Marieh,

You can just post the questions on here and I'll do my best to answer them. I'm sure other people will be interested too.

I have worked for QSI for 6 years now in Central Asia and China. If you have specific questions on those locations let me know and I can give you some specifics. On other locations, I may know someone there and have a pretty good idea of what it is like. Also, you can do a search for my name. I've provided a lot of info on QSI in this forum.

I'd recommend you include Harvard in the name of the school. That seems to attract the big Chinese money.

QSI gives a decision bonus either way. If you decide to leave by December 1st, you get ~ $1300. If you decide to stay and sign on for another year, you get a ~$2700 signing bonus.

Me too. Email: ruskaii@hotmail.com

Vanguard

@higgsboson:
I could be wrong here, but I think New York City is in New York state.

Do you think that is an average salary? If you do, you really need to do some research. I've heard of a few schools in NY offering huge salaries in an attempt to see if larger salaries improve the quality of teachers and student performance. So far, the numbers show that higher salaries do not improve student performance but have enriched some teachers.

The starting salary for a teacher in my home state is about $31k year. 8 years and a masters will get you around $39k. If my home state offered $120k, I may not be teaching abroad right now.

@panta: I’ll try to explain a little better what I meant. As a TCK (Third Culture Kid) or Global Nomad my son will be perfectly comfortable as a international citizen and function quite well in a global society. While he will get along well amongst other TCKs, he will never fully belong in his host culture and will most likely feel awkward in the US, his country of citizenship. For example, no matter how good his Chinese is he will never be accepted as Chinese because he is blonde haired and blue eyed. He may also struggle to fit in with his American peers because he can’t relate to their interests. Of course, he could feel perfectly comfortable in both although that isn't likely.

That is what I was referring to. This is really a pretty common phenomenon amongst expat children and one that I hope to be very aware of so that I can hope to maximize the benefits of my son’s upbringing abroad and minimize the problems. There are a lot of books out there that discuss it.

I think it boils down to a sense of what home is. I know where my base is and where my roots lie, but my son may miss out on this. I sometimes think that purchasing a home somewhere near family and going back to the same place each summer may give him a sense of his roots. I guess we’ll see. If someone asks me where I am from, it is a simple answer. However, if I ask one of my students where they are from, it is often a crazy round about story about what their nationality is, where they were born, where they have lived and where their parents are from and so on. I’d like my son to have simpler answer. Although, if someone asks him where he is from and he says “Earthâ€

I teach half day and do admin stuff the other half for a QSI school in China and make $51,000 including all bonuses and admin extras. I get $33,300 base salary (8 years w/ masters) + 4,700 overseas allowance + 2,500 signing bonus + 2,000 end of year bonus and then all of that is multiplied by 1.2 (20% admin bump) for doing admin duties such as college counseling, SAT stuff, AP stuff, general day-to-day operations stuff, etc… Without the admin factor, I would make $42,500. The workload is totally manageable and the kids are awesome. Cost of living is going up because the dollar is declining against the RMB and we are paid in dollars. My wife brings in just under $40k. So, our combined income is just under $90k. We travel a fair bit and stay in nice places and spend pretty freely on eating out and good food and are able to easily save $45k and sometimes more. You will have to plan on your own retirement though. So, out of that $45k, we put about 40% of it in retirement and college fund accounts. The rest we put in general savings and may someday use it to buy a house in the states.

I know we could make more money elsewhere, but I have no interest in leaving my job right now. It is ideal because I get to stay in the classroom and get valuable admin and college counseling experience.

We plan to stay abroad for life for a lot of reasons. However, I can completely understand people that don’t care for the lifestyle and would rather return to their home countries. The reasons we would like to stay abroad are:

1) It is just more fun living abroad. I was always so bored in the states. I feel like everyday just walking to the gym/market/friends house I see something interesting. In the states I just felt like I could survive quite well on autopilot. Like Danny said, I just feel more “aliveâ€

Walk away! You would be crazy to take an international teaching job that will cost you $7000 a year. If you are a certified and qualified school counselor and want to work abroad, just wait a year and apply for next school year. There were tons of counseling jobs available this year. I have no idea why anyone would even consider an international job that would cost money out of their savings. I wouldn’t even consider a job that wouldn’t allow me to save at least 50% of my salary each year while spending and traveling pretty freely. Although I do have some friends that are leaving China for Morocco to work way more hours at a crap school and make barely more than half of what they make here. Some people are nuts.

I can’t blame ISR either. Several parts of the story seem pretty hard to believe. The part about this guy having all of these connections just by not being an a-hole and all of these people putting their necks on the line to save him seems fishy. Maybe he married into some powerful family or something. I don’t know. How does someone that works in an international school have strong enough connections in immigration to thwart an NBI investigation and arrest. Also, the part about a school paying $25k to have all of this done just doesn’t ring true to me. That is one hell of an investment to get rid of this guy.

I’d love to see proof that it is all true, but until I do I’ll remain a bit skeptical.

I think that jackyboy13's final paragraph is pretty good advice. Although, I'd get the Master's as well.

I agree almost completely with what Sevarem and Overhere have said.

I spent 2 years in a Central Asian location and signed up for a 4th year in China next year. I am torn as to whether I will stick with QSI after next year or move on. I fear that another year here or a transfer within QSI will make me a lifer. The hard part is leaving QSI as it is difficult to transition into another school that will treat you as well. I think most QSI employees will agree that QSI goes out of its way to treat its employees well. Good pay, good medical, all transportation covered, insanely long but unpaid maternity is available (good for time with the new baby but bad if you want to make money too), housing has been amazing both places, etc...

The success or failure of mastery in the secondary depends entirely on your administration. If your admin is willing to let you bust the kids balls, you can jack up the rigor just like any other school. They have to be willing to enforce very strict and tedious procedures (formal requests, letters home, review panels, etc...) for retakes and then kids never want to go down that road. If they are softies, mastery in a secondary setting is horrible.

I have a friend that went to QSI Georgia. He came from a school in China and was appalled at the students in Georgia. He felt that the school was run by the local staff and the kids had never been held accountable. He is a really tough teacher and has been working hard to change the dynamic there. I am sure it is a work in progress.

Feel free to ask more specifics and several of us will try to fill you in.