You would think teachers would want to work here, but we lost good teachers all the time. We lost the young teachers, the ones with potential who are amazingly smart and from good schools. The Santa Clara and San Francisco Unified School Districts are building teachers' apartments. Santa Clara apartments are geared for young teachers and will rent for 50 percent below market value. The San Francisco apartments are on school land and are meant to be subsidized housing.
Some teachers find that plan insulting.
Initiatives such as low-cost or subsidized housing do not occur in all locales, even though they might be appropriate. Nationally, beginning teachers earn just 72 percent of what average college grads earn in their first jobs, and the gap typically widens with each year of experience. In a full-employment economy in which quality workers are in great demand, it may take significantly more to attract people to teaching. It explores some of the creative ways school systems woo teachers to their schools. The article includes 1998-1999 average teacher salaries by state.