Dive Brief:
- As the tech boom in Silicon Valley continues, high housing prices have driven many local school districts’ teachers out of the area.
- In Cupertino and Mountain View, two of the area’s cities, the median housing price tops a million dollars, while teachers’ salaries in the 31 districts in Silicon Valley range between $45,000 and $105,000, depending on education and experience.
- Education officials say that this forces many area teachers to live an hour or more away, which can increase burnout and turnover.
Dive Insight:
The dilemma faced by Silicon Valley teachers has a complex source. One factor is a state law passed in the '70s that limits property taxes, which in turn limits school spending and teacher pay raises. And the valley’s population is growing quickly, driving up competition for housing. But it also comes from the difference between how teachers are paid and how the parents of the students they teach are. Teachers’ salaries typically increase slowly, moving incrementally from one tier to the next. Meanwhile, the engineers and developers of Silicon Valley’s tech boom can see steep salary increases; the median income for the area has surpassed $90,000, near the top end of how much teachers are paid.
Some solutions have cropped up: developers in many Silicon Valley towns now must build affordable housing units, and some teacher-specific loan programs have cropped up. One town, Santa Clara, has started building rental units specifically for new teachers.