Santa Clara teacher Tracey Gunn says she would never leave teaching if she received better pay, and Gunn is the kind of teacher superintendent Perotti doesn't want to lose. She's fully credentialed, has a master's degree, and teaches middle school science, a subject where some of the biggest national shortages occur. But she feels the pull of salaries in private industry, where most of her friends are making two or three times what she's getting. I thought the first year that I was here very hard about leaving and going into technology. It's very seductive, a lot of money.
Stock options are huge.
That's a long-term investment that I don't necessarily have. The idea stock options is something that Governor Davis has been thinking about himself. He wants to get private companies to offer them to encourage teachers to stay. But it's not just private industry that school systems are competing with. There's tremendous competition amongst school districts for the first time that I've ever seen.