate schools it falls disproportionately on poor neighborhoods, which at the very least looks a lot like punishing the victims.

So there is a lot of community push back. So I wouldn’t say they don’t feel any pressure to deal with school land use, it’s a generally contentious problem with pressure on both sides.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#67

Post by spwa4 »

Auracle wrote: post #62
crooked-v wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing part never 'decayed', it was actively blocked by the people who already had homes. That's why you see things now like California actively overriding local zoning.

There are plenty of places without zoning issues that have that same housing problems. More people. Same amount of land, and features people want to live by - cities (which in the past often meant rivers but always meant jobs)/in my area, lakes. It’s really that simple. Everything else is missing for forest for the trees.

That's why you'll find in old economics textbooks that it's up to the government to fix these issues, by hiring and raising compensation for (all) their employees. This then forces other employers to raise compensation as well and so makes housing affordable again.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#68

Post by analog31 »

apparent wrote: post #50
analog31 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we could use college teaching as a model. College teachers are for the most part non-unionized. Disclosure: I was one of those teachers for a semester, many years ago. Also, teacher pay is not as rigid as it seems. In my state, the good teachers advance by moving to better paying districts. Very few teachers stay in rural districts for more than a year or two.

I thought the same thing regarding professors not being unionized. However, in top universities they are paid as much based on research (or outside offers based on research) as they are on teaching capability. One thing that is truly bonkers about K12 education is that they can get tenure in just a few years. This is much faster (and easier) than a professor getting tenure. But they both result in the near-inability…

The majority of teaching is done by "adjuncts" who are not professors, are ineligible for tenure, and don't do research. They have to re-apply for their job every semester. People rarely do it long-term, though it sometimes employs academic spouses and people who are using it for health benefits while pursuing a side business. It's certainly not a career.

My mom was a public high school teacher. When I described the conditions of working as an adjunct, her knee jerk reaction was: "That's why teachers have a union."

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#69

Post by jt2190 »

tptacek wrote: post #53
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Yeah sorry I was in a hurry. I’d originally vouched for your comment (it was dead/flagkilled), then threw up that link as a quick support for your numbers.

Re: To recruit teachers, school districts are building homes

#70

Post by Balgair »

My SO was a teacher before moving on and would see offers like this all the time.

A few of the rural school districts here offer this incentive to move out there. Sometimes they include a car too. Note they tdo not do repairs though.

The issue with taking one of these rural offers is that it's a dead end. Your schoolhouse of many grands gets smaller and smaller over time until they don't need you anymore. And then what? Your career as a teacher is essentially useless for any larger district as they do not care at all about teaching multiple grades at once and barely (or not) making state standards. And then you don't even have a house left over to sell (likely for a loss), it's the district's.

I know it's the reverse of the article, but the incentives are the same and they don't make sense for any of the parties.

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