By Anne Scheck
Will Rising Home Costs Derail Teacher Pay Gains?
An agreement between the Central Education Association (CEA) and the school district appears to bring to close a months-long battle over a new contract -- but state election campaigns have highlighted more reasons to worry about teachers.
Increases in salaries to cover cost-of-living adjustments and an expanded definition of sick leave are two major tenets the CEA secured in recent bargaining with District 13J, according to district teachers. However, some experts are warning – in the wake of the ballot debates -- that two forces in Oregon threaten the stability of the instructional pipeline, even in a town like Independence.
One is a robust economy, which offers the potential for new career paths. The other is the escalating price of real estate across many areas of Oregon, which is lowering the buying power of teachers, even in the semi-rural towns of the Willamette Valley.
For a look at how teachers may be impacted locally in the next few years, the November issue of The Independent queried educators, economists and real-estate experts, who predict that school faculties may be hard hit in the future, due to trends in the cost of housing and opportunities in the job market.
Increases in salaries to cover cost-of-living adjustments and an expanded definition of sick leave are two major tenets the CEA secured in recent bargaining with District 13J, according to district teachers. However, some experts are warning – in the wake of the ballot debates -- that two forces in Oregon threaten the stability of the instructional pipeline, even in a town like Independence.
One is a robust economy, which offers the potential for new career paths. The other is the escalating price of real estate across many areas of Oregon, which is lowering the buying power of teachers, even in the semi-rural towns of the Willamette Valley.
For a look at how teachers may be impacted locally in the next few years, the November issue of The Independent queried educators, economists and real-estate experts, who predict that school faculties may be hard hit in the future, due to trends in the cost of housing and opportunities in the job market.
Oregon 2018 Report Card
Oregon’s just-released 2018 Report Card shows Independence Elementary School (IES) has more low-scoring students, compared with others of the same grade in the district. Only about one in five test-takers in grade 3 at IES, for example, meets state standards in English and math. In 2019, a special issue of The Independent will take an in-depth look at the many factors that can affect K-5 test scores -- and several are unrelated to classroom academics.
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