Schools Still Searching

[Climberman]

I am looking at the remaining math jobs on the Search database and I can't believe people would work at most of these schools.

One school wants an IB math/physics teacher who can teach another subject - and they want to pay less than 38.00 USD TAXED!!

I see that with 109 of these positions still open it is obvious that there are far too many fifth rate schools in this business.

Shame on Magagna and Search for advertising them. I can't wait for the job fairs to finally die.

Yes, Psyguy, I know you say they won't. So there now is no need for you to reply, ok?

[heyteach]

The salary doesn't say it all, in my opinion. The cost of living might allow you to save a substantial amount. I was making a little more than that at my last job, with housing included, and saved about 50% over the two years I was there.

I don't see how vacancies equate with being fifth-rate, either. There is a shortage of qualified math teachers who can teach at that level. If anything, perhaps those schools are more selective than just wanting a warm body in front of the class.

[klooste]

Climberman wrote:
> I am looking at the remaining math jobs on the Search database and I can't
> believe people would work at most of these schools.
>
> One school wants an IB math/physics teacher who can teach another subject -
> and they want to pay less than 38.00 USD TAXED!!
>
> I see that with 109 of these positions still open it is obvious that there
> are far too many fifth rate schools in this business.
>
> Shame on Magagna and Search for advertising them. I can't wait for the job
> fairs to finally die.
>
> Yes, Psyguy, I know you say they won't. So there now is no need for you to
> reply, ok?



I agree with the previous post: the salary is probably lower due to paid accommodation, perhaps your medical insurance is amazing, or the standard of living is just low. My school only pays me 45 thousand Canadian, which is about 3200 Cad a month in China, and I'm able to bank at least 2000 every month, because the living standard is just low.

If the school is paying you in a foreign currency, it could be that the USD is sinking right now due to oil or what not. I know the Canadian dollar has taken a hit this year.

Lots to consider.

[nikkor]

klooste wrote:
> If the school is paying you in a foreign currency, it could be that the USD is sinking
> right now due to oil or what not. I know the Canadian dollar has taken a hit this
> year.
>
> Lots to consider.

Just the opposite. The USD is way way way up vs currencies like the Euro. If you are paid in USD, you've gotten a 30% raise over the past year!
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from= ... R&view=10Y

[Climberman]

Sorry, Guys, I'm just going by what the profile lists for savings potential AND from my own experiences traveling to a lot of these countries and from expat sites AND the pay site on ISR.

And China is off limits now due to pollution and human rights. If I want to work in a country that is trying to rule the world I'll just stay in the U.S.

Thanks for all the help, as always.

[nikkor]

Climberman,
I wonder if what you are noticing are schools that are run like businesses. The strategy in some places is the keep profit margins high, by keeping costs low. If your school is for-profit, and teacher salaries do not take about 1/2 of the annual budget, you can be pretty sure you've found one of those places.
Unfortunately, these places seem to exist in all parts of the world. Get teachers for 2 years, pay low, squeeze as many hours as possible out of them, and then let them move on.

[interteach]

As a rule, a good not for profit school should be spending 65-70% of its budget on salaries and benefits. If it's not then there's some explaining to do. The same goes even more with for profit schools. Sometimes you can download a school's annual report to see the information or ask about it at an interview.

[lookingforlefty]

I think that what we are witnessing is the death of the international education industry as a feasible alternative to domestic teaching jobs. When an experienced and licensed American high school math teacher (I assume that's what you are) cannot even make 40k/year abroad while the economy in the US is good, I think it's time to start thinking of other ways of making money.

I understand that there might be something wrong with the OP, or that meager salary is being offered in a cheap country, but so what? 40k is poor in the US or Canada, and even if it's not considered poor in some places it's mostly because those places have a very low standard of "poor." Teacher=poor, that's what admins everywhere expect us to accept with a smile!

[wrldtrvlr123]

Some pretty huge leaps to conclusions being made here. Yes, it's not a super impressive list of schools at the moment that the OP is referring to but that is mainly due to this being the leftovers portion of the hiring season. As to why they don't have a job already (even with the golden ticket of Math certification) I wouldn't hazard a guess.

As for the salary comparisons between countries, there is a lot to consider. In the states we were making around $35K+ each as teachers (yes, it was in the south) and saving nothing. In Egypt we were making around $20K each and saving one person's salary while doing some traveling and living a pretty nice life. So, you do have to look beyond the raw salary at times (although the Search savings potential should give you a decent idea of that will translate to).

In short, I don't think we all have to retrain or run home just yet.

[rudolph]

In terms of the original post, there are multiple reasons why both a school and a candidate might still be searching at this time of year, and it's no doubt a good idea to refrain from generalizations.
And so here I go on my own, vis a vis the recent postings....
While cost of living and savings potential obviously vary vastly according to indivituals, international school teaching does seem to pay far less than when I originally set out. Twenty-five years ago, I earned 1.5 times the amount (gross) I had been earning in the US, plus it was untaxed, plus housing on top of that. In short, not only was such a position exciting and professionally rewarding, but we were compensated for the perceived hardship of being far from home. It seemed to me that was the norm among international schools at the time - although I may have been generalizing....
In my current position, while the tax free status and housing still hold, the gross salary is slightly less than 2/3 of my most recent US gross salary (which wasn't even all the way over on the scale as they didn't count 2/3 of my experience when hiring me as a cost saving measure). And while tax free is swell, stateside one earns credit towards social security and likely a state pension plan as well, so one does give up that - which matters more, for some odd reason, now than it did 25 years ago. The excitement and professional rewards remain, but the question arises, how long can one afford them?
In short, in terms of financial remuneration, I believe that for the majority of international schools in existence today, the number of which has increased vastly in the past decades, the pay ratio as compared to much of the US (maybe not the south) has decreased by a significant amount. For those of us who have bills in the US to consider, this is a huge consideration. One may be able to live gloriously on the local economy with the pay, but if bills in the US that need paying - whether student loans, mortgages, or helping out parents/college aged children - can't be paid, then that position can't be considered.

[senator]

Rudolph is correct.

The world is so small that working overseas is no longer a big deal for a lot of us. And since there are so many kids out of college looking for teaching jobs, the field is slanted to the schools which now have a steady supply of cheap labor. This has continued to bring down salaries and benefits to the point we are at now.

And now more and more schools require earlier and earlier notice of leaving so teachers are often forced to take ANY job because they don't have the old job to go back to.

And if you stay in international education - unless you stay at one of the few good paying schools with retirement allowances - you may not have much savings. And if you do have savings, you had to forego a lot of the perks that come with international education: travel, great housing, extra cash.

And yes, I know, this isn't true for all, but, sadly, for most it is.

The pluses no longer outweigh the negatives.

[wrldtrvlr123]

senator wrote:
> Rudolph is correct.
>
> The world is so small that working overseas is no longer a big deal for a lot of
> us. And since there are so many kids out of college looking for teaching jobs, the
> field is slanted to the schools which now have a steady supply of cheap labor. This
> has continued to bring down salaries and benefits to the point we are at now.
>
> And now more and more schools require earlier and earlier notice of leaving so teachers
> are often forced to take ANY job because they don't have the old job to go back
> to.
>
> And if you stay in international education - unless you stay at one of the few good
> paying schools with retirement allowances - you may not have much savings. And if
> you do have savings, you had to forego a lot of the perks that come with international
> education: travel, great housing, extra cash.
>
> And yes, I know, this isn't true for all, but, sadly, for most it is.
>
> The pluses no longer outweigh the negatives.
----------------------------
Well, obviously that fits right in with your world view and experience but not with mine (and others I assume). Between my wife and I, we have never worked at top tier schools but have always either made more and/or saved more than we ever would have back in the states (and haven't missed out on any of the int'l teaching perks). Yes, we would have done even better at bigger/better schools but life has been/is very good even now. Either we have been extremely lucky at our average (or below) schools or the picture is not as bleak as you are always trying to convince everyone it is.

And if the world is so small and living overseas is no big deal than why have the overwhelming majority of Americans never even been outside of the US?

[senator]

Worldtraveler:

Read what I wrote, man. Don't add or imply anything and don't spin.

And I forgot: Cost of living is now as high or higher than in the U.S. or Canada in a lot of countries, so that argument doesn't work like it used to.

So the list of reasons to go overseas - as a teacher, the parents of the kids we teach still get the great perks and benefits we teachers used to get (READ THAT LINE REAL SLOWLY) - narrows even further.

Yeah, I did well overseas,too, but the gap just continued to drop.

Bit as I have said, the only reason schools can get away with it is because people will lower their standards and take jobs where they are not valued.

[shadowjack]

Hmmmm...our kids have been with us to over 25 countries, now their education is covered and almost done. We still continue to save and we have enough in retirement we will do ok. We live a good life, don't have a crazy work-life balance, and all is good.

Yes, there are some schools that pay crap. Yes,some of them are in crap locations. But, there are a lot of good schools in interesting out of the way places that many people don't look at, but which seem to always have their teachers (and good ones!) lined up without delay. But it is a struggle sometimes because people look at the location and to them it trumps everything else, which is sort of putting the cart before the horse (especially when they don't even look at what the host city/country has to offer - and with the US dollar going up, my salary increment + salary = a big raise)
As for Mrs Shadowjack and myself, we are off to visit country number 34 - or is it 35? - in another week or two, before finishing the year and spending our summer visiting with friends we made overseas in Europe.

Bottom line - there are still a lot of decent schools out there to make $$ at and live a decent life with better quality than back home. But...you have to find them, they usually don't come looking for you.

[wrldtrvlr123]

senator wrote:
> Worldtraveler:
>
> Read what I wrote, man. Don't add or imply anything and don't spin.
>
> And I forgot: Cost of living is now as high or higher than in the U.S. or
> Canada in a lot of countries, so that argument doesn't work like it used
> to.
>
> So the list of reasons to go overseas - as a teacher, the parents of the
> kids we teach still get the great perks and benefits we teachers used to
> get (READ THAT LINE REAL SLOWLY) - narrows even further.
>
> Yeah, I did well overseas,too, but the gap just continued to drop.
>
> Bit as I have said, the only reason schools can get away with it is because
> people will lower their standards and take jobs where they are not valued.
----------------------
I responded to exactly what you wrote and showed why it was inaccurate (or at least wildly over-generalized/way to the negative side). You can just keep repeating the same thing (slowly, and LOUDLY) but it won't change that.

I am certain you will continue to try and convince everyone how bad it is to be an int'l teacher and some of us will try and offset that with a more balanced view.

You are like the fox that lost its tail.