3 ms·

I was a teacher in the Midwest before moving into programming. My salary was $28k. I worked in a larger city for a couple years and was making $35k for a while

by moeris 5y ago

I was a teacher in the Midwest before moving into programming. My salary was $28k. I worked in a larger city for a couple years and was making $35k for a while. In order to afford student loan payments and rent, I worked three jobs. Still missed meals and was late in payments regularly. The cities your mentioning are very high COL areas, and relatively affluent. Competition for those teaching positions is going to be very intense, and mostly go to senior teachers with at least 5-10 years experience. It's not representative of the nation.

dnissley 5y ago
Having lived in Indiana for most of my life, and knowing folks who are teachers there still, I can vouch for the first statement. Not so much the second though -- yes, these high salaries are in HCOL areas, but I'm not aware of crazy amount of competition to be a teacher even with those salaries. I'm now in Chicago, where teachers fresh out of college fetch about $60k in my district, and there's always plenty of openings.
- moeris 5y ago
  It's definitely different depending on the state. In part because some states issue more teaching certificates per year. Michigan is one of those. At the time I was teaching, in around 2017, I had a friend get a job in Novi (Metro Detroit). The competition was pretty intense. See for example, [this posting](https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/novi-community-schools-received-952-applicants-for-one-teaching-job https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/novi-community-s...) which had over 900 applicants. It took me over a year after graduation to get a job, and I had applied to over 130 postings. I ended up finally getting a job in an inner city school. The situation could very well have been very different in Chicago, though, depending on a lot of factors.

3 ms·

I was a teacher in the Midwest before moving into programming. My salary was $28k. I worked in a larger city for a couple years and was making $35k for a while

by moeris 5y ago

dnissley 5y ago
Having lived in Indiana for most of my life, and knowing folks who are teachers there still, I can vouch for the first statement. Not so much the second though -- yes, these high salaries are in HCOL areas, but I'm not aware of crazy amount of competition to be a teacher even with those salaries. I'm now in Chicago, where teachers fresh out of college fetch about $60k in my district, and there's always plenty of openings.
- moeris 5y ago
  It's definitely different depending on the state. In part because some states issue more teaching certificates per year. Michigan is one of those. At the time I was teaching, in around 2017, I had a friend get a job in Novi (Metro Detroit). The competition was pretty intense. See for example, [this posting](https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/novi-community-schools-received-952-applicants-for-one-teaching-job https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/novi-community-s...) which had over 900 applicants. It took me over a year after graduation to get a job, and I had applied to over 130 postings. I ended up finally getting a job in an inner city school. The situation could very well have been very different in Chicago, though, depending on a lot of factors.