In my hometown of Jacksonville Florida we have an organization called The Jacksonville Public Education Fund and under the guise of helping public education often pushes school choice, sorry I meant to say privatization there. Well on it's Facebook page they wrote about a program in Newark that was geared towards teachers living together basically where they work.
JPEF asked:
"If more cities begin to emulate this innovative approach, urban America might find a solution to at least one part of the complicated problem of teacher retention. What do you think, would this initiative work in Jacksonville?"
Sigh
They call this innovative while I find the prospect of teacher ghettos horrifying. With what other profession requiring a four year degree are they saying, hey, I now you can't make it on your salary, so here is a studio apartment where you work, you are welcome. What's next a company store?
From Forbes:
“Teachers Village was an attempt to recruit and retain teachers by providing them a place to live near where they work,” says Linda Morgan, vice president of project partnerships at RBH Group, the firm that built it. Before it opened, only about 15% of the teachers working in Newark lived in the city, says Morgan. Many lived in the suburbs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilylanghorne/2018/06/08/teachers-village-one-citys-innovative-solution-to-the-problem-of-teacher-retention/#87feb1463b77
Now you can live where you work too!
Oy vey
And lest you think it's just Newark, there are plans for them in Miami and San Francisco too.
From the Washington Post;
JPEF asked:
"If more cities begin to emulate this innovative approach, urban America might find a solution to at least one part of the complicated problem of teacher retention. What do you think, would this initiative work in Jacksonville?"
Sigh
They call this innovative while I find the prospect of teacher ghettos horrifying. With what other profession requiring a four year degree are they saying, hey, I now you can't make it on your salary, so here is a studio apartment where you work, you are welcome. What's next a company store?
From Forbes:
“Teachers Village was an attempt to recruit and retain teachers by providing them a place to live near where they work,” says Linda Morgan, vice president of project partnerships at RBH Group, the firm that built it. Before it opened, only about 15% of the teachers working in Newark lived in the city, says Morgan. Many lived in the suburbs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilylanghorne/2018/06/08/teachers-village-one-citys-innovative-solution-to-the-problem-of-teacher-retention/#87feb1463b77
Now you can live where you work too!
Oy vey
And lest you think it's just Newark, there are plans for them in Miami and San Francisco too.
From the Washington Post;
Problem: Many teachers around the country earn so little they have to take second jobs, and some quit teaching to get higher-paying jobs to cover their family’s bills. That fuels teacher shortages in districts in every state, creating instability for students and headaches for administrators who struggle to keep their schools staffed.
So what’s the solution?
You might think the obvious answer is to raise educators’ salaries high enough so they can afford to stay in the profession. Teachers in the United States earn less than 60 percent of the salaries of similarly educated individuals, according to the 2017 Education at a Glance report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
But some cities and districts are planning to spend money in another way: for affordable housing.
San Francisco, for example, was rated worst among 50 cities in a 2017 analysis by Apartment List that measured the rent burden teachers face. So officials have committed millions of dollars in public money to build affordable housing for educators to help stem a severe teacher shortage.
Here is an article about another one in Indianapolis.
Why do I get the vibe these are mostly for Teach for America and charter school teachers as well? You know the darlings of the privatization movement.
Here is a crazy idea. Why don't we pay teachers enough so they can live where they want? You know, treat them like they are professionals.
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