JULY 31, 2014, 10:11PM CST

We were thrilled to launch our weekly Twitter chat on Wed Jul 30 at 9pm CST!  The chat has received over 50 mentions and retweets w/ professors, counselors, staff, and other faculty from the Houston area!  The question at hand was, “What are you doing to prepare your students for college?”  As educators chimed in, we saw an overwhelming focus on the part of middle school administrators and staff who emphasized college visits as early as 6th grade!  Even one parent mentioned how she keeps driving by U of St Thomas (Houston, TX) campus on a weekly basis with her 5-year old daughter calling it her “future college!”  Inspiring, exciting, envisioning at best!  During the chat, FAFSA, U of St Thomas (Houston, TX), Babson College (Boston, MA), Westchester Academy (Houston, TX) were mentioned by participants, and we are hoping they will join us next week! Thanks to everybody who participated, and see you every Wed at 9pm CST on #CollegePrepChat!

What are you doing to prepare your #students for #college? #CollegePrepChat

— FIRAT Education (@FIRATeducation) July 31, 2014

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Yesterday (Sat Jan 4, 2014), I had the pleasure to be Kevin Quinn’s guest at ABC 13 Houston morning show. The topic was the low salaries of teachers across the U.S., but particularly those of in Texas. After the 3-min segment, I have received hundreds of tweets, emails, text messages, and even blog comments that I couldn’t answer all at once. Thus, I have decided to add my own post here.

First of all, if you have not had the chance to watch my segment, please watch here:

Average teacher salary in the U.S. is approximately $56,000/yr while teachers in Texas average about $48,000/yr. The highest teacher salaries in the U.S. are found in New York with appx $75,000/yr followed by Massachusetts with appx $73,000/yr. Obviously in Texas, we enjoy low(er) cost of living, no state and local income taxes than do our fellow teachers in NY, MA. However, even when we adjust the salary numbers to reflect the higher cost of living and state and local income taxes, our teachers in Texas are still paid less than their counterparts. Why?

1) We have high turnover of teachers in TX – much higher than other states. According to TEA (Texas Education Agency), Texas has lost over 36,000 teachers (which is about 11% of the teacher workforce), and was able to hire only 24,000 teachers (2011-12 period, the latest data we have from TEA). This means Texas was short appx 12,000 teachers and growing since 2011-12 period. Unfortunately, this causes larger class sizes, less attention per student, and thus low performance in testing and immense amount of stress on teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

2) High turnover means rehires; rehires means new recruitment and training, which ultimately all means money – the money that we could be paying our current teachers go to the recruitment and training of new teachers (50% of whom will quit within 2 years!) The cost to replace one teacher is $11,000. Doing the math overall, U.S spends $4.9 billion just on recruitment and training of new teachers. Imagine cutting this need only by one third, we would add appx 25-30% more on the current salaries of our teachers today!

3) New, novice teachers begin at the bottom of the salary grade, and thus pull down the average salary paid to Texas teachers. This is all due to reason #1 above.

Bottom line: Texas teachers on average do get paid less than their counterparts because we have more newer teachers in Texas whose salaries pull down the average. This also means other states have more experienced teachers on staff.

What should be done in Texas to remedy this problem?

1) Lawmakers and administrators need to work hand in hand (for a change!) and find ways (not just monetary!) to keep Texas teachers employed. A marketing rule I always love using is: “it is much cheaper to keep your current customers than going out and getting new ones.” Same philosophy applies here – if you just make current Texas teachers’ lives less stressful, more organized, and give them more achievable goals without ruining their personal lives (an average teacher works 12 hours a day), I guarantee the attrition rate of teachers in Texas will drop dramatically – making all the reasons I listed above void!

2) Some of the money we save from doing #1 above can be reallocated to increasing the salaries of teachers to match (and hopefully exceed) the national standards.

Why should we do this in Texas?

Because we entrust our children’s education with these individuals. They need the tools, the flexibility, the RESPECT, and the compensation needed to accomplish their mission – to build Texas’ and America’s future.

Is the problem only in Texas?

Unfortunately, no. This is a national problem. Let me remind you the national reading and math test scores of students in the U.S. compared to those of other countries in 2013. The U.S. ranked 49 – barely middle of the pack. Topping the list were countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Germany. Coincidentally, the countries in the top of this list pay their teachers about the same rate as their engineers, lawyers, and doctors get paid – they treat their teachers as nobles! These countries allocate between 8-10% of their GDP to education, more specifically their human capital (their teachers). The U.S.’ allocation of GDP to education: less than 2%, and most of those dollars go to equipment and real estate, not the human capital.

Bottom Line: The resolution to this problem is at the top – very top – with the President, the Senate, and the Congress. Chances of resolution: very low to none. God bless our teachers and kids!

On February 26, 2013, in an email to 6,000 member schools, The College Board – administrators of the SAT® – announced plans “to redesign the SAT so it better meets the needs of students, schools, and colleges at all levels.”

At this point, few specifics are known. Here’s what we do know:

* Given the proposed scope of change, this will not impact the class of 2013, 2014 or 2015, as the earliest that an overhauled SAT could launch would be Spring 2015, which would impact today’s freshmen. But there has not yet been a date released for the launch of the proposed new test.

*Something to note: the last time the SAT changed, in 2005, we saw the PSAT change first in October of 2004. As the PSAT is intended as the preliminary SAT for test takers, it will be worth watching to see if the PSAT changes first this time as well (in October 2014).

*The stated objective of the test change is to improve the SAT to “strongly focus on the core knowledge and skills that evidence shows are the most important to prepare students for the rigors of college and career.”*

*David Coleman, the new head of the College Board, has stated that he would like to add source material for students to analyze in the SAT writing section, but this has not yet been confirmed.

What does this change mean to you even if it may “seem” like you or your loved ones are “not impacted” based on the timeline and College Board’s statement above? Let me put it this way: EVERYBODY IS IMPACTED by this change no matter what unless you are already a senior who is done with testing and on your way to college applications.

One and only reason, which is kind of obvious, is that colleges know that this change is coming, which already trigerred (if it did not so before College Board made its decision to change the SAT) that SAT is indeed NOT the best measure to gauge students’ academic strength. How many successful leaders who finished great colleges do you know got to where they are with “unfathomable” vocabulary? (let me guess, at least 98% of you looked up the word, unfathomable, which is indeed a very commonly tested SAT word in the Reading section). ACT has gained significant grounds in the last decade because of this very reason. Therefore, I suggest do not bank on your 2250 SAT score, but take the ACT, as well, and submit both scores! This way, you will prove to colleges that it is not about how much you can memorize, but it is about how much fundamentals matter in core subjects.

This means, you cannot afford not to include the ACT in your testing plans until we know the change College Board is planning is indeed a good one…. Those of you who are currently in middle school, you will have both the new SAT and the ACT to choose from, but anyone who is older, you really only have one: Go with ACT, at least once.

 

 

On behalf of our team at FES, I would like to welcome you to the FES Blog!  This is the area to follow all editorials regarding local, state, national, and international K-12, College, and Post-Graduate education.  

I will be heading the Blogger Team at FES, and our consultants and coaches will contribute with their area(s) of expertise on a regular basis.  From time to time, we will also feature “guest bloggers,” who are carefully selected from the educational community.  

Please stay tuned for the most dynamic, beneficial, and relative educational blog in the world! – yes, I said, “in the world!” 

 

Cheers!

 

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