I watched this video and was saddened. Then, I looked up their salaries and completely understood. Educators in that state are grossly underpaid. Out of curiosity, I looked up their salary schedule for APs and Ps. APs in the district I looked up make less than a very first year teacher in my district. I understand why these people are leaving in droves. I hope they're content in their new careers. I can't imagine not being an educator, though. My heart breaks for them.
As a former educator, I found the video to be gut-wrenching to watch. I completely understand the teachers' decisions to leave the profession. I had no guilt feelings after abandoning a sinking ship comprised of 136 schools.
These are some of the lousiest salary schedules I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen plenty. And in my case, I made more when I started teaching 4 years ago in CA than teachers with 22+ years experience in OK... That’s inconceivable. How do teachers do it there?! I would have quit and moved out of state before the first semester if I discovered my salary was basically frozen for my ENTIRE career. Ridiculous.
This is so sad. I will make more as a first year teacher in my state than a teacher with 21 years of experience in OK.
Wow - just went and looked - after our two negotiations these last two years, after 4 years and yet to get my Masters, I'm significantly higher than the highest possible pay there. Wow...
How do they retain good teachers? I’m floored. I made more as a first year teacher than a teacher at the highest possible pay scale.
The salaries are pitiful, but I was also curious about cost of living... Houses are way cheaper. Here's a decent starter home for $62,000. A not so decent fixer upper could be had for around 40k or less. I'd be be taking a definite pay cut moving there, but my ability to pay bills might remain about the same. My salary is not great either though. I feel really bad for those teachers. It is awful to leave a career you care about not because you stop caring, but because you feel undervalued and can't make ends meet.
They don't. Those featured in the video are probably following many others who have already left in droves. Unfortunately, Oklahoma is not alone having been ranked 47th in Education Week's recent state comparison.
Pretty soon the kids are gonna be teaching themselves! I make more with a specialist with my years experience than someone with a doctorate in OK. When MS is paying more, you know your state doing is bad!!!!
Exactly why administration came into my mind my first year. If I'm staying in education, I'm certainly going to make it worth my time.
I’m in OK. As far as real estate/housing goes, it’s regional. In my area, it’s high. A tiny appt in a decent part of town runs about $900-$1000. Houses built in the 80s (in need of updating/repairs) in decent neighborhoods go for $140,000 - $150,000. A couple of towns over, it’s a different story.
Interesting. In my area of NJ, rents for a one bedroom/studio are double your rents and houses go for three times your home values for anything decent. Less than that is a fixer upper. My salary doesn’t go very far in that regards and I feel stuck renting (even though I make way more than the max salary on that OK scale). It’s very hard if not impossible to save without taking in another job or tutoring a ton. It’s absurd. I’ve been looking into other careers.
I'm worried too because the salaries in my state are good, but we have a very high cost of living. I am at least grateful that our pay raises every year are quite good compared to states like OK.
Just posted that info because it’s tiring having people think it’s okay that OK teachers are paid crap because our cost of living is so “low.” Like I said, it depends on the area. ETA: I’m NOT referring to anyone on this thread making that generalization. It’s just that I’ve heard it a ton since the walkout started in April, and now with the referendum petition. When I hear that phrase, I get a little worked up.
Even though this is about Oklahoma, it just reaffirmed my belief in moving from Michigan to a better state. Charter/private schools have ruined entire school districts. Michigan has the 5th highest charter school student enrollment in the country. Teacher pay has plummeted. For example, preschool teachers (fully qualified with degrees and various certifications) starting pay (and don't count of raises due to salary freezes) is now $9.40 per hour. That is only 0.15 cents more than the minimum wage.
Off-topic a bit, but these types of goals drives me nuts - where the eval is decided on how well you meet self-created goals: it promotes choosing an easier goal (not that everyone would) to ensure that the data will look good (again, not saying you, just in general)
Looks like the OK salaries may not be going up https://theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/16/oklahoma-teachers-strikes-salary-raise-taxes-petition
Which is sad because I love your country and your compatriots. We were really impressed with Oklahoma City when we visited last year. Weirdly we were told that the City population voluntarily paid a 1c in the $ tax to revitalise the industrial part of the city and when the improvements were finished voted to keep the tax in place.
Those OK teachers should just move to an adjacent state or to a blue state. They would get massive pay increases, which would more than justify the move. They need to realize that people in OK obviously don’t care about them or their plight and they are continually maltreated by the state officials, so why should they have any allegiance to OK?
Here’s how I look at it, when a teacher’s salary basically maxes out at $35,000 and if you move one or more states away and get, say, a $30,000 bump (on account of their years of teaching experience) in salary or greater, then the move paid for itself. Just rent until you can find a house if you’re single.
It's not as simple as "just move" for everyone. Perhaps they have family obligations that keep them in the area, or a spouse with a good job. I moved across the country from my family and have been fine, but I have several friends who I know could never handle doing what I did. Not to mention, if you are very experienced and have a Master's, you're going to have a really hard time getting hired elsewhere. In some places, it's hard with even just 5-10 years of experience. Teachers are paid very well relative to the COL in my home city, but there are also literally thousands of people applying for the same job and many places have unofficial policies about not hiring someone with more than 3 years of experience. Other places will only credit you for a few years if you move districts, so a very experienced teacher isn't going to want to start over at the bottom of the salary scale. Not to mention, moving states can really screw up your retirement. I'm not too far in CO- if a teacher with my experience level and a MA degree moved to my city, they'd likely get around a $15,000-20,000 raise, but the cost of a small house is 4x more here, so is the raise really worth it? Places they could get hired more easily are probably not that much better, and places that have good situations for teachers are really hard to get hired in. It sounds like a lot of people are leaving the state anyway. I wonder what the "breaking point" would have to be for the state to consider it a true problem. It sounds like they already have schools that aren't fully staffed. I would guess that many of those fighting against the tax increases don't have children/have grown children or aren't connected to the schools in any way, so they feel like it's not their problem. My guess is that they will try measures such as making it easier for unqualified people to teach before considering that they might have to raise salaries in order to get people to stay.
Your surmise is not too far off the mark, as described here. Failing districts will exploit any group of people just to stay afloat. I must say, many school administrators possess excellent survival skills - this includes traveling halfway around the world to recruit teachers. Now, if only they would apply the same determination to running their schools - wishful thinking.
I have heard of this and it scares me. I already have my masters and a job for next year but I might want to switch districts in the future. In my area, it seems like districts are looking for teachers with experience but you never know.
Wow, that is a tough salary to live on. I guess it would be ok to get a foot in the door and build a resume as a 22-24 year old who is living at home. Sadly, I doubt there will be many experienced teachers left in the state, and once again the children suffer.
I agree, but it can be a real pain to move and go through the new state's certification process. It can be time consuming and sometimes very different from your original state cert.
I agree with everything in waterfall's post. I'm in Missouri, a neighboring state. Even if they came to the "big" cities in our state - or at least the metropolitan areas, they wouldn't be getting a $30,000 raise. Even if they could get credit for all of their years experience, Missouri schools don't pay all that much better, particularly outside of the major metropolitan areas. As waterfall said, it's not common to get more than a few years of experience credited to you anyway when you change districts. The most I've ever heard of is 10 years. So, even if you've been teaching for 20 years, you'll only get salary credit for half that time. Moving to a new state just isn't going to solve all of their problems. And it's likely to cause them more.
It's not a problem if you change districts early in your career. But, after you've been teaching for a few, it's best to stay put - for salary schedule credit and retirement, especially. Don't worry too much right now. Just don't stay somewhere for a long time if you know that it's not your "forever" school.
I know of numerous districts in CA that honor up to 20. That’s sad they don’t honor more than 10, typically. That seems like an insult. Your experience would be honored in the private industry...
Possibly. But, even so, private schools around here don't pay much better than the public schools. Many pay significantly less. On top of that, you don't get the pension if you work for a private school. Our pension system is very stable and fully funded, so it's not something to give up unless you're getting something a lot better in return. Two years ago, I had a job offer from a public and a private school about 10-15 minutes apart from one another. Both offered me all of my years experience on the salary schedules - 7 years. The public school offered me a greater salary overall, better retirement, and better benefits. So, I went with the public school.
