7 ms·

Cities look at subsidized housing to stem teacher shortages

12 points by blueatlas 11y ago

brudgers 11y ago
About $35 million of the $310 million to be raised has been earmarked for construction of up to 100 new apartments on surplus land owned by the San Francisco Unified School District. The units would be rented at below-market rates to the district's 3,500 teachers and 1,600 classroom aides, who also would be eligible for new rental housing allowances and home down payment loans aimed at reducing living costs for another 300 educators, Deputy Superintendent Nyong Leigh said. 5100 staff per 100 apartments. A 2% dent in the problem for $35 million. Even if the entire $310 million were put toward housing, it would still mitigate housing costs for less than 20% of the staff.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Sounds like the cost of business licenses in SF should go up...
randyrand 11y ago
Few thoughts: 1) expensive areas have a proportional amount more to spend on teachers. If they actually were short teachers and needed to pay teachers more, the easily could and would. 2) teachers are generally easy to find. Open teaching positions routinely have hundreds of applicants. It is a very desirable job despite the 'low' wages. Working with kids, month long holidays, and tenure appeal to a lot of people. 3) 45% of your income on housing is not that extreme. I pay 30% and I'm in LA on a CS wage I'm not convinced this is a problem, just your typical heart throb emotional piece.
- dangrover 11y ago
  Normally, expensive areas would have a proportional amount more to spend. But California's Proposition 13 locked the land values that property taxes are based on to 1978 levels. And in SF specifically, rent control laws lock tenants into the same rent price as when they started renting (for pre-1978 apartments, which is most of them). Therefore the seemingly "expensive" rent of rentable apartments in SF is not an indicator of the actual rent being paid by most renters, much less of the taxes the owners pay to fund things like schools. So even if open apartments are rented for $4k/month, the level of service residents are able to fund could be more like that of a poorer city where apartments rent for $1.5k/month.
- cafard 11y ago
  1) Maybe. I remember an associate professor years ago who applied for a job teaching English in Aspen, Colorado. It would have meant a considerably larger paycheck than he got at the university. It would also have definitely taken him out of the academic world he aspired to. However, the size of the school system must have been vastly smaller than San Francisco's. 2. Yes, but good teachers? My impression from childhood, matched by what I could see of my son's experience, was that one can expect to have a good teacher every other year in the primary grades, and that the mix of good and bad doesn't change that much in middle and secondary schools when one has different teachers for different subjects. 3) 45% seems pretty steep to me.
dikdik 11y ago
Instead of paying teachers a livable wage, we will meddle with the housing market and cause everyone else's rents to go up! HOOOORAY!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- mhuffman 11y ago
  Teacher's wages are only not "livable" in SF, because the housing market is dicked.
  - dikdik 11y ago
    Exactly. Increase taxes on homeownership to pay the teacher's salaries. If homeowners don't like this, they can cut out their NIMBY ideals and allow adequate construction of new housing.
sjg007 11y ago
Build apartments above the schools.
edward 11y ago
Teachers in San Francisco should demand to be paid more instead of receiving subsidized housing.
imh 11y ago
I can't understand why we don't just pay teachers more. Is it even controversial?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  > Is it even controversial? It absolutely is.
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  Paying for better performance only applies for CEOs and engineers. Teachers should live in squalor for the love of educating.
  - golergka 11y ago
    (1) Measuring teacher performance is hard (and because it's taxpayers miney, there's much less space for subjective opinions), (2) supply/demand ratio of teachers is quite different.
    - mikeyouse 11y ago
      Wouldn't paying them more across the board lead to more competition for positions which should lead to higher overall quality?
      - golergka 11y ago
        There's quite a lot of competition already. It's not a startup, you can't select this teacher over that one because of your gut feeling: it's public money, so you have to have clear and transparent selection process to ensure that you're not corrupt. Which means that this competition doesn't necessarily translate into higher quality of teachers, but instead into skills of navigating bureaucracy in western countries and navigating corrupt bureaucracy in others.
        imh 11y ago
        Just because it's already competitive doesn't mean the best people are competing. If you're really good at math, you can end up with a full 10x difference on disposable income being a teacher versus other available careers. There's no way we're getting the best people or anywhere close to it into education, competition or not. (Your point about the difficulty of measuring performance is a very good one though)

12 points by blueatlas 11y ago

About $35 million of the $310 million to be raised has been earmarked for construction of up to 100 new apartments on surplus land owned by the San Francisco Unified School District. The units would be rented at below-market rates to the district's 3,500 teachers and 1,600 classroom aides, who also would be eligible for new rental housing allowances and home down payment loans aimed at reducing living costs for another 300 educators, Deputy Superintendent Nyong Leigh said. 5100 staff per 100 apartments. A 2% dent in the problem for $35 million. Even if the entire $310 million were put toward housing, it would still mitigate housing costs for less than 20% of the staff.

tracker1 11y ago
Sounds like the cost of business licenses in SF should go up...

randyrand 11y ago

Few thoughts: 1) expensive areas have a proportional amount more to spend on teachers. If they actually were short teachers and needed to pay teachers more, the easily could and would. 2) teachers are generally easy to find. Open teaching positions routinely have hundreds of applicants. It is a very desirable job despite the 'low' wages. Working with kids, month long holidays, and tenure appeal to a lot of people. 3) 45% of your income on housing is not that extreme. I pay 30% and I'm in LA on a CS wage I'm not convinced this is a problem, just your typical heart throb emotional piece.

dangrover 11y ago
Normally, expensive areas would have a proportional amount more to spend. But California's Proposition 13 locked the land values that property taxes are based on to 1978 levels. And in SF specifically, rent control laws lock tenants into the same rent price as when they started renting (for pre-1978 apartments, which is most of them). Therefore the seemingly "expensive" rent of rentable apartments in SF is not an indicator of the actual rent being paid by most renters, much less of the taxes the owners pay to fund things like schools. So even if open apartments are rented for $4k/month, the level of service residents are able to fund could be more like that of a poorer city where apartments rent for $1.5k/month.
cafard 11y ago
1) Maybe. I remember an associate professor years ago who applied for a job teaching English in Aspen, Colorado. It would have meant a considerably larger paycheck than he got at the university. It would also have definitely taken him out of the academic world he aspired to. However, the size of the school system must have been vastly smaller than San Francisco's. 2. Yes, but good teachers? My impression from childhood, matched by what I could see of my son's experience, was that one can expect to have a good teacher every other year in the primary grades, and that the mix of good and bad doesn't change that much in middle and secondary schools when one has different teachers for different subjects. 3) 45% seems pretty steep to me.

dikdik 11y ago

Instead of paying teachers a livable wage, we will meddle with the housing market and cause everyone else's rents to go up! HOOOORAY!

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mhuffman 11y ago
Teacher's wages are only not "livable" in SF, because the housing market is dicked.
- dikdik 11y ago
  Exactly. Increase taxes on homeownership to pay the teacher's salaries. If homeowners don't like this, they can cut out their NIMBY ideals and allow adequate construction of new housing.

sjg007 11y ago

Build apartments above the schools.

edward 11y ago

Teachers in San Francisco should demand to be paid more instead of receiving subsidized housing.

imh 11y ago

I can't understand why we don't just pay teachers more. Is it even controversial?

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> Is it even controversial? It absolutely is.
mikeyouse 11y ago
Paying for better performance only applies for CEOs and engineers. Teachers should live in squalor for the love of educating.
- golergka 11y ago
  (1) Measuring teacher performance is hard (and because it's taxpayers miney, there's much less space for subjective opinions), (2) supply/demand ratio of teachers is quite different.
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    Wouldn't paying them more across the board lead to more competition for positions which should lead to higher overall quality?
    - golergka 11y ago
      There's quite a lot of competition already. It's not a startup, you can't select this teacher over that one because of your gut feeling: it's public money, so you have to have clear and transparent selection process to ensure that you're not corrupt. Which means that this competition doesn't necessarily translate into higher quality of teachers, but instead into skills of navigating bureaucracy in western countries and navigating corrupt bureaucracy in others.
      - imh 11y ago
        Just because it's already competitive doesn't mean the best people are competing. If you're really good at math, you can end up with a full 10x difference on disposable income being a teacher versus other available careers. There's no way we're getting the best people or anywhere close to it into education, competition or not. (Your point about the difficulty of measuring performance is a very good one though)