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The rules of supply and demand apply in any type of market,
including a public-employment job market, regardless of whether you
like it or not.

See, there is a supply of teachers able and willing to teach a
certain subject. There is a demand for their labor created by
employers and the number of positions they need to fill. If supply
is higher than demand, then teachers will be without jobs. If the
demand is higher than supply, then there will be a shortage of
qualified teachers.

The supply and demand curves are different for an elementary teacher
as compared to a special ed teacher. They are different job
markets. That is why it's infuriating when someone posts a one
sentence question on here like: "will I get a job teaching?" What
kind of teacher are you? Odds are, if you speak Spanish and teach
Math you'll get a job. If you're an English-only gym teacher... not
so much.

By fixing the price for their labor, the market is artificially
manipulated, but the market absolutely exists. Remember, someone
has to be willing to enter the labor market and the way to make them
enter the market with higher need is to PAY them to enter it. In
most geographic areas, there are more than enough elementary
teachers, so the going salary works for that field. There are not
enough bilingual, sped, and STEM. You attract people to that field
(maybe an elementary teacher will retrain or someone will move from
the private sector from a STEM field) by paying the market rate.

There aren't enough STEM teachers because they insist on paying them
what a Kindergarten teacher makes. You can't attract people to the
STEM teaching field because of salary competition from the private
sector. Yes, teaching has other things going for it like summers
off and typically better hours, but it apparently isn't working in
certain sub-fields. A school can't attract someone in a shortage
area with higher pay because they would have to drag along all the
non-shortage areas with an expensive raise. That makes no sense
economically.

On 5/14/15, anon wrote:
>
> Rules about supply and demand do NOT apply in public employment
> because they are non-profits.
>
> It would be highly unfair to pay somebody more money because
> they are math or science teachers than kindergarten, which is a
> LOT harder work and which helps lay the groundwork for future
> academic success.
>
> The ONLY fair compensation in the public sector is in the step
> system.
>
> Your post is idiotic on its face.
>
> On 5/13/15, 27K No Way! wrote:
>> There is a shortage of teachers in some fields that are
>> willing to work for low teacher pay, like Spanish speaking
>> ELL, STEM, sped... the list is pretty well known and it is
>> similar around the country. These "shortages" would be
>> cleared up if they raised the pay for these fields.
>>
>> Texas doesn't have collective bargaining for teachers, but it
>> still makes the same mistake collective bargaining states
>> make in simply having one salary for all teachers. Yes, some
>> of it is based upon performance, but there is no recognition
>> of the fact that there are sub-sets of teachers that have a
>> very different labor market. There is simply a lack of
>> intelligence when it comes to understanding supply and
>> demand. A Spanish-speaking, HS Math teacher has a lot of
>> other career options than a regular old elementary teacher.
>> Not to say the elem teacher doesn't work hard, but hard work
>> is not (typically) what results in higher pay in a free
>> market...
>>
>> If the supply of teachers outstrips demand for their labor,
>> then you must increase the supply by attracting more people
>> into the field on a macro-level. That Spanish-speaking Math
>> teacher, who has other options in, say: IT or engineering,
>> might then be attracted to the field. The general ed
>> elementary teacher... probably doesn't have that skill set
>> and therefore their labor is not as scarce.
>>
>> On a micro-level, an individual district should increase it's
>> pay for the type of teacher that is in short supply to
>> attract what supply of labor does exist. A district
>> superintendent at one ISD probably can't affect change that
>> will bring more Math or Sped teachers into the overall labor
>> pool, but they can pay more to attract the scarce labor to
>> their classrooms. The problem is that they don't think about
>> teachers in sub-sets. They think think they need to pay a
>> "shortage" area teacher the same as a non-shortage area
>> teacher, which makes pay increases insufficient to attract
>> people in the shortage fields. You don't need to pay a gym
>> teacher more..., there are already a hundred applicants for
>> every position, but you might need to pay a STEM or sped
>> teacher more because those classrooms could go unfilled.
>>
>> Regardless: I wouldn't teach any subject for 27K per year.
>>
>> On 5/01/15, PsyGuy wrote:
>>> The presentation that there is a shortage of teachers is a
>>> myth, there are a lot of teachers that will accept any job
>>> that pays more than substituting (which at $80 a day for
>>> 150 days is $12,000).
>>>
>>> On 4/24/15, 27k BS wrote:
>>>> 27K is garbage pay and you'll attract garbage teachers at
>>>> that salary... if that. You could make more in a call
>>>> center or cubical farm without the BS involved with
>>>> teaching.
>>>>
>>>> On 4/21/15, PsyGuy wrote:
>>>>> Well yes and no. It is likely that your district/school
>>>>> is adapting the state minimum salary schedule which is
>>>>> $27,540 for step 0, however the salary schedule does
>>>>> increase on average about $500 per year of experience.
>>>>> You can find the state minimum salary schedule here:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> tea.texas.gov/Texas_Educators/Salary_and_Service_Record/M
>>>>> inimum
>>>>> _Salary_Schedule/2014-2015_Minimum_Salary_Schedule/
>>>>>
>>>>> Anything more than that is whats referred to as "local
>>>>> supplemental" salary, which your district can change or
>>>>> eliminate entirely.
>>>>>
>>>>> As to why, there could be a number of reasons. First, is
>>>>> to incentivise teachers to retire or resign, without
>>>>> going through long and expensive grievance procedures.
>>>>> Second, is if your district is implementing a "pay for
>>>>> performance" or "bonus" salary program. You get the
>>> state
>>>>> minimum and depending on your student pass
>>> (satisfactory)
>>>>> and commended (advanced) numbers you get bonus pay,
>>> which
>>>>> may or may not exceed your conventional salary. Third,
>>>>> your district may be experiencing a financial or
>>>>> budgetary crises, perhaps they are anticipating a loss
>>> of
>>>>> federal funding, etc. There could be a number of other
>>>>> reasons.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 4/18/15, Aeiou wrote:
>>>>>> Can someone explain this? Does this apply to all
>>> current
>>>>>> employed teachers? What are they doing to do? Drop my
>>>>>> pay to 27,000 after I made 40,000 a year? That is BS if
>>>>>> so.....

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