Oklahoma's "teacher of the year" moved to Texas for financial stability

[groundloop]

Source: CBS News

The average teacher in Texas makes about $52,000 per year but just next door in Oklahoma, educators are paid about $45,000. That pay gap is forcing teachers in Oklahoma, ranked 49th among states for teacher pay, and elsewhere to relocate to other states, creating a teacher shortage.

According to a 2015 study, Oklahoma loses about 13 percent of their teachers a year to low pay with many of them turning to out-of-state jobs, reports CBS News' Omar Villafranca. Teachers there entered their ninth day of striking Thursday over low wages.

"Over the last six years our teacher shortage crisis has grown exponentially," said Shawn Hime, the executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. "Our problem for decades has been, we haven't been able to retain teachers because they could drive right across the border."

Math teacher Shawn Sheehan was Oklahoma's 2016 teacher of the year. Last year, Sheehan, his wife Kaysi, who teaches English, and their daughter Scarlett, relocated to Lewisville, Texas. He said that move immediately upped their combined salary by about $38,000.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oklahoma-teacher-of-the-year-moved-to-texas-for-financial-stability/

[elmac]

1. and he moves to another red state? nt

[comradebillyboy]

3. Texas treats their teachers fairly well and does fund

education adequately. They recognine a good educational system is important in attracting new businesses. The are certainly way better than any of their neighbors.

[irisblue]

6. More $ & driving distance to the biological family

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. The Koch Bros are working feverishly toward a nation where an elite group of

people work hard to cure disease and figure out good inventions and what not that will keep them alive longer while simultaneously making it so the other 98% of the population are dumb, uneducated, worker bees.

Problem is there wont be any simple jobs for all us bees to do, and they know that also. They know that the future is one or the other of "guaranteed incomes/universal healthcare/education" or where we have very very rich people and very very poor people and little else.

Guess which one they spend billions trying to attain!

[sandensea]

8. Ripping up the Social Contract has become a worldwide trend.

In numerous other countries, any political figures seen as resisting said trend (populists, progressives, etc) are being subjected to lawfare - persecution by way of trumped-up charges.

Frankly I'm surprised Cheeto hasn't already fired Sessions and installed a real goon like Pompeo as AG - someone who can be trusted to frame opponents on demand.

[bigbrother05]

4. Add in no state income tax and the pay gap is hard to resist

With some significant blue island, TX can be attractive

[hatrack]

5. Compared to Oklahoma, Tierra del Fuego and Northwest Territories can be attractive

.

[ret5hd]

7. What you save in income tax...

You make up in property tax.